George Benson is known today as one of music's superstars. A great instrumentalist/singer/entertainer who began his career as a pure Jazz player but successfully, after adding vocals to his repertoire, crossed over into funk and pop music. He had many major hits and won Grammy Awards and achieved not only fame but fortune. For all that let it be said that when motivated and under the right circumstances Benson, as a guitarist is still one of the very best in the world. He took his fair share of knocks for entering into more lucrative and commercial fields but when the chips are down Benson can PLAY!George is a natural talent born with a great ear. He never learned to read music but can "hear" a tune once and play it and improvise on it. Today (March 22) is his 67th Birthday. He was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. the same city that gave birth to two other great "natural" talents, drummer Art Blakey and pianist Erroll Garner. Benson had begun his career in earnest with organist Jack McDuff and when he left McDuff in 1966, Benson formed his own band made up of himself on guitar, baritone saxophonist Ronnie Cuber, organist Lonnie Smith (now Dr. Lonnie Smith) and various drummers like Jimmy Lovelace, Marion Booker and Billy Kaye. He did two fine albums with this band for Columbia Records and tonight we feature his second called "The George Benson Cookbook". As an added bonus, two tracks on this album have the great trombonist Bennie Green as guest artist. It's a fun and entertaining Jazz record and shows that even in 1966 George Benson was #1. Happy Birthday Mr. Benson......Boss Guitarist.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related