jazz musician; guitarist; singer
Personal Information
Born March 22, 1943, in Pittsburgh, PA; wife's name Johnnie; seven children, three deceased.
Career
Guitarist, vocalist, and composer. Played electric guitar in quartet of jazz musician Jack McDuff, 1962-65; worked as sideman and led own quartets as guitarist and vocalist, 1965-; signed recording contract with Columbia label, 1965; worked with producer Creed Taylor, first at A&M Records, then at CTI, 1968-74; signed with Warner Brothers label, 1976; released Breezin', one of the top-selling jazz albums of all time, 1976; moved to GRP label, 1995; released Standing Together, 1998.
Life's Work
George Benson is one of the few musicians who has successfully crossed the divide between jazz and black popular music, neither ignoring the commercial possibilities in jazz nor abandoning his artistry when he achieved commercial success in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His hit recordings featured his light yet expressive singing voice, and to the general public he is known as well for his vocal work as for his guitar skills. But Benson came out of the jazz world, where he had a loyal cadre of fans, and returned to jazz when his connections with that world threatened to become stretched too thin. He is one of the figures most responsible for the presence of sophisticated jazz musicianship in the world of black popular music generally.
Born on March 22, 1943 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Benson showed prodigious talent from an early age, winning a singing contest when he was only four years old and enjoying a short career as a child radio performer under the name of "Little Georgie Benson." He started playing the guitar when he was eight, but it was as a vocalist that he spent much of his vast musical energy as a teenager, organizing and performing with a succession of rhythm-and-blues and rock bands around Pittsburgh. He made recordings for RCA Victor's X Records subsidiary in the middle 1950s. But Benson's stepfather encouraged his instrumental efforts by constructing a guitar for him, and in his late teens he began to concentrate exclusively on guitar. Seeking out the music of modern jazz's golden age, he became more and more interested in jazz, and was particularly inspired by recordings of saxophonist Charlie Parker and guitarists Charlie Christian and Grant Green.
Discovered by John Hammond
In 1961 Benson jumped to the national stage when he joined the group backing jazz organist Jack McDuff. He played and recorded with McDuff for four years. Then he struck out on his own: he moved to New York City, then the capital of the jazz universe, and formed his own band. There Benson made two acquaintances who proved crucial in setting him on the path to jazz stardom: guitarist Wes Montgomery, whose soft tone and graceful octave playing provided Benson with his most important stylistic inspiration, and Columbia Records producer and executive John Hammond, whose unerring eye for talent brought such seminal musicians as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to the label. Impressed by Benson's growing list of sideman credits, which included work with such luminaries as Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard and later Miles Davis, Hammond signed Benson to Columbia in 1965.
Benson's first two Columbia albums were It's Uptown and Benson Burner. His 1960s LPs, two of which were produced by Hammond himself, were in the main bop-influenced vein of the jazz of the time, and they garnered the guitarist, who was still in his early twenties, plenty of positive attention in the jazz community. Searching for wider public recognition, Benson switched labels several times, landing first with Verve (1967), and then with A&M (1968) and CTI (1970-71). He came under the influence of jazz producer Creed Taylor, who had also worked with Montgomery, and who encouraged Benson's natural versatility, backing him with various ensembles and cutting vocal tracks with him that reawakened Benson's interest in singing.
Success with Pop Vocal Track
It was another label move that paved the way for Benson's breakthrough to mass success. Signing with Warner Brothers in late 1975, he released the album Breezin'; the following year. While much of the album reprised the light guitar-and-strings sound that was common in Benson's CTI work, he took two great and accessible steps forward. First, Benson included on the album a frankly pop-oriented vocal, the Leon Russell composition "This Masquerade." The song reached the Number One position on jazz and R&B charts and drove the album to the same position on the pop charts. Benson's second innovation on Breezin'; was the introduction of what would become his trademark: scat singing along with his guitar, doubling it at the interval of an octave.
The combination was irresistible, and by some accounts Breezin', which won three Grammy awards, became the best selling jazz album of all time. Benson's pop vocals were self-assured and pleasant; he was in front of the curve which would lead to the highly successful, jazz-inflected "Quiet Storm" formats in black radio of the 1980s. The scat singing seemed to connote a satisfying kind of oneness between Benson and his guitar. "When I pick up the guitar, it's an extension of what I am," Benson told Guitar Player magazine. A series of commercially successful albums followed, most of which emphasized Benson's singing. All six of Benson's Warner Brothers albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s were certified gold (sales of 500,000 copies), and four of them went platinum (sales of 1,000,000 copies). Benson credited his success in part to his conversion to the faith of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Like other jazz players who have followed commercially oriented paths, Benson has taken criticism from jazz purists who felt that he had abandoned his early artistry. Writing about 1978's In Your Eyes, for example, Richard S. Ginell observed in the All-Music Guide to Jazz that "[f]or jazz fans, Benson's albums at this point become a search for buried treasure, for his guitar time is extremely limited." Benson apparently took the criticism to heart, for in 1989 he made a full-blast return to jazz, recording Tenderly, an album of standards, with the legendary jazz pianist McCoy Tyner, and touring with Tyner's trio that year. In 1990 he recorded the album Big Boss Band with Count Basie's orchestra.
Moved Between Jazz and Pop
The music he made when he returned to jazz showcased part of what was best about Benson's music: his versatility. He was equally at home with small ensembles, with a big band, with a string section, with hard bop, with Latin-inflected selections, with popular stylings. Through the 1990s Benson, his popularity assured, appeared in a wide variety of concert situations, and continued to manage well the balance he had achieved between the worlds of jazz and pop. He moved to the jazz-oriented GRP label in 1996, releasing the album That's Right, a quiet-storm-styled work, and following it up 1998's Standing Together in the same smooth-jazz vein.
For all his success, Benson's life has been shadowed by personal tragedy. He has lost three of his seven sons, one to kidney failure, one to crib death, and one to gunshot injuries stemming from a bar fight. His losses led to an unusual commission in 1998: he was asked by father Mohammed Al Fayed to write s song in commemoration of Dodi Al Fayed, who died along with his friend Princess Diana of England in a 1997 automobile crash in Paris. "During the writing, I asked my wife to come listen to what I had written," Benson was quoted as saying in Jet. "But when I got to certain parts, it became too difficult. My lips were trembling. I was thinking about my own losses and couldn't get past it. It stopped me cold."
Awards
Many Grammy awards, including Record of the Year 1977; Best Instrumental Performance, 1977; Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, 1980; Best Jazz Vocal Performance, 1980; and Best Pop Instrumental, 1983. Platinum and gold record certifications for numerous albums.
Works
Selected discography
- George Benson/Jack McDuff, Prestige, 1965.
- It's Uptown, Columbia, 1965.
- Benson Burner, Columbia, 1966.
- The George Benson Cookbook, Columbia, 1966.
- Giblet Gravy, Verve, 1967.
- The Shape of Things to Come, A&M, 1968.
- The Other Side of Abbey Road, A&M, 1969.
- Beyond the Blue Horizon, CTI, 1971.
- White Rabbit, CTI, 1972.
- Bad Benson, CTI, 1974.
- Breezin', Warner Bros., 1976.
- In Flight, Warner Bros., 1977.
- Weekend in L.A., Warner Bros., 1978.
- Livin' Inside Your Love, Warner Bros., 1979.
- Give Me the Night, Warner Bros., 1980.
- In Your Eyes, Warner Bros., 1983.
- 20-20, Warner Bros., 1984.
- Twice the Love, Warner Bros., 1988.
- Tenderly, Warner Bros., 1989.
- Big Boss Band (with the Count Basie Orchestra), Warner Bros., 1990.
- Love Remembers, Warner Bros., 1993.
- That's Right, GRP, 1996.
- Standing Together, GRP, 1998.
Further Reading
Books
- Contemporary Musicians, volume 9, Gale, 1993.
- Erlewine, Michael, et. al, The All Music Guide to Jazz, Miller Freeman, 1998.
- Kernfeld, Barry, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, St. Martin's, 1995.
- Romanowski, Patricia, and Holly George-Warren, The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Fireside, 1995.
- Down Beat, October 1991.
- Guitar Player, June 1999, p. 135.
- Jet, September 7, 1998, p. 55.
— James M. Manheim
