George Benson: C/D; S/D

Then he became a vocalist, and got a nose job.

I like the way he included the "Bad" in his name once he switched over to more conventional soul music. Nice touch to get the loverman credentials in there.

Definitely an overlooked musician of the 20th century.

Is Benson the last major pre-Hendrix jazz guitarist?

I always thought Breezin' was the quintessential rollerskating song. The song evokes images of rollerskating people with feathered hair and tacky summer wear.

That's not to knock the song one bit. Benson throws down. Awesome phrasing.

http://www.petehandelman.com/images/canon/ven2.jpg

just took out two newly-reissued CTI era Benson records from the library -- "Beyond the Blue Horizon" and "Good King Bad." Nice stuff! "Blue Horizon" has Jack Dejohnette and Ron Carter as the rhythm section, so that's always a plus. "Good King Bad," which immediately precedes his "Breezin'" breakthrough, is a lot lusher/disco/poppy kind of stuff with arrangements by Dave Matthews (no, not that Dave Matthews). All instrumental except the closing "Hold On I'm Coming" cover, which is surprisingly great.

I grew up with "Breezin'" spinning on the turntable.
-- Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto)

Still dizzy after all those years, Alfred?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9eI_h1fY7Kk

Quite! Especially when I hear "Give Me The Night."

I love this song :>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2oVohmaS3Q

Search: “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You”

Must be the James Brown Dave Matthews.

bingo!

Greatest Hits was being played in my work this morning, man, was that guy smooth. I do hate that thing where guitarists sing along with their guitar solos though.

Dude, the video is great. It's twilight in LA, and he's boppin' around with that fat-ass hollow body around his neck, doing twirls on the skates. Those clips are interspersed with some rehersal footage, and also some scenes of him taking a fine young lady on a suave, classy dinner date. It's all capped off wonderfully with a shot of George and his date in the midst of a midnight cruise down Sunset, and you can see the billboard for his new album off in the distance. Classic.
― Keith C (kcraw916), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 23:14 (10 years ago) Permalink

:)

A good friend of mine pointed out to me just how much Benson had accomplished when he was just a kid, this total guitar wunderkind. When you're cutting your teeth on Jack McDuff, playing with Miles, establishing yourself as a formidable player and leader before you're even 22, it's no wonder he eventually decided to go pop. Nothing left to prove!

A number of years ago -- I wanna say early 80s -- some friends-of-a-friend lived next door to Alan Alda. They were having a graduation party in their back yard and playing tunes on a boombox. A George Benson song came on, and when Alan heard it, he showed up to the party with his visiting pal George Benson. They hung out at the party for the rest of the day/night, playing basketball with the kids.

o_O

Anyone know if he has more work that is similar "You can do it (baby)" with Nuyorican Soul? More energetic jamming/groove stuff? Live albums maybe? Find a lot of his stuff too slow & bluesy for my liking.

i'd probably check out his late '70s studio or live albums, i think those are probably mostly in that vein and feature far less of the slow bluesy mood music. as he gets into the '80s he gets into slow jam + vocals territory and i like a lot of it but ymmv.

Give Me The Night or Weekend In L.A. are a pair of solid bets imo

I would have loved more material by the band that's on the '71 CTI concert with Ron Carter and Billy Cobham as the rhythm section. There's also johnny Hammond on keyboards and Airto Moreira on percussion. There are a couple of tracks by them on the California concert set plus they appear as the backing band for the horn players elsewhere but do wish there wasa whole set of the unadorned band.

Also was discovering the instrumental stuff a couple of months back after having mainly dismissed him asa rather schmaltzy MOR crooner. He did some great stuff in the late 60s prior to CTI.

A number of years ago -- I wanna say early 80s -- some friends-of-a-friend lived next door to Alan Alda. They were having a graduation party in their back yard and playing tunes on a boombox. A George Benson song came on, and when Alan heard it, he showed up to the party with his visiting pal George Benson. They hung out at the party for the rest of the day/night, playing basketball with the kid

this is wild

Thanks a lot nomar! I'd forgotten about his version of 'On broadway', but never listened to the 'Weekend In L.A.' album before, sounds good from my quick listen.

I know I asked about uptempo stuff, but I really like his bluesy stuff when he's playing completely solo, as well , if you know of any thing like 'Ode To A Kudu" or 'From now on'? I need more of the intense scat heavy tracks like 'World is a ghetto' too. I guess it's the in-between sounding ones that don't do it for me, definitely not the sugary ballads.

Stevolende - I'm liking some of that All stars concert, i think what I'm finding with his own albums is that there's 2-3 tracks per album (from all eras) that I love but i really can't listen to the rest.

http://i.imgur.com/cHEtetL.gif

wow!!

whole video's pretty smooth! https://vimeo.com/24973023

TURN YOUR LOVE AROUUUUNNNNND

There's a whole long hilarious section about the writing of that song in that otherwise average Hired Gun documentary. Bill Champlin, Jay Graydon and Steve Lukather!

(Long story short, Graydon was charged with writing Benson a hit but was stumped, so he went to the bathroom and left it in the hands of Lukather. Lukather casually comes up with some chords and, on the toiler, Graydon, listening, comes up with the melody. Except I guess Graydon has an OCD compulsion to undress completely when he's on the toilet, so he had to hurry up and get dressed to get back to Lukather before he forgot the melody to go with the chords Lukather was playing!)

Came across this good clip of George Benson with Clark Terry on trumpet on ye' old YouTube a few weeks back. It's a pretty groovy version of "So What".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snCGxc4qK50

Clark Terry looking way more fly at age 68 than I will ever be on my best day.

Rad clip. Thanks for sharing! Loving all the seamless gear-shifting.

Oh yeah, this one is another really cool George Benson clip I found that has him jamming with Benny Goodman. This is one of those things you are glad the meeting happened and even more that it was filmed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNljvp_CnI&feature=youtu.be

take 2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfNljvp_CnI

Whoa, earl. Nice find!

Now where's the clip of George Washington Jr. and Woody Herman?

Except I guess Graydon has an OCD compulsion to undress completely when he's on the toilet

are you a shirtless shitter?

Grover Washington, good lord what's wrong with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpjgOCp354U