A Few Minutes with Geoge Benson
This very good podcast with guitar legend George Benson, about his family, youth and learning guitar, features a great story about the start of his performing career at seven years old: Interview with George Benson (Rhino podcast)
He’s almost 80 years old now, but you’d never know it from listening to him in the interview. He’s funny, warm, and endearing, as likeable a guy as you will ever encounter.
He also tells a cool story about how he changed up the tempo of the R&B classic On Broadway to make it more upbeat. It became a big hit. Surprise!
All of that inspired me to dive deeper into his catalog where I found this album Guitar Man with excellent covers of several classic pop, rock and jazz standards like “Tequila”, “Paper Moon”, and “My Cherie Amour”.
Other albums worth digging into:
- Breezin’ (1976) his breakout album with his first big hit “Breezin’” plus “This Masquerade”
- Weekend in L.A. (1978) - with On Broadway
- The Shape of Things to Come (1968) - earlier work, jazz pop with little or no vocals
Image scraped from George’s official website.