George Benson
George Benson
George Benson is an American musician, guitarist and singer-songwriter. He began his professional career at 21 as a jazz guitarist. Benson uses a rest-stroke picking technique similar to that of gypsy jazz players such as Django Reinhardt...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJazz Singer
Date of Birth22 March 1943
CityPittsburgh, PA
CountryUnited States of America
caught electric hands messing met seven stepfather tried
My stepfather met my mother when I was seven years old, and he was a guitar player. So he caught me messing with his guitar, his electric guitar, and he tried to show me some chords, but my hands were too small.
hated
I've always hated rejection; I only want to go out there when I know I've got it right.
biggest change gonna love number song
My biggest song in the world is 'Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You.' All over the world, it's number one on the whole planet.
amp electric pawn sat stepfather store
My stepfather had an electric guitar. He went to his pawn store one day to get a guitar and an amp, and I couldn't understand what I was hearing. All afternoon, I just sat against the amp and let it reverberate through me. Something must have stuck.
biggest concerts drag fan great jazz lived lover music sure
We don't live in a jazz world, unfortunately. I think if I had lived in a jazz world, I would have done OK. I'm not sure I would have done great. I'm a lover of jazz music, so I would have been happy, don't get me wrong. I go to jazz concerts like the biggest jazz fan in world. The drag is that I don't play jazz for a living.
approach beat classic funky grant great heard hold john larry love mccartney nova paul sure
'I Want To Hold Your Hand' is a great classic by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, I sure love that song. I did like the classic version, a rock-oriented song, then someone heard me do it with the Grant Green approach - Grant Green and Larry Young did it, with a bossa nova beat on the funky side.
audience ballads dominated great hear swing
One thing all the way through the show to me is boring. I don't care how great the artist is. I find that if my audience is very young, and they want to hear very young songs, my show will be dominated by that. But there'll be some ballads here and there and some swing tunes.
life
My whole life, I've never worried about being No. 1, because that's the guy they've got to get out of there.
family good life rob simply
Life isn't all me. I have a family to support. I can't rob them of a good life simply because I want to play something.
imagined love music rest
If you play music for the right reasons, the rest of the things will come. The right reason to play music is that you love it. That's why I play music. I never imagined that I was going to be doing this, especially because I never thought of myself as an instrumentalist.
music kenny guitarist
There is no finer guitarist than Kenny Burrell
music cat jazz
I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.
music play people
People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play and we're starving. But as soon as you commercialize your sound like Wes Montgomery did, the jazz fans and the critics are down on you!
artist looks great-art
I like Simon Cowell - look at how many great artists have come out of the U.K. because of him.