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
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R&B music became gigantic with people like Marvin Gaye and Barry White and Curtis Mayfield who became superstars. We tried to find a place where Jazz belonged because we didn't sell records.
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I've had the pleasure of playing with the baddest Jazz cats on the planet.
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The jazz rhythm won't be understood by the bulk of my audience. That's the problem. We can get away with maybe one tune a night. It depends on where we place it. A song like 'Beyond the Sea,' the fans love that. It's fresh.
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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.
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The jazz always seems to automatically come out, because it was from my jazz days that I learned that spark. And the nice thing with my band and this repertoire, which is a complete joy, is that we go beyond just playing chords and melody. It is music that can stretch out.
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I like Simon Cowell - look at how many great artists have come out of the U.K. because of him.
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I moved to Hawaii from Inglewood, New Jersey. I had planned on retiring there.
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I have not heard a whole lot of the rock genre. I tell you what knocked me out though. I was in Holland and I went to a Robbie Williams concert. There were 50,000 people there. That was an eye-opener.
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I never gave up on that idea, you know, that jazz musicians have the same opportunity as everybody else and that it's what you put on that record that makes the difference whether you sell it or not or are able to get it into people's households.
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I've done two albums for Concord Records; one was with Al Jarreau and it did very well for us. The second album was called 'Songs And Stories,' and it had good songs and good performances, but I promised them I would do an album that was more jazz-oriented.
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We are trying to schedule music every other Saturday night from 7 to 10 p.m. We like to feature local talent.
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Don't forget the late '70s was dominated by people like the Queen of Disco Donna Summer and everybody who was in that bag. We were already in dance mode, the Bee Gees were out with the most fantastic record the world had ever heard, so the world was in the mode. Anything outside of that mode was secondary.
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There is no finer guitarist than Kenny Burrell
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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!