Rock and Pop: Interview - George Benson
Published: 9 June, 2011
by ROISIN GADELRAB
HE calls himself “Mr Romantic”, his career began with some fortuitous skip-diving and he once lost out on a Grammy to Ella Fitzgerald.
Pop and smooth jazz guitarist George Benson has more than 48 albums in his own name and enough awards to fill out his own personal hall of fame.
He plays Kenwood concerts on July 2, his only UK date this year, although he confesses to not knowing the venue: “I like the sound of it. It sounds very English. My agents made that decision so it must be great because they know I don’t like mediocrity.”
Liza Minnelli, Tom Jones and James Blunt will each headline a night at the Heath concerts.
But in the meantime, Benson is chilling at his scorching Paradise Valley, Arizona home.
He tells Grooves how his first encounter with strings came young: “My stepfather played the guitar so I wanted to play too. My hands were too small so he found a ukelele in a garbage can, it was all broken up. He glued it back together, put strings on it and taught me to play the first few chords. I ran with that because I had good ears.”
Benson was soon busking on Pittsburgh street corners.
“People were filling my cousin’s baseball cap with money,” he says. “What I didn’t know was that a lot of famous people saw me and when I grew up I found out who they were – Charlie Parker, people like that.”
Asked to pick a preferred song from his vast back catalogue, he says: “I like In Your Eyes, that’s my favourite because it’s a romantic song and that’s what I call myself, Mr Romantic.”
He must be doing something right, having been married for 46 years. “The secret is making room for the other person,” says Benson. “Even though I still believe, like the Bible said, the man of the house has to make the decisions basically, but to do it without your partner doesn’t make any sense.
“Why have a partner? To help you see things from different perspectives. My wife gives me all the things I can’t see, the parts I don’t understand. When I get her input I know what decision to make and I make it with her in mind. She comes up with great ideas. If I didn’t have that I probably wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Benson’s bashful fear of exposing his flaws has melted: “I play music every day in the house, she listens to me. I wouldn’t do that years ago because I didn’t want her to hear all the mistakes I was making but as we got older our mistakes became fewer so I’m doing it in front of her now.”
Looking ahead to Kenwood, he says: “I never know what it’s going to be like until I get there and feel the environment. My band is versatile and I’ve a lot of great songs. I know the English know most of the hits but we’re planning to introduce a couple of new things.
“Normally we just go out there and I start hollering songs to my band, fire this one up, see what happens. We call ourselves musicians and we’re at the higher echelons of things. What allows us to do that is our association with jazz – the greatest experiences I have had are the years playing jazz music because it taught me how to improvise.”
Benson recalls the day he won Record of the Year 1976 at the Grammys as a turning point in his career, but one which nearly passed his mother by.
He says: “My mother missed the event because she was working, and when I didn’t win the jazz singer’s award, won by Ella Fitzgerald – that’s understandable isn’t it? – she cut the TV off.
“She was so mad at Ella Fitzgerald for winning the award she thought should’ve been mine she missed the last part where I came up for Record of the Year. When she got home my brother came flying out of the house saying, ‘Mom, he won’, and she didn’t see it. Boy she was done in by that so I had to send her a video copy.”
Since then Benson has sold more than 60 million records.
He says he has 10 Grammys, but also has plaques for about 40 nominations as well as over 50 gold and platinum albums, adding: “Your house will start looking like a museum if you put up all these records so I keep them in the closet. I put up a few around the house to remind people they’re in a musician’s house.”
• For more information and the full Kenwood line-up visit www.picnicconcerts.com