George Benson, loving breezin’ through his life

Garry Bushell

THEVOICE is simply unmistakable – warm, deep, and cheery. But it’s not all that clear. Where are you? I ask George Benson.

“I’m up a mountain,” the soul legend chuckles.why? “I live on a mountain in Phoenix, Arizona.and we’re surrounded by other mountains.” That gives a new meaning to musicians getting high.

George, 76, is a mighty long way from his dirt-poor roots in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, both geographically and financially.

Benson was a noted jazz guitarist until he started to sing on records too, notching up his first US Top 10 single with This Masquerade and the triple platinum album Breezin’, followed by immortal R&B hits such as Give Methe Night and Never Give Up ONA Goodthing.

But with success came problems. “Most people were positive, but some would say they wished I’d stuck to playing jazz. I was playing to put food on the table!”

Then there were the con artists. “You don’t know who your friends are. People you grew up with are suddenly in love with your pocket-book [wallet].

“They came to me with ridiculous stories, about their babies having cancer, they’d say anything to get to you, because they know I’m an easy guy. I’ve been that way since childhood, and I haven’t changed.”

He chuckles and adds: “I still get that, brother! They call me with schemes and crazy ideas that depend on my pocket book.”

Did that make you cynical?

“It made me smarter,” he says.

Music has been George’s life since the cradle. “My mother’s nickname was Sing,” he says. “Cos she was singing all the time. My first memory as a baby was of her leaning over my cot and humming.”

A child prodigy, he first sang in public at a street party when he was four – I Need You So by early R&B star Ivory Joe Hunter – and first made money from playing music aged seven.at 10, he was making records as Little Georgie. In his mid-teens he earned $55 a week playing guitar while still at school, with predictable consequences.

“The teacher gave me an ultimatum – either wake up in class or get out. I couldn’t give up my gig money, it was more than my parents were earning.”

He only stopped playing when he got married at 18. “I went into building houses because I needed a steady income. But then I realised how dangerous construction was – all those hatchets and hammers. I couldn’t risk injuring my hands so I stopped after a few months.”

HE QUALIFIED for a welfare cheque but says: “I was too proud to go to the store and cash it. Here I was, a strong young man in Pittsburgh, a city that was wealthy, and I’m begging? No! Everything I’ve got I worked for, so I appreciate it. But I remember where I came from, the ghetto. I remember no food in the house.”

His uncles worked in the steel mills “but I didn’t qualify, I didn’t have the education.” His parents did “nothing – there was nothing for them to do”.

His first marriage lasted a year but by 21 Benson was good enough to turn pro. He’d made 13 jazz albums before his mainstream breakthrough.

In his incredible career

Benson has released “nearly

50” albums, notched up 10 Grammy awards and has a star on Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame. But 1976’s Breezin’ was the game-changer.

“I’d been recording in New York but for that we recorded in LA, a beautiful city. It’s always hot, always sunny; it’s easy to be positive there.you can’t talk about Breezin’ with snow in your face.”

Unlike many contemporaries, he never did drugs – “I saw what they did to my friends and relatives.you can’t escape their grip. It’s one of the most demonic vices of our time.”

George, a Jehovah’s Witness, frowns on the excessive sexuality of much modern music. “Years ago vulgarity was not something people