July 3, 2024 • 53 mins
George Benson examines his transition from a top Jazz guitarist into a highly respected vocalist. He shares the origin stories behind several 1970s hits like "Breezin" and "On Broadway" plus recalls working with Stevie Wonder, Bobby Womack, and Al Jarreau. George also discusses his newest release, a lost album with arranger Robert Farnon.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host Questlove. We
have Teams Supreme with us. Uh byya. How are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Trying not to shake? Kind to shake?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Really excited? I'm really excited.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Let me let me just add that this is the
first show on which I'm acknowledging that we actually have
a YouTube page. And should we remind our listeners that
you know you can watch quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
You should watch it so you can see the beauty
of this man. Yes, and I'm not talking about Questlove.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
There you go exactly. Of course, we know you're talking
about our guests. Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's up?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Broh, hey man, it's good to see. It's good to
see everybody. I'm excited to be here. This is the
mature excited because it is sir. Can see what's up? Bro?
Good share everybody. Yeah, very excited.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm feeling beyond the blue horizon. That's how I can
describe my feelings.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
There you go, There you go. Yeah, this is going
to be a quickie. I'm gona try and knock out
sixty years worth of magic inside of an hour, so
let's see if this goes way one could do it.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's us let's go.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yes, of course, here we go. I will say that
you know it's been about we last spoke like a
month ago, and we couldn't ask for a better way
to come back with Today's Guests. And Today's Guest released
his first solo album sixty years ago. Our guest today
has won ten Grammys, he has topped the charts. He's
(01:31):
collaborated with so many legends. I mean he's legendary himself.
But of course, uh name it played, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder,
Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancott, and recently he's released or kind
of re released, although it wasn't officially released. I'd like
to get the story behind how do you have a
lost album in the archives? But dreams do come true?
(01:54):
And it came from his archive, and we are very
excited to have be incomparable Pittsburgh's own Yen's, Yen's Power,
George Benson's A Quest Love Supreme. Yeah, how you you
know what? Every My mom's from Pittsburgh, and every time
(02:15):
I meet someone from Pittsburgh, I try to catch them
saying the word YenS are you that deep of a
Pittsburgh or your your you don't YenS is not in
your vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh that's okay. I've heard it all my life, but
now that I'm out here in the Midwest, that would
be as common as breathing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh really, okay, well it's good to have you. Wait,
can you explain to me how far in the archives
was this album and what was the idea behind releasing it?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well many years ago, after having so much success in
the music business, I said, what haven't I done? And
I thought of something that I always wanted to do,
to work with a symphony orchestra. A person who conducted
symphony orchestras for a long time, a person who's got
(03:11):
great control of the music and the musicians, who's very
comfortable with that situation. There's no better place than London
and the London Symphony Orchestra. But one thing was missing.
I had a lot of arrangers I had worked with
over the years. All of them were very competent and
very good at what they did. So I went to
Quincy Jones and I said, Quincy, who is the baddest
(03:35):
cat on the planet right now? Because you know, we
lost a few people he said, Josh, let me tell
you man, the baddest cat in the world. There's two names,
he said. One of them is Robert Farning. I said, wow,
and where's he? He said, well, he's somewhere in London,
(03:55):
he said, but that's the cat I recommend. So I
went over to London and I found a guy who
was one of his best friends, and he introduced me
to him. And it went by so fast because the
man is an expert writing music and conducting orchestra. Was
like breathing with him. Okay, So we got together and
(04:16):
I told him what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure,
so I picked a lot of things, you know, some
popular things because I didn't want to go straight classic
orchestra and just try to be Frank Sinatra. We agreed
on some things. Next thing I know, I was in
the studio standing next to him, getting ready to do
my part, and the orchestra started playing and I said,
(04:40):
oh boy, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that.
I never heard anything like that. Eighty six pieces, all
eighty seven pieces of the London Symphony Orchestra and the
greatest arranger in the world and his arrangements were so magnificent.
I couldn't even speak. So I said, maybe I'll just
(05:04):
sit and listen to the music, take in the environment.
And I did that for a couple of days. He
did seventeen songs. He may have been two three days.
I took that stuff home to back to America, to
New York, and I just listened and I said, well,
maybe I can do this song, maybe I can do
(05:25):
this one. Now I have to work on this. This
is magnificent. I said, no, I better not try this.
So between me and the record company, we had an agreement.
We were not going to put it out at that time. Okay,
next thing I know, we put it in a warehouse
(05:46):
and forgot all about it. During that time, mister Farning
passed away and I was still hearing bits and pieces
of the music, and every time I heard it, I said, man,
I gotta find this music and put it back together.
But I never did until recently. I had left Warner Brothers.
(06:06):
I was with them for about twenty one years with
a lot of success. So I left the company and
started doing bits and pieces with different record companies, and
I asked some success there too. But now I went
back to Warners I said, well, since I'm getting ready
to retire, my greatest desire would be to do another
record for Warners because they got all my good stuff
(06:27):
and I want this to go in with that. So
I asked my secretary to arrange a meeting with me
and the executives over there, and we had a great meeting.
He heard the music and said, wow, we got to
put this out and that was fantastic. There's a lot
more to it, but I think you got some other
(06:49):
questions you might want to ask.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We're nerds Paradise, so you're right now giving us catnip.
I love when a plan like that comes together, like
I love when lost albums and lost projects are finalized.
And I'm glad that you know you had completion for
our fans that listen to the show that are music heads.
You can recall when it took Brian Wilson like fifty
(07:14):
years to finish the Smile record.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so I'm glad you finished it. Wait. I have
a question, though, so are you saying that this is
the largest orchestra you've ever worked with?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I think so because I work with the New York
Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Chicago'symphony Orchestra, the Spurg
Symphony Orchestra. That might have been a full orchestra. Maybe
it was eighty seven pieces. Maybe I've done that too, So.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I have a question. I want to jump ahead too
far on the timeline, but I gotta know. For me,
one of my favorite intros of all time is the
first fifteen seconds of Breazon. Just the way that that
like to me, the sound of happiness and safety and
(08:06):
like whatever, Like when I think of like a good
fuzzy memory, that song is the soundtrack when I think
of like, you know, it's something simple, you think, I mean,
it could be going to an amusement park or playing
tag or whatever. But for me, but in my mind,
that was like at least a fifty piece orchestra. Do
(08:28):
you recall like how big the orchestra was for the
Breezing project.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, because that was a sweetening session. Those were were
put on after the recordings got it, okay, But it
was an incredible, incredible situation that happened then. Okay. I
had a great band full of young, passionate, expert, very
(08:55):
creative young musicians and we were all excited because we
hadn't been working together, you know, and we practiced all
the time, at least three days a week when we
were on the road, with practice every day. So when
we did a gig, actually the gig was so easy
after because the rehearsals was so intense, the gig was
super easy. And there was a situation that happened. People
(09:18):
started calling us to open for superstars, and my band
was not known yet. I had somewhat of a reputation
but no hit records yet. So whenever they called us
to open for somebody, half of the audience left when
my show was finished, and I remember I'm the opening act,
(09:40):
so I began to notice that and they said, George,
too bad, We're not you know that we don't have
a hit record. That's the only thing we needed. So
through this man, Tommy Lapuma, who had heard me sing
five years ago before this record was released, he said
he couldn't understand why record companies were not using my voice.
(10:01):
So I selected him to be my producer at Warner Brothers,
whom I had just signed to contact with, and he
came up with the song dis Masquerade.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
That's the first time your vocals were recorded with Macarade.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Well, that's the first time we had anything meaningful, and
the rest of them nobody paid my voice any attention.
Even my own manager said, George, you're one of the
world's best guitar player, but you ain't no singer. And
I said to him, you know, I wasn't insulted because
I had given up singing many years before. And I said,
you know, it's strange that we could listen to the
(10:36):
chipmunks and give them a work and give them a hearing,
but you won't give me one. It won't give me
a chance. And so but Tommy Lapuma found the right arranger,
which is a consistent what you were talking about earlier.
Klaus Augermann. Yes, absolutely. I remember Tommy Lapuma coming to
me asked me, said, George, what do you think about
(10:59):
Klaus Ogerman doing the arrangements for your new album. I
had heard some stuff he had done earlier, and I said, yeah,
that's the man. And so he went to London, got
kicked out of the studio. You didn't book enough time,
and so they went to finish the album in Germany.
(11:22):
So you had two different oysters on this on this album,
but the same same arranger. Klaus Owen he sent me
the test pressings. I heard that orchestra. I said, wow,
these guys said, put a tuck seedo on me.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Man.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
The dressed me right up. And at first I didn't
particularly care that much for this masquerade. To me, it
was just another vocal, you know, and nicely done. I
liked what the band did. We only had one take
on it. By the way, what only there's only one
take on that song because Tommy Lapoom, after saying he
loved he wanted to hear me sing on the record.
(12:00):
The instrumentals were going so good, you know, with breezing
and quite a few others. He said, no, I'm not
gonna put a vocal on thiselve. I said, man, you
made me learn this crazy song. I called it a
crazy song. I said, man, let's recall it at least
one time. So they put up a very funky microphone
(12:20):
something people never sing in. They use them talk programs,
you know, one of them long microphones, and you would
see on the Johnny Carson Show. And so when I
heard it back, I said, it doesn't sound that bad,
except I don't like the mid rangers and the great
engineer he turned the button knocked some of the low end.
(12:45):
I said, oh, that's better. Do it again. He did
one more click click. I said that's even better. He said,
we gonna stop right there. He said, if I do
it one more time, you'll sound like Mickey Mouse. I said,
that's a leave it there. Tommy LiPuma ran out of
the studio and ran and broke up a meeting they
(13:06):
were having at at Warner Brothers. The big wigs were
at this long oval shaped table talking about money, you know,
and he took all of his recording equipment over because
he never does any playback without his own stuff. So
he set up the recording. He said, no, this meeting
is over. He's telling the big the money guys, this
(13:29):
meeting is over. You must you gotta hear this record.
So he played this Masquerade and he said, well, wait
a minute, man, who is that who's singing? And they
said he said George Benson And they said, but I
thought he was a gutsire player. He said, well yeah,
but he also sings. So he played the record and
(13:51):
they said, well, we're gonna get this now. This was
before they put the orchestra on. Wow, okay, he said,
I'm not finished with it yet. You say I got
work to do on this record, and I didn't know
he was going to do all of this. I didn't
know how he was going to get it dumb, but
when he sent me a test pressing, it was hard
to believe that it was me, all dressed up and
(14:11):
with this fabulous orchestra with great songs, one of the
baddest bands in the country. These young boys were energetic
and fresh and very creative. The album came out. I
we'll talk about that what happened later with that, but
the album was a monster.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I just want to know on Maskuarade where your mind
was when you started the song, Like when you started
it the way you did with I guess I would
say you were scatting, but you weren't, and you were
just doing the guitar parts right like when you first started.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I think they call it legato. I forget the word
they use for that. Harvey Mason one of the world's
greatest drummers, and he was young and energetic then still
going strong now he always is. I said, all right,
Harvey counted off, and he started counting one, two, and
I said, oh, hold it, hold it right there. I said, hooray,
(15:08):
play these changes and I played the changes for him
and he I said, and uh, loosen it up. We're
gonna leave. We're gonna play legato, no rhythm, I said.
And then Harvey count the time off. So we played it.
Play those things, dude, I asked Tommy Lapooma, leave the
(15:29):
mic up, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something with
the improvisations in the beginning and in the middle, okay,
And he uh, he said, okay. He didn't have much
confidence in it because he was gonna throw the record
out anyway. He had made up in his mind that
the instrumentals were too great to a sacrifice to one vocal.
(15:49):
So uh, they did that great intro, and that young
boy or the young man at the time, he was
like in his early twenties, and he was fresh in
the band. He had just joined the band team. Oh
you mean a grey doubt though, And I'm glad you
mentioned that, because there was a great thing about those
(16:11):
two playing together. But Hora did that intro and played
that semi classical accompaniment behind my vocal, which gave it
a whole new, fresh approach. And Willie did it one time.
M And Tommy Lupuma said to me, George, we could
be here all night. It'll never get better than that.
(16:32):
I said, I think you're right. So I left it
alone and here comes Bobby Womack getting ready to record
reason with me because I begged that he come to
the studio and give me something fresh to play on
the record. And he came in the studio and he said, hey,
man during the playback, who in the world? And he
didn't use the word world. He has had an age
(16:55):
on it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Right right, right, right right?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Who got a record? He got a force like that?
Tell me the boomer saying that's George Benson. Man, he said,
but I thought he George Benson. This guitar player he
said yeah, but he also and that was the beginning
it let us know that this record was going to
be something special.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I remember in my dad's band, musicians arguing the first
time I heard musicians sort of having like kind of
a heated debate. My dad's bass player would have put
his entire life in saying that this masquerade was Donnie Hathaway.
(17:44):
He's like, nah, man, that's Donnie Hathaway. And this is
the first time I'm hearing of you. And I remember
my dad's sax player, like, no, man, I'm telling you
this George Benson. George Benson the guitar player. Now, man,
this is Donnie Hathaway. And they were just like that
was the first time I seen like almost It wasn't pugilistic,
(18:04):
but it was like almost an argument brewing. Like of
course they had other history of tension, but I definitely
remember because I was under the impression that that was
Donnie Hathaway singing. And that argument lasted for like almost
ten minutes and got really heated. So I always wanted
to know that. That's another thing I found out maybe
(18:28):
two years ago. I was not aware that Bobby Womack
had written Breezing. How did you know about that song
to even ask him for it?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's another incredible story we're here for. I heard the
original version of it. The original version was by Goborzabo
and he was from Hungary. I remember when he first
came to the United States during the Hungarian Revolution in
the mid fifties, and he played with Chico Hamilton's band
(19:00):
that was a great jazz ensemble. So I heard them
play live when I was a kid, that was a teenager,
and then this record came out reason it was super fucky.
I mean, it was really a unique record because he
played folk music basically, but he wanted to be a
(19:21):
jazz player. The ironic thing is my piano player was
like that about Argentine where he came from. He wanted
to be a jazz player, but he played Argentine folk
music when he grew up. So they were adding that
kind of romantic feeling to their jazz, which gave it
a unique flavor. So I would never stop catch from
(19:44):
being who they are. I didn't force them to be
who I wanted them to be. I let them be
who they are, and that works better. I learned that
from Miles Davis. Don't tell them what to play or
how to play it, just let them be themselves. So anyway,
I never thought about me playing that song because I
never thought anybody could come up to that that vibe
(20:05):
they had on that record. And actually the song was
written by both men, okay by Goboy's a bo and
Bobby Woomack and Goo Boar. He didn't want to have
nothing to do with it because he didn't care about
things like that. He had a little problem, some chemical problems,
(20:25):
and so he didn't care about things like that. But
that record he would have made a fortune like Bobby
Womack did. And so that's how it got off the ground.
And when tell me Lapuma asked me to record it,
I said, absolutely not. I'm not gonna make that record.
He said why not? I said, man, that's not me. Man.
People have been trying to get me to record it
(20:46):
or to play it live, and I wouldn't do it.
Almost got into rumbles with people, you know, several times.
So when he asked me to do it, I said, oh,
here it comes again. And then I woke up. I've
had to do this many times in my career. This
was one of the times where it worked beautifully. I said, Tommy,
(21:09):
if you can get Bobby Womack to come to the studio,
maybe he can add something to the record that's not there.
Maybe he can help do something different to make the record,
give it another twist. So he called Bobby and that's
when Bobby entered into the studio, listening to the playback
of this Masquerade and asking who it was. Now it
was his turn. He said, there was always something I
(21:31):
wanted to put on this record, and I didn't get
a chance to do it. I said, what's that man,
he said, do it because that's what was not on
the original recording, right. And even though I don't think
my version is as good as the original recording, I
like it better because it's another twist to this and
(21:54):
it made it sound more contemporary. So that that was
the difference between that version, and that's how they got
off the ground.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The seventies were very peculiar time for jazz artists. You know,
after kind of like a twenty year let's say between
nineteen forty and all right, let's say thirty years between
nineteen forty nineteen seventy, there was this like serious jazz movement.
Of course, you know, once certain figures in the art
(22:23):
form were sort of stretching the boundaries with you know,
Coltrane stretching the vocabulary and what Miles was doing and whatnot. However,
I'm always curious, and I always ask people that were
like serious, because you know, I had to sort of
work backwards. It's because of hip hop that I realized
how serious of a jazz artist you were, because you know,
(22:45):
by the time I discovered you, you were already singing,
so I knew you as a singer. But it wasn't
until hip hop sampling that I was like, oh my god,
Like George Benson is one of the greatest jazz guitars
of all time. But let me ask you when it
came to the transition of doing pop music, and it's
not just you, James m. Toomey, Raggie, Lucas Narratimichael Walden,
(23:09):
like a lot of these serious musician cats in the
mid seventies sort of made this decision to migrate to
not even just soul music, but like to pop music.
So at the time, did you have any trepidation whatsoever
of like, wait a minute, I'm a serious jazz artist
(23:30):
and now you want me to sing pop? Like were
you worried at all about like if Downbeat Magazine was
going to roast you or for going pop or whatnot,
Like was that even a concern?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It was a very trying time for a lot of musicians,
the ones you mentioned, the cats I worked with in
the early days. I was thinking about James Toomey. He
still owes me some money. Man Cold never did play
for the sessions he used to do at while house.
He said, I had a recording studio in my garage
and he'd bring guys over and try out new stuff,
(24:03):
and he brought Reggie Lucas over and we became friends
the whole trip. Man Norman Connors working with the girl
from my hometown, philis Simon Hillo Simon. She was from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
and she's from Philly, but yeah, from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And we were all going through it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was no way we were going to get the
prestige that had been earned by so many of those
great people that you talked about earlier, Miles Davis. They
had forty years on us, thirty years on us, twenty
years on. We were just coming up kids, you know,
youngsters in New York. We were like the new Lions,
but we had know nothing of our own that could
(24:50):
give us, you know, a seat beside these monstrous musicians
that who taught us how to play and set up
this wonderful music called bebop and mo jazz and the
new stuff, you know, the ascid what the kids called
acid jazz. But that was a very, very trying time.
(25:11):
I learned that first thing you need it begins with
a great song. Breezon taught me that I never would
have been able to cross over without reason Reason was
a very well loved song. No, no, not Reason only
the Breason album on speaking of it, which the song
this Masquerade came out of. The lyric lent itself to
(25:36):
a whole different society because they already loved the composer
of the song, and I had never heard it before.
When Temmy Lapuma asked me if I heard it before?
You ever heard the song? I said no, and I
didn't particularly care about it. I said, that's not for
my kind of artists. And when I found out who
it was, Jorge, my piano players, his wife said, oh,
(26:01):
that's Russell, Leon Russell. I said to myself, who there?
Because Leon Russell I didn't know anything about him, never
heard her. She said, that's my favorite artist. I said, oh,
I better learned this song because Tommy said it to
me too three times and I wouldn't even listen to
it more than once. So I learned the song. That's
why when we went back and he said we're not
(26:21):
going to record it, I said, what after you made
me learn this crazy song? Man, we're not going to
record it? So he to get rid of me, he said, okay,
well record it one time. Let's do it in other words,
let's get it over with. So that song came out
(26:42):
as the greatest surprise of my life because it went
so far and you were speaking about Donnie Hathaway. The
other guy they thought it might be was Stevie Wonder, Yes,
because he had the record out in years. He hadn't
recorded something out in like maybe a year or two.
When it came out, they said, gotta be, gotta be
(27:03):
Stevie when that's the only person I can think of, right,
and like your dad, they swore it was that it
was him or either, like you said, Donny halfway. So
that's what got the record the airplay that it needed.
They would give the record away if you could tell
them who it was. Very few people guessed who it
was on the record. They all said, oh, I know
(27:23):
who that is. Everybody knows that's Stevie Wonder. Oh that's
Donny Hathaway. And that's got us the airplay we needed
in places we never would have gotten without it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So let me ask you. In the winter of nineteen
seventy seven, you're sitting down in a theater and you
hear this. You hear the nominees for Record of the
Year is fifty ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon,
Afternoon Delight by Starland Vocal Band, Wow, I write the
(27:57):
songs by Barry Memory and if You Leave Me Now
by Chicago. When they say and the winner is previous
to that moment, did you really think you had a
chance in hell to win Record of the Year above
those records?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Not a chance? N Ah, No, I didn't have a chance.
But I love the other records, the big ones. If
You Leave Me Now by Chicago, Yeah, there was a
spectacular recording. And you could not bury Manlow out of
nothing because he had nothing but multi platinum records all
(28:38):
of his career. Just about. So I got up early,
hoping I could beat people to the parking lot because
there was a lot of people in that place, and
I had already won two Grammys, so I was very
very happy. I said, oh man, this is I'm gonna
go home and start braging about my two Grammys. I
got up and Barbara Stradez I said, and the winner
(28:59):
is Jeorde Benson. I startled, man, and looked around. I
couldn't just said that, you know, And I looked over
Tommy looked to find my noies in the theater, somewhere,
I went up front and when Tommy came up, I
kissed him on his bald head. I don't believe I
(29:20):
did that. I saw that later, But that was the
most incredible thing that ever happened to me in my life.
And it showed me that nothing is impossible. That this,
this album I came up with, this this fresh and
new called Dreams Do Come True, has a lot to
(29:41):
do with that, that concept, that that idea, that that
way of thinking, nothing is impossible. Man.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So when you're in that moment and you I think
that night, you on four altogether correct.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I won three three and there were two more that
came toward the album though for other people, but the
engineer Al Schmidt, and I think Tommy Lpum a producer.
So we won five our five grammar.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I've all together. So like, how does your life change
that night when you go to sleep and you go
to bed and you wake up the next morning as
a five time that project winning five Grammys, Like what
happens to you after that?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's like I had been born on another planet, reborn,
and the name of the planet was George Benson. Because
everything came to me, everything I ever imagine came to me.
They came through my management. Everybody wanted to get in
touch with us for something, and I was not used
to that kind of attention. My mind was still on
(30:48):
kicking butt on the guitar with my bad band.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
We had a great band, you know, and I couldn't
think beyond that because I've never been that big of
a star, you know, been known by people in the
jazz world and R and B world and some of
the pop world, but that kind of fame was highly unknown.
But I begin to see the world differently after that.
(31:15):
There was a lot more to conquer. We were in
a position where we could either help or hurt what
was going on in the world musically. Jazz musicians were
mad at us. The R and B people didn't know
what the heck it is we were trying to do
accomplished because we weren't sounded like Motown and you couldn't anyway.
(31:35):
Nobody could compete with Marvin gay Man or Stevie Wonder,
So I didn't even try that stuff. One thing that
time taught me all the time it took me to
gain the success that I got through the album Reaching. Remember,
I was thirty three years old when that happened, So
I considered myself in the old man. You know what
I'm saying, Man, I'm getting out of this business. I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
You know. No, there's many more albums after That's why.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh wow, man, let me see. Since that was the
first with Warners, and I think I did, I don't know,
fourteen albums with Warners, twenty one albums I can't remember now,
and with other people. In total, I think I've recorded
about seventy albums, but there are two hundred and something
with my name on the cover, so a lot is transpired.
(32:22):
But what a responsibility?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
This is a question I always wanted to ask and
never knew the answer to because it's not in the
liner notes. But can you please settle this for me?
Are you playing on Another Star by Stevie Wonder on
songs in the Kiev Life? Is that you scatting at
the end? That's me?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
No, no, Plus I'm singing along with wonderlum la la
la la.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You're not in the liner notes, but I kept hearing
your voice because at the end you just start scatting,
and right on the fade out you can keep right there.
You hear the scatting, and I was like, yo, is
that him?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Like, does that mean it was a favor? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
See these to kind of just grab people.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Oh yeah, that's true too. He was that kind of guy.
But I let him be who he is. That's what
makes him so great. He's always coming with something that
you don't expect, and it's always a one. What he
does is so classy, and I think that's why we
got along very well. He was coming to my shows
when I was playing on the Chitlin circuit. He would
show up at a nightclub somewhere in America, mostly on
(33:36):
the East Coast, because he was going with a girl
who later married when he did the song Isn't She Lovely?
I think he married her. I think she's from Pittsburgh,
her hometown. So one day he came to the club
where I was playing that night, and nobody believed it
(33:56):
was him. He was so popular you couldn't convince it
anybody in the place, even though I said, Steve, I
think he might have came up and played something for us,
but nobody believed that Stevie Wonder was in the club.
But he was on a lot of the gigs that
I did. He'd show up and he would always tooth
for us and live television shows. We'd be doing live
(34:18):
TV in Hollywood and he brusht out the back of
the curtain and jump on the you know, in front
of the camera. Only he could get away with that
kind of thing. I've always loved him. I loved him
since I think I first heard him when he was
about fourteen or fifteen years old. I knew he was
not going to be ordinary.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
George, can I ask you about another collaboratoral Quick, because
we talked about breezing and you actually redid this song
with him with lyrics, which I thought was kind of ill.
And y'all are both to me like the voices of
our generation. Algiero. I don't hear enough stories about Algibo.
Can you just tell me, like how wondrous was collaborating
with Alderreau.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
He's one of those guys that come along. It's only
one of them lifetime. You're so original. From the time
he opened the mouth, you've got you know who it
is and you know it's going to be good. And
going on the road with him was it took some
some rough thinking because uh, career wise, we were way
(35:20):
ahead and we made a lot of money. We had
a lot of prestiges all over the world, and we
were always first on the you know, on the marquee
outside you would be George Benson and Algero. A lot
of people didn't like that because they love Algero together. What, yeah,
(35:40):
we worked together.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Okay, after you asked this, I got a million dollar
question to ask you.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Good. Yeah, So I I felt strange about us being
on the show, and he he wasn't used to being
second to nobody. Matter of fact, we both joined Warner
Brothers on the same day. We auditioned at the place
where one of the Kennedys was murdered. It was a hotel,
(36:07):
and this was a couple of years after that, a
few years after that, and we both sang or performed
the same song, take five, and you know, his version
was pretty sleek, moved by you know, he's so great.
And so we went on tour and we found some
songs and a couple of them he wasn't comfortable with.
(36:30):
He said, George, why do you want me to do
that song? I said, Oh, it wouldn't make me do
what you did. Your voice is unique and I think
people need to hear you do this kind of song
because you're not known for this, but they should hear
you do this kind of thing. That let him know
you can sing anything. And so we ended up doing
some crazy things together. They came out great. One was
(36:55):
that last song in the show about seeing you again
until next time. I can't remember the title, but it was.
It came out great. We made lots of money, and
we knocked them out everywhere in the world. Pat it
was great man.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Okay. So this is mainly a question about Al Schmidt,
because I think Al Schmidt's engineering is so unique sounding
that this is what I want to know Number one
for me, Your Weekend in the La album and also
(37:32):
Algirose looked to the Rainbow album. Both engineered by him
have such a distinct sound to it that I swear
to God, you guys recorded it in the studio and
just overdubbed the audience on top of it like I've
never heard it. It sounds too perfect to be a
(37:52):
live album.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Al Schmidt, who used to set up the microphones for
his uncle, I believe it was when he was a youngster.
When Al was young, his uncle said, well, go said
I got a session today, go over and set up
the microphones for me, so and get it ready for me.
So he knew exactly where to place microphones to get
(38:16):
the sound that he wanted. And when I by the
time I got there, he was already he had finished
up all of that because he never was involved in
that while we were recording.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Oh okay, he did it all in front.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
He listened to go in the studio and he go
next to the drums, and they replaced the microphone, so
forth and so on. I was embarrassed one day when
I got ready to say to him, you know, the
piano sounds a little bit thin to me, I was
almost in tears. Why doesn't he puts some bass on
that microphone? Man, I'm gonna tell him about that. Then
(38:53):
something that said, man, leave it alone. Man. When I
heard those recordings back, I said, man, that would have
been the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,
because hisself was always right on the money. But he
told me the story of how he got to be
al Schmidt. Tell me he said that because you know
(39:14):
he used to do Sam Cook records years ago. Yeah,
one day we had a big running because I'm dealing
with like you said about heated arguments or heated discussions.
There's always something like that between producers and artists. And
Tommy Lapumer, who did not like to argue. He would
(39:37):
keep his mouth shup, but you could tell what he
was feeling because he would hint to his feelings on things.
And so one day we were arguing about a live
album weekend in La Yes, we were at the club
in Hollywood. I forget the name of a the Roxy Theater, Yeah,
(40:00):
the Roxy Theater. On it was either on Hollywood or
Boulevard or Sunset Villa Sunset. My father who had begged
me to take him out to California with him on
he heard I was going to California. He said, man,
I haven't seen my dad, your grandfather for twenty years.
And I said, okay, Dad, come on with me now.
You have a lot of fun. So my grandfather was there,
(40:23):
My dad was there, Chaka Khan was there, Wretha Franklin.
They were down front having a discussion. Aretha Franklin had
to fend off Shaka Khan because she wanted to jump
on the band's land and have a battle with her.
I said, not on my set.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It was incredible, man. Well here's the Biggie with that.
The first night, the second show, we did that version
that you hear of on Broadway. Yes, I remember that
was not a song that was in my playlist outside
of the that we decided to record it, and so
I had to dream of something to do with it, right,
And it was Quincy Jones again who gave me the fop.
(41:04):
I said, now, wait a minute, now, why should I
pay this in the attention? He gave me a clue.
He said, you know, Jarish, many years ago, everything used
to be a one bar phrase. Now it's two bar fraens,
I said, what the heck is he talking about? Because
I don't measure music. I just play it. Oh so
(41:28):
you know, I just play it and when it comes
to my thought my brain, I let it hang out
and let my brain handle it and my vibe, my
feelings pour it out to the people.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So when he said that two bar phrase, it bothered me.
I had to find out what he was talking about.
Then I heard a song by Rod Temperton a bone
Be Doom, bone bean be, do bop bang be dang
first bar with us, I said, oh, that's two bars.
That phrase finishes that the two bars first half is
(42:02):
bomb but on bomb be you know, four beasts, one
beat again, boom beat on four. Oh. I got it.
So when Tommy the Poomer asked me to do on Broadway,
I said, oh no, man, He said, what do you mean?
I said, I can't destroy that song, man, That's a classic.
(42:23):
And in my mind I was thinking it was it
was the great lead singer the sang for for the
for the Uh for the group, Benny King, Benny King.
I thought it was Benny King, but it wasn't. Okay,
the cat who sang the original version for the Drifters. Man,
(42:44):
what a vocalist he was. If I had remembered that,
I would not have recorded it either. But I didn't
remember who that was that sang that. His name was
Rudy Okay. He was a gospel singer and the originally.
So anyway, now I rearranged the song because it was
boring to me to go bom bomb bomb. It was
(43:06):
in doney, arm let's all right, arm bom bom bomb bo.
I said, oh man, no, we can't do that for
ten minutes. So I changed it to bomb bom bomb,
bom bomb bomb made to make it a TUPA friend
(43:27):
right then I made a staccatto to give it some fire.
Boom boom boom boom boom boxed boom boom boom boom boom.
One of the guys in my band said, now, Josh,
that won't work. I said, what do you mean, what
do you mean that won't work? He said that it
won't work. Joe, that's not the way the song goes.
(43:49):
I said, man, you wasn't even here, You wasn't even
born yet. When you talk about it won't work. He said,
I'm talking man, it won't work. I'm just telling you.
I said, there's a reason why I'm sitting up here
in this leader's seat. I gotta find work for us.
And the way I fire work is keep it up,
(44:11):
keep the fire going, man. I said, no, this is
the way we're gonna record it. I said, can you
play that? He said, oh, yeah, I can play it,
and he played the crap out of it. He tore
it up. The name was Stanley Banks. Okay, great great
bass player, and so Tommy Lapuma. When we went to
hear all of the tracks back. Oh, first of I
(44:34):
have to tell you this. When I took that track
on a cassette, that Auschmidt made for me so I
could listen to what we had done. That night. I
took it back to the hotel and on the patio
near the pool, somebody had a boom box and we
played it and they would not let me take it off.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Play it again.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
He was calling from upstairs, play it again. So we
played it. I said, ah, man, I got a hot
one in my hand. The next day, Tommy the putman, says,
and he played the first version of it that we
did on the first show. I said, where's the where's
the other version? He said, what other version? I said, Man,
(45:13):
come on Friday night second show. He said, George, I
think we rased it man. I said, Tommy, no, how
is that possible? He said, we needed more tape. We
kept running out of tape. So I went back at
the earlier tapes, which I thought was not not good,
(45:34):
and we put them on because we didn't have enough tape.
He didn't that wasn't the real story. He wanted to
take my chance.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yes, the version he liked better. Was it shorter or
just more laid back or yeah?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
He wanted it to sound like the original.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
You got on there.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Oh he tried to tell you. He erased, isn't that
we all know?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah? Oh, now he told me he raced it. Oh.
I got up and walked out of it. I said, man,
you just you mean the best record I ever made?
You raced it. I watched him one mile back to
the hotel. When I got there, he called me and
I said, George, come on back, man, I think I
found it. I got in there. I didn't believe they
had found it. So here I was still apprehensive. I said,
(46:27):
now you're gonna play me another strange version. So I
sat down. I said, no, play me the hit Man please,
and he put that on. I heard it bloom bloom,
and I could hear Chaka Khan in the background say
that said that's the one I'm talking about, and told me,
said that is better. I said, man, get out there better.
(46:49):
That's a knockout.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I'm gonna tell you the very first performance I ever
gave as a drummer, I'm tell you how popular the
song was in seventy seven. By the second grade, I
could actually sit and reach the drum set. And we
had to give like a recital music recital, and it
(47:13):
was my turn. We went in alphabetic order, so I
was last. You're supposed to walk up too the microphone.
My name is Amir Thompson and six years old. This
is second grade, and I'm gonna play Harvey Mason playing
on Broadway. And literally that drum break that they do
(47:33):
boom boom boom boom boom boom, I did that and
that was like that was a moment in which the
audience exploded like that, that moment made my life. That
was the first time I like drummed them in public.
That's the first time my mom and dad knew I
had drumming talent. Like my mom's crying like all that's
(47:58):
that's that's literally how how powerful on Broadway was when
it came out. I have so many questions to ask you,
but I know we only have a little bit, so
we're definitely going to have to do it again.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I mean, you can ask for one about one song,
just one song, and I just want to mention one,
and I want to ask about one. I want to
mention Moody's Mouthful Love because I want to say to you, sir,
that for some of us, you were the introduction to
that song. Like there was no James Moody, it was
just George Benson and so from then on. So thank
you for that, because I've been in love with that
song ever since and everybody's version after that. So, but
(48:34):
my question is about twenty twenty because the video, the video,
the song, like everything, it just felt like such a
departure from what you were used to doing. But it
was such a part of some of our childhood, Like
twenty twenty vision was like let's hear it for the
boys for some of us, you know. So can you
just talk about twenty twenty and a decision to do
that and just tell me something about the song.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I've had the good fortune of surrounding my show was geniuses,
young musicians who were extra talented, and one was a
fellow named Randy Waldman. When Randy Waldman was a kid,
his father caught him coming from school late and said,
wait a minute, No, where in the world have you
(49:19):
been all this time? He said, well, I stopped off
of the baseball field. I was playing baseball. He said, like,
you said you wanted to play piano. He said, well
I do. He said, well, get you in here every
day and play piano, not baseball piano. I want you
here every day and when you hear him play. You
(49:40):
know how that paid off. He ended up working with
Barbara Sisan for about twenty five years as her musical
director and principal pianist, and he did some wonderful things
with an R and B group. He wrote one of
the smashes or arranged it. He's done nothing but spectacular work.
He can do it anything. So one day we're working
(50:03):
on an album and uh, the producer said, I got
this song here, sent to me by such and such,
and uh, they want you to see if you like it.
So they played it for me and I said, it's
got potential. He didn't pay me any money. He sent
it to Randy Waldman, who set up in his kitchen
(50:24):
and played all those beautiful parts. But bomp bong, but
boom bump bump boom boom boom boom, boom, bump bong boo, boom, bump, bump,
boom boom. So when he sent it to us, I said,
what I'm gonna do with this man? But once I
got into it, it fell out of my mouth all
the parts. And then we had Patty Austin, Yes, Patty Austin,
(50:47):
she jumped on that song and did all of the
harmony to all my parts, all my ad libs, and man,
she knocked that song out of the park. It was
so popular. I couldn't believe it, and a pleasure to play.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Thank you, thank you, thank you well, brother Vincent. Look,
our hour is up, but we absolutely must have a
part too, because I think the entire world Steve, do
you have one question? I can wait till part two.
I wanted to just I wanted to ask some CTI questions. Yes, exactly,
we have so many of your jazz life West Montgomery questions. Yes,
(51:25):
like you said, yeah, you're almost like a nine hour episode.
But unfortunately we have to stop at this hour.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
But happy retirement because he mentioned that, and this is like,
this is gonna be the last year people can see you,
right do your life may be sure about that.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I had to stop the regiment of being on the
road because I've been on the road for sixty two years. Yeah,
hop out a mirror.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Wow, exactly, we'll come to you. We'll come to you,
Yes we will, yes, Yes, you know something.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
This is fun.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, you know, I want to remind our audience definitely. Uh,
you know, dreams do Come True is available at your
your latest album, your latest archive, the album.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
And he'll be getting Hollywood Bowl August eighteenth. One to
mention that as well, because that's going to be a
hell of a show.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
All right. I might have to Yeah, I'm in Europe.
I might have to quit the roots then no, but
for real, thank you very much for doing this, and
again we have to have another conversation. This is way
and too important. Too many memories here, but I on
behalf of I'm Big Bill and Sugar Steve and Layah
and myself Quest Love being comparable George Clinton.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh George, Hey, that's good enough.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
I'm writing something for George Clinton. No, I'm doing We're
going to make a record together, believe to do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
The incomparable George Benson, the one and only George Benson.
Thank you so much and I appreciate it and we
will see you on the next go round of Quest
Love Supreme.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Thank you, hey, thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
This podcast is hosted by an Afro amount, a rapper,
an engineer, and a man with too many jobs aka
a mere Quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Why you a Saint?
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Clair Fonte Colman Sugar, Steve Mandel and unpaid Bill Sherman,
the executive producers who get paid the big bucks. A
mere quest loved Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun ask
them for money. Produced by the people who do all
the real work Britney Benjamin, Jake Payne and Yes, why
are you a Saint Clair? Edited by another person who
(53:27):
does the real work, Alex Conroy and those who approved
the real work. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
West. Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. I'm your host Questlove. We
have Teams Supreme with us. Uh byya. How are you today?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Trying not to shake? Kind to shake?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Really excited? I'm really excited.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Let me let me just add that this is the
first show on which I'm acknowledging that we actually have
a YouTube page. And should we remind our listeners that
you know you can watch quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
You should watch it so you can see the beauty
of this man. Yes, and I'm not talking about Questlove.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
There you go exactly. Of course, we know you're talking
about our guests. Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's up?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Broh, hey man, it's good to see. It's good to
see everybody. I'm excited to be here. This is the
mature excited because it is sir. Can see what's up? Bro?
Good share everybody. Yeah, very excited.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm feeling beyond the blue horizon. That's how I can
describe my feelings.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
There you go, There you go. Yeah, this is going
to be a quickie. I'm gona try and knock out
sixty years worth of magic inside of an hour, so
let's see if this goes way one could do it.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's us let's go.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yes, of course, here we go. I will say that
you know it's been about we last spoke like a
month ago, and we couldn't ask for a better way
to come back with Today's Guests. And Today's Guest released
his first solo album sixty years ago. Our guest today
has won ten Grammys, he has topped the charts. He's
(01:31):
collaborated with so many legends. I mean he's legendary himself.
But of course, uh name it played, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder,
Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancott, and recently he's released or kind
of re released, although it wasn't officially released. I'd like
to get the story behind how do you have a
lost album in the archives? But dreams do come true?
(01:54):
And it came from his archive, and we are very
excited to have be incomparable Pittsburgh's own Yen's, Yen's Power,
George Benson's A Quest Love Supreme. Yeah, how you you
know what? Every My mom's from Pittsburgh, and every time
(02:15):
I meet someone from Pittsburgh, I try to catch them
saying the word YenS are you that deep of a
Pittsburgh or your your you don't YenS is not in
your vocabulary.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh that's okay. I've heard it all my life, but
now that I'm out here in the Midwest, that would
be as common as breathing.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh really, okay, well it's good to have you. Wait,
can you explain to me how far in the archives
was this album and what was the idea behind releasing it?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Well many years ago, after having so much success in
the music business, I said, what haven't I done? And
I thought of something that I always wanted to do,
to work with a symphony orchestra. A person who conducted
symphony orchestras for a long time, a person who's got
(03:11):
great control of the music and the musicians, who's very
comfortable with that situation. There's no better place than London
and the London Symphony Orchestra. But one thing was missing.
I had a lot of arrangers I had worked with
over the years. All of them were very competent and
very good at what they did. So I went to
Quincy Jones and I said, Quincy, who is the baddest
(03:35):
cat on the planet right now? Because you know, we
lost a few people he said, Josh, let me tell
you man, the baddest cat in the world. There's two names,
he said. One of them is Robert Farning. I said, wow,
and where's he? He said, well, he's somewhere in London,
(03:55):
he said, but that's the cat I recommend. So I
went over to London and I found a guy who
was one of his best friends, and he introduced me
to him. And it went by so fast because the
man is an expert writing music and conducting orchestra. Was
like breathing with him. Okay, So we got together and
(04:16):
I told him what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure,
so I picked a lot of things, you know, some
popular things because I didn't want to go straight classic
orchestra and just try to be Frank Sinatra. We agreed
on some things. Next thing I know, I was in
the studio standing next to him, getting ready to do
my part, and the orchestra started playing and I said,
(04:40):
oh boy, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that.
I never heard anything like that. Eighty six pieces, all
eighty seven pieces of the London Symphony Orchestra and the
greatest arranger in the world and his arrangements were so magnificent.
I couldn't even speak. So I said, maybe I'll just
(05:04):
sit and listen to the music, take in the environment.
And I did that for a couple of days. He
did seventeen songs. He may have been two three days.
I took that stuff home to back to America, to
New York, and I just listened and I said, well,
maybe I can do this song, maybe I can do
(05:25):
this one. Now I have to work on this. This
is magnificent. I said, no, I better not try this.
So between me and the record company, we had an agreement.
We were not going to put it out at that time. Okay,
next thing I know, we put it in a warehouse
(05:46):
and forgot all about it. During that time, mister Farning
passed away and I was still hearing bits and pieces
of the music, and every time I heard it, I said, man,
I gotta find this music and put it back together.
But I never did until recently. I had left Warner Brothers.
(06:06):
I was with them for about twenty one years with
a lot of success. So I left the company and
started doing bits and pieces with different record companies, and
I asked some success there too. But now I went
back to Warners I said, well, since I'm getting ready
to retire, my greatest desire would be to do another
record for Warners because they got all my good stuff
(06:27):
and I want this to go in with that. So
I asked my secretary to arrange a meeting with me
and the executives over there, and we had a great meeting.
He heard the music and said, wow, we got to
put this out and that was fantastic. There's a lot
more to it, but I think you got some other
(06:49):
questions you might want to ask.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We're nerds Paradise, so you're right now giving us catnip.
I love when a plan like that comes together, like
I love when lost albums and lost projects are finalized.
And I'm glad that you know you had completion for
our fans that listen to the show that are music heads.
You can recall when it took Brian Wilson like fifty
(07:14):
years to finish the Smile record.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, so I'm glad you finished it. Wait. I have
a question, though, so are you saying that this is
the largest orchestra you've ever worked with?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I think so because I work with the New York
Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Chicago'symphony Orchestra, the Spurg
Symphony Orchestra. That might have been a full orchestra. Maybe
it was eighty seven pieces. Maybe I've done that too, So.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
I have a question. I want to jump ahead too
far on the timeline, but I gotta know. For me,
one of my favorite intros of all time is the
first fifteen seconds of Breazon. Just the way that that
like to me, the sound of happiness and safety and
(08:06):
like whatever, Like when I think of like a good
fuzzy memory, that song is the soundtrack when I think
of like, you know, it's something simple, you think, I mean,
it could be going to an amusement park or playing
tag or whatever. But for me, but in my mind,
that was like at least a fifty piece orchestra. Do
(08:28):
you recall like how big the orchestra was for the
Breezing project.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
No, because that was a sweetening session. Those were were
put on after the recordings got it, okay, But it
was an incredible, incredible situation that happened then. Okay. I
had a great band full of young, passionate, expert, very
(08:55):
creative young musicians and we were all excited because we
hadn't been working together, you know, and we practiced all
the time, at least three days a week when we
were on the road, with practice every day. So when
we did a gig, actually the gig was so easy
after because the rehearsals was so intense, the gig was
super easy. And there was a situation that happened. People
(09:18):
started calling us to open for superstars, and my band
was not known yet. I had somewhat of a reputation
but no hit records yet. So whenever they called us
to open for somebody, half of the audience left when
my show was finished, and I remember I'm the opening act,
(09:40):
so I began to notice that and they said, George,
too bad, We're not you know that we don't have
a hit record. That's the only thing we needed. So
through this man, Tommy Lapuma, who had heard me sing
five years ago before this record was released, he said
he couldn't understand why record companies were not using my voice.
(10:01):
So I selected him to be my producer at Warner Brothers,
whom I had just signed to contact with, and he
came up with the song dis Masquerade.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
That's the first time your vocals were recorded with Macarade.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Well, that's the first time we had anything meaningful, and
the rest of them nobody paid my voice any attention.
Even my own manager said, George, you're one of the
world's best guitar player, but you ain't no singer. And
I said to him, you know, I wasn't insulted because
I had given up singing many years before. And I said,
you know, it's strange that we could listen to the
(10:36):
chipmunks and give them a work and give them a hearing,
but you won't give me one. It won't give me
a chance. And so but Tommy Lapuma found the right arranger,
which is a consistent what you were talking about earlier.
Klaus Augermann. Yes, absolutely. I remember Tommy Lapuma coming to
me asked me, said, George, what do you think about
(10:59):
Klaus Ogerman doing the arrangements for your new album. I
had heard some stuff he had done earlier, and I said, yeah,
that's the man. And so he went to London, got
kicked out of the studio. You didn't book enough time,
and so they went to finish the album in Germany.
(11:22):
So you had two different oysters on this on this album,
but the same same arranger. Klaus Owen he sent me
the test pressings. I heard that orchestra. I said, wow,
these guys said, put a tuck seedo on me.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Man.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
The dressed me right up. And at first I didn't
particularly care that much for this masquerade. To me, it
was just another vocal, you know, and nicely done. I
liked what the band did. We only had one take
on it. By the way, what only there's only one
take on that song because Tommy Lapoom, after saying he
loved he wanted to hear me sing on the record.
(12:00):
The instrumentals were going so good, you know, with breezing
and quite a few others. He said, no, I'm not
gonna put a vocal on thiselve. I said, man, you
made me learn this crazy song. I called it a
crazy song. I said, man, let's recall it at least
one time. So they put up a very funky microphone
(12:20):
something people never sing in. They use them talk programs,
you know, one of them long microphones, and you would
see on the Johnny Carson Show. And so when I
heard it back, I said, it doesn't sound that bad,
except I don't like the mid rangers and the great
engineer he turned the button knocked some of the low end.
(12:45):
I said, oh, that's better. Do it again. He did
one more click click. I said that's even better. He said,
we gonna stop right there. He said, if I do
it one more time, you'll sound like Mickey Mouse. I said,
that's a leave it there. Tommy LiPuma ran out of
the studio and ran and broke up a meeting they
(13:06):
were having at at Warner Brothers. The big wigs were
at this long oval shaped table talking about money, you know,
and he took all of his recording equipment over because
he never does any playback without his own stuff. So
he set up the recording. He said, no, this meeting
is over. He's telling the big the money guys, this
(13:29):
meeting is over. You must you gotta hear this record.
So he played this Masquerade and he said, well, wait
a minute, man, who is that who's singing? And they
said he said George Benson And they said, but I
thought he was a gutsire player. He said, well yeah,
but he also sings. So he played the record and
(13:51):
they said, well, we're gonna get this now. This was
before they put the orchestra on. Wow, okay, he said,
I'm not finished with it yet. You say I got
work to do on this record, and I didn't know
he was going to do all of this. I didn't
know how he was going to get it dumb, but
when he sent me a test pressing, it was hard
to believe that it was me, all dressed up and
(14:11):
with this fabulous orchestra with great songs, one of the
baddest bands in the country. These young boys were energetic
and fresh and very creative. The album came out. I
we'll talk about that what happened later with that, but
the album was a monster.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
I just want to know on Maskuarade where your mind
was when you started the song, Like when you started
it the way you did with I guess I would
say you were scatting, but you weren't, and you were
just doing the guitar parts right like when you first started.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I think they call it legato. I forget the word
they use for that. Harvey Mason one of the world's
greatest drummers, and he was young and energetic then still
going strong now he always is. I said, all right,
Harvey counted off, and he started counting one, two, and
I said, oh, hold it, hold it right there. I said, hooray,
(15:08):
play these changes and I played the changes for him
and he I said, and uh, loosen it up. We're
gonna leave. We're gonna play legato, no rhythm, I said.
And then Harvey count the time off. So we played it.
Play those things, dude, I asked Tommy Lapooma, leave the
(15:29):
mic up, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something with
the improvisations in the beginning and in the middle, okay,
And he uh, he said, okay. He didn't have much
confidence in it because he was gonna throw the record
out anyway. He had made up in his mind that
the instrumentals were too great to a sacrifice to one vocal.
(15:49):
So uh, they did that great intro, and that young
boy or the young man at the time, he was
like in his early twenties, and he was fresh in
the band. He had just joined the band team. Oh
you mean a grey doubt though, And I'm glad you
mentioned that, because there was a great thing about those
(16:11):
two playing together. But Hora did that intro and played
that semi classical accompaniment behind my vocal, which gave it
a whole new, fresh approach. And Willie did it one time.
M And Tommy Lupuma said to me, George, we could
be here all night. It'll never get better than that.
(16:32):
I said, I think you're right. So I left it
alone and here comes Bobby Womack getting ready to record
reason with me because I begged that he come to
the studio and give me something fresh to play on
the record. And he came in the studio and he said, hey,
man during the playback, who in the world? And he
didn't use the word world. He has had an age
(16:55):
on it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Right right, right, right right?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Who got a record? He got a force like that?
Tell me the boomer saying that's George Benson. Man, he said,
but I thought he George Benson. This guitar player he
said yeah, but he also and that was the beginning
it let us know that this record was going to
be something special.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I remember in my dad's band, musicians arguing the first
time I heard musicians sort of having like kind of
a heated debate. My dad's bass player would have put
his entire life in saying that this masquerade was Donnie Hathaway.
(17:44):
He's like, nah, man, that's Donnie Hathaway. And this is
the first time I'm hearing of you. And I remember
my dad's sax player, like, no, man, I'm telling you
this George Benson. George Benson the guitar player. Now, man,
this is Donnie Hathaway. And they were just like that
was the first time I seen like almost It wasn't pugilistic,
(18:04):
but it was like almost an argument brewing. Like of
course they had other history of tension, but I definitely
remember because I was under the impression that that was
Donnie Hathaway singing. And that argument lasted for like almost
ten minutes and got really heated. So I always wanted
to know that. That's another thing I found out maybe
(18:28):
two years ago. I was not aware that Bobby Womack
had written Breezing. How did you know about that song
to even ask him for it?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's another incredible story we're here for. I heard the
original version of it. The original version was by Goborzabo
and he was from Hungary. I remember when he first
came to the United States during the Hungarian Revolution in
the mid fifties, and he played with Chico Hamilton's band
(19:00):
that was a great jazz ensemble. So I heard them
play live when I was a kid, that was a teenager,
and then this record came out reason it was super fucky.
I mean, it was really a unique record because he
played folk music basically, but he wanted to be a
(19:21):
jazz player. The ironic thing is my piano player was
like that about Argentine where he came from. He wanted
to be a jazz player, but he played Argentine folk
music when he grew up. So they were adding that
kind of romantic feeling to their jazz, which gave it
a unique flavor. So I would never stop catch from
(19:44):
being who they are. I didn't force them to be
who I wanted them to be. I let them be
who they are, and that works better. I learned that
from Miles Davis. Don't tell them what to play or
how to play it, just let them be themselves. So anyway,
I never thought about me playing that song because I
never thought anybody could come up to that that vibe
(20:05):
they had on that record. And actually the song was
written by both men, okay by Goboy's a bo and
Bobby Woomack and Goo Boar. He didn't want to have
nothing to do with it because he didn't care about
things like that. He had a little problem, some chemical problems,
(20:25):
and so he didn't care about things like that. But
that record he would have made a fortune like Bobby
Womack did. And so that's how it got off the ground.
And when tell me Lapuma asked me to record it,
I said, absolutely not. I'm not gonna make that record.
He said why not? I said, man, that's not me. Man.
People have been trying to get me to record it
(20:46):
or to play it live, and I wouldn't do it.
Almost got into rumbles with people, you know, several times.
So when he asked me to do it, I said, oh,
here it comes again. And then I woke up. I've
had to do this many times in my career. This
was one of the times where it worked beautifully. I said, Tommy,
(21:09):
if you can get Bobby Womack to come to the studio,
maybe he can add something to the record that's not there.
Maybe he can help do something different to make the record,
give it another twist. So he called Bobby and that's
when Bobby entered into the studio, listening to the playback
of this Masquerade and asking who it was. Now it
was his turn. He said, there was always something I
(21:31):
wanted to put on this record, and I didn't get
a chance to do it. I said, what's that man,
he said, do it because that's what was not on
the original recording, right. And even though I don't think
my version is as good as the original recording, I
like it better because it's another twist to this and
(21:54):
it made it sound more contemporary. So that that was
the difference between that version, and that's how they got
off the ground.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
The seventies were very peculiar time for jazz artists. You know,
after kind of like a twenty year let's say between
nineteen forty and all right, let's say thirty years between
nineteen forty nineteen seventy, there was this like serious jazz movement.
Of course, you know, once certain figures in the art
(22:23):
form were sort of stretching the boundaries with you know,
Coltrane stretching the vocabulary and what Miles was doing and whatnot. However,
I'm always curious, and I always ask people that were
like serious, because you know, I had to sort of
work backwards. It's because of hip hop that I realized
how serious of a jazz artist you were, because you know,
(22:45):
by the time I discovered you, you were already singing,
so I knew you as a singer. But it wasn't
until hip hop sampling that I was like, oh my god,
Like George Benson is one of the greatest jazz guitars
of all time. But let me ask you when it
came to the transition of doing pop music, and it's
not just you, James m. Toomey, Raggie, Lucas Narratimichael Walden,
(23:09):
like a lot of these serious musician cats in the
mid seventies sort of made this decision to migrate to
not even just soul music, but like to pop music.
So at the time, did you have any trepidation whatsoever
of like, wait a minute, I'm a serious jazz artist
(23:30):
and now you want me to sing pop? Like were
you worried at all about like if Downbeat Magazine was
going to roast you or for going pop or whatnot,
Like was that even a concern?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
It was a very trying time for a lot of musicians,
the ones you mentioned, the cats I worked with in
the early days. I was thinking about James Toomey. He
still owes me some money. Man Cold never did play
for the sessions he used to do at while house.
He said, I had a recording studio in my garage
and he'd bring guys over and try out new stuff,
(24:03):
and he brought Reggie Lucas over and we became friends
the whole trip. Man Norman Connors working with the girl
from my hometown, philis Simon Hillo Simon. She was from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,
and she's from Philly, but yeah, from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
And we were all going through it.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There was no way we were going to get the
prestige that had been earned by so many of those
great people that you talked about earlier, Miles Davis. They
had forty years on us, thirty years on us, twenty
years on. We were just coming up kids, you know,
youngsters in New York. We were like the new Lions,
but we had know nothing of our own that could
(24:50):
give us, you know, a seat beside these monstrous musicians
that who taught us how to play and set up
this wonderful music called bebop and mo jazz and the
new stuff, you know, the ascid what the kids called
acid jazz. But that was a very, very trying time.
(25:11):
I learned that first thing you need it begins with
a great song. Breezon taught me that I never would
have been able to cross over without reason Reason was
a very well loved song. No, no, not Reason only
the Breason album on speaking of it, which the song
this Masquerade came out of. The lyric lent itself to
(25:36):
a whole different society because they already loved the composer
of the song, and I had never heard it before.
When Temmy Lapuma asked me if I heard it before?
You ever heard the song? I said no, and I
didn't particularly care about it. I said, that's not for
my kind of artists. And when I found out who
it was, Jorge, my piano players, his wife said, oh,
(26:01):
that's Russell, Leon Russell. I said to myself, who there?
Because Leon Russell I didn't know anything about him, never
heard her. She said, that's my favorite artist. I said, oh,
I better learned this song because Tommy said it to
me too three times and I wouldn't even listen to
it more than once. So I learned the song. That's
why when we went back and he said we're not
(26:21):
going to record it, I said, what after you made
me learn this crazy song? Man, we're not going to
record it? So he to get rid of me, he said, okay,
well record it one time. Let's do it in other words,
let's get it over with. So that song came out
(26:42):
as the greatest surprise of my life because it went
so far and you were speaking about Donnie Hathaway. The
other guy they thought it might be was Stevie Wonder, Yes,
because he had the record out in years. He hadn't
recorded something out in like maybe a year or two.
When it came out, they said, gotta be, gotta be
(27:03):
Stevie when that's the only person I can think of, right,
and like your dad, they swore it was that it
was him or either, like you said, Donny halfway. So
that's what got the record the airplay that it needed.
They would give the record away if you could tell
them who it was. Very few people guessed who it
was on the record. They all said, oh, I know
(27:23):
who that is. Everybody knows that's Stevie Wonder. Oh that's
Donny Hathaway. And that's got us the airplay we needed
in places we never would have gotten without it.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
So let me ask you. In the winter of nineteen
seventy seven, you're sitting down in a theater and you
hear this. You hear the nominees for Record of the
Year is fifty ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon,
Afternoon Delight by Starland Vocal Band, Wow, I write the
(27:57):
songs by Barry Memory and if You Leave Me Now
by Chicago. When they say and the winner is previous
to that moment, did you really think you had a
chance in hell to win Record of the Year above
those records?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Not a chance? N Ah, No, I didn't have a chance.
But I love the other records, the big ones. If
You Leave Me Now by Chicago, Yeah, there was a
spectacular recording. And you could not bury Manlow out of
nothing because he had nothing but multi platinum records all
(28:38):
of his career. Just about. So I got up early,
hoping I could beat people to the parking lot because
there was a lot of people in that place, and
I had already won two Grammys, so I was very
very happy. I said, oh man, this is I'm gonna
go home and start braging about my two Grammys. I
got up and Barbara Stradez I said, and the winner
(28:59):
is Jeorde Benson. I startled, man, and looked around. I
couldn't just said that, you know, And I looked over
Tommy looked to find my noies in the theater, somewhere,
I went up front and when Tommy came up, I
kissed him on his bald head. I don't believe I
(29:20):
did that. I saw that later, But that was the
most incredible thing that ever happened to me in my life.
And it showed me that nothing is impossible. That this,
this album I came up with, this this fresh and
new called Dreams Do Come True, has a lot to
(29:41):
do with that, that concept, that that idea, that that
way of thinking, nothing is impossible. Man.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
So when you're in that moment and you I think
that night, you on four altogether correct.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I won three three and there were two more that
came toward the album though for other people, but the
engineer Al Schmidt, and I think Tommy Lpum a producer.
So we won five our five grammar.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I've all together. So like, how does your life change
that night when you go to sleep and you go
to bed and you wake up the next morning as
a five time that project winning five Grammys, Like what
happens to you after that?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's like I had been born on another planet, reborn,
and the name of the planet was George Benson. Because
everything came to me, everything I ever imagine came to me.
They came through my management. Everybody wanted to get in
touch with us for something, and I was not used
to that kind of attention. My mind was still on
(30:48):
kicking butt on the guitar with my bad band.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
We had a great band, you know, and I couldn't
think beyond that because I've never been that big of
a star, you know, been known by people in the
jazz world and R and B world and some of
the pop world, but that kind of fame was highly unknown.
But I begin to see the world differently after that.
(31:15):
There was a lot more to conquer. We were in
a position where we could either help or hurt what
was going on in the world musically. Jazz musicians were
mad at us. The R and B people didn't know
what the heck it is we were trying to do
accomplished because we weren't sounded like Motown and you couldn't anyway.
(31:35):
Nobody could compete with Marvin gay Man or Stevie Wonder,
So I didn't even try that stuff. One thing that
time taught me all the time it took me to
gain the success that I got through the album Reaching. Remember,
I was thirty three years old when that happened, So
I considered myself in the old man. You know what
I'm saying, Man, I'm getting out of this business. I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
You know. No, there's many more albums after That's why.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh wow, man, let me see. Since that was the
first with Warners, and I think I did, I don't know,
fourteen albums with Warners, twenty one albums I can't remember now,
and with other people. In total, I think I've recorded
about seventy albums, but there are two hundred and something
with my name on the cover, so a lot is transpired.
(32:22):
But what a responsibility?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
This is a question I always wanted to ask and
never knew the answer to because it's not in the
liner notes. But can you please settle this for me?
Are you playing on Another Star by Stevie Wonder on
songs in the Kiev Life? Is that you scatting at
the end? That's me?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
No, no, Plus I'm singing along with wonderlum la la
la la.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You're not in the liner notes, but I kept hearing
your voice because at the end you just start scatting,
and right on the fade out you can keep right there.
You hear the scatting, and I was like, yo, is
that him?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Like, does that mean it was a favor? Well?
Speaker 1 (33:10):
See these to kind of just grab people.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Oh yeah, that's true too. He was that kind of guy.
But I let him be who he is. That's what
makes him so great. He's always coming with something that
you don't expect, and it's always a one. What he
does is so classy, and I think that's why we
got along very well. He was coming to my shows
when I was playing on the Chitlin circuit. He would
show up at a nightclub somewhere in America, mostly on
(33:36):
the East Coast, because he was going with a girl
who later married when he did the song Isn't She Lovely?
I think he married her. I think she's from Pittsburgh,
her hometown. So one day he came to the club
where I was playing that night, and nobody believed it
(33:56):
was him. He was so popular you couldn't convince it
anybody in the place, even though I said, Steve, I
think he might have came up and played something for us,
but nobody believed that Stevie Wonder was in the club.
But he was on a lot of the gigs that
I did. He'd show up and he would always tooth
for us and live television shows. We'd be doing live
(34:18):
TV in Hollywood and he brusht out the back of
the curtain and jump on the you know, in front
of the camera. Only he could get away with that
kind of thing. I've always loved him. I loved him
since I think I first heard him when he was
about fourteen or fifteen years old. I knew he was
not going to be ordinary.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
George, can I ask you about another collaboratoral Quick, because
we talked about breezing and you actually redid this song
with him with lyrics, which I thought was kind of ill.
And y'all are both to me like the voices of
our generation. Algiero. I don't hear enough stories about Algibo.
Can you just tell me, like how wondrous was collaborating
with Alderreau.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
He's one of those guys that come along. It's only
one of them lifetime. You're so original. From the time
he opened the mouth, you've got you know who it
is and you know it's going to be good. And
going on the road with him was it took some
some rough thinking because uh, career wise, we were way
(35:20):
ahead and we made a lot of money. We had
a lot of prestiges all over the world, and we
were always first on the you know, on the marquee
outside you would be George Benson and Algero. A lot
of people didn't like that because they love Algero together. What, yeah,
(35:40):
we worked together.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Okay, after you asked this, I got a million dollar
question to ask you.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Good. Yeah, So I I felt strange about us being
on the show, and he he wasn't used to being
second to nobody. Matter of fact, we both joined Warner
Brothers on the same day. We auditioned at the place
where one of the Kennedys was murdered. It was a hotel,
(36:07):
and this was a couple of years after that, a
few years after that, and we both sang or performed
the same song, take five, and you know, his version
was pretty sleek, moved by you know, he's so great.
And so we went on tour and we found some
songs and a couple of them he wasn't comfortable with.
(36:30):
He said, George, why do you want me to do
that song? I said, Oh, it wouldn't make me do
what you did. Your voice is unique and I think
people need to hear you do this kind of song
because you're not known for this, but they should hear
you do this kind of thing. That let him know
you can sing anything. And so we ended up doing
some crazy things together. They came out great. One was
(36:55):
that last song in the show about seeing you again
until next time. I can't remember the title, but it was.
It came out great. We made lots of money, and
we knocked them out everywhere in the world. Pat it
was great man.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Okay. So this is mainly a question about Al Schmidt,
because I think Al Schmidt's engineering is so unique sounding
that this is what I want to know Number one
for me, Your Weekend in the La album and also
(37:32):
Algirose looked to the Rainbow album. Both engineered by him
have such a distinct sound to it that I swear
to God, you guys recorded it in the studio and
just overdubbed the audience on top of it like I've
never heard it. It sounds too perfect to be a
(37:52):
live album.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Al Schmidt, who used to set up the microphones for
his uncle, I believe it was when he was a youngster.
When Al was young, his uncle said, well, go said
I got a session today, go over and set up
the microphones for me, so and get it ready for me.
So he knew exactly where to place microphones to get
(38:16):
the sound that he wanted. And when I by the
time I got there, he was already he had finished
up all of that because he never was involved in
that while we were recording.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Oh okay, he did it all in front.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
He listened to go in the studio and he go
next to the drums, and they replaced the microphone, so
forth and so on. I was embarrassed one day when
I got ready to say to him, you know, the
piano sounds a little bit thin to me, I was
almost in tears. Why doesn't he puts some bass on
that microphone? Man, I'm gonna tell him about that. Then
(38:53):
something that said, man, leave it alone. Man. When I
heard those recordings back, I said, man, that would have
been the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,
because hisself was always right on the money. But he
told me the story of how he got to be
al Schmidt. Tell me he said that because you know
(39:14):
he used to do Sam Cook records years ago. Yeah,
one day we had a big running because I'm dealing
with like you said about heated arguments or heated discussions.
There's always something like that between producers and artists. And
Tommy Lapumer, who did not like to argue. He would
(39:37):
keep his mouth shup, but you could tell what he
was feeling because he would hint to his feelings on things.
And so one day we were arguing about a live
album weekend in La Yes, we were at the club
in Hollywood. I forget the name of a the Roxy Theater, Yeah,
(40:00):
the Roxy Theater. On it was either on Hollywood or
Boulevard or Sunset Villa Sunset. My father who had begged
me to take him out to California with him on
he heard I was going to California. He said, man,
I haven't seen my dad, your grandfather for twenty years.
And I said, okay, Dad, come on with me now.
You have a lot of fun. So my grandfather was there,
(40:23):
My dad was there, Chaka Khan was there, Wretha Franklin.
They were down front having a discussion. Aretha Franklin had
to fend off Shaka Khan because she wanted to jump
on the band's land and have a battle with her.
I said, not on my set.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
No.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
It was incredible, man. Well here's the Biggie with that.
The first night, the second show, we did that version
that you hear of on Broadway. Yes, I remember that
was not a song that was in my playlist outside
of the that we decided to record it, and so
I had to dream of something to do with it, right,
And it was Quincy Jones again who gave me the fop.
(41:04):
I said, now, wait a minute, now, why should I
pay this in the attention? He gave me a clue.
He said, you know, Jarish, many years ago, everything used
to be a one bar phrase. Now it's two bar fraens,
I said, what the heck is he talking about? Because
I don't measure music. I just play it. Oh so
(41:28):
you know, I just play it and when it comes
to my thought my brain, I let it hang out
and let my brain handle it and my vibe, my
feelings pour it out to the people.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
So when he said that two bar phrase, it bothered me.
I had to find out what he was talking about.
Then I heard a song by Rod Temperton a bone
Be Doom, bone bean be, do bop bang be dang
first bar with us, I said, oh, that's two bars.
That phrase finishes that the two bars first half is
(42:02):
bomb but on bomb be you know, four beasts, one
beat again, boom beat on four. Oh. I got it.
So when Tommy the Poomer asked me to do on Broadway,
I said, oh no, man, He said, what do you mean?
I said, I can't destroy that song, man, That's a classic.
(42:23):
And in my mind I was thinking it was it
was the great lead singer the sang for for the
for the Uh for the group, Benny King, Benny King.
I thought it was Benny King, but it wasn't. Okay,
the cat who sang the original version for the Drifters. Man,
(42:44):
what a vocalist he was. If I had remembered that,
I would not have recorded it either. But I didn't
remember who that was that sang that. His name was
Rudy Okay. He was a gospel singer and the originally.
So anyway, now I rearranged the song because it was
boring to me to go bom bomb bomb. It was
(43:06):
in doney, arm let's all right, arm bom bom bomb bo.
I said, oh man, no, we can't do that for
ten minutes. So I changed it to bomb bom bomb,
bom bomb bomb made to make it a TUPA friend
(43:27):
right then I made a staccatto to give it some fire.
Boom boom boom boom boom boxed boom boom boom boom boom.
One of the guys in my band said, now, Josh,
that won't work. I said, what do you mean, what
do you mean that won't work? He said that it
won't work. Joe, that's not the way the song goes.
(43:49):
I said, man, you wasn't even here, You wasn't even
born yet. When you talk about it won't work. He said,
I'm talking man, it won't work. I'm just telling you.
I said, there's a reason why I'm sitting up here
in this leader's seat. I gotta find work for us.
And the way I fire work is keep it up,
(44:11):
keep the fire going, man. I said, no, this is
the way we're gonna record it. I said, can you
play that? He said, oh, yeah, I can play it,
and he played the crap out of it. He tore
it up. The name was Stanley Banks. Okay, great great
bass player, and so Tommy Lapuma. When we went to
hear all of the tracks back. Oh, first of I
(44:34):
have to tell you this. When I took that track
on a cassette, that Auschmidt made for me so I
could listen to what we had done. That night. I
took it back to the hotel and on the patio
near the pool, somebody had a boom box and we
played it and they would not let me take it off.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Play it again.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
He was calling from upstairs, play it again. So we
played it. I said, ah, man, I got a hot
one in my hand. The next day, Tommy the putman, says,
and he played the first version of it that we
did on the first show. I said, where's the where's
the other version? He said, what other version? I said, Man,
(45:13):
come on Friday night second show. He said, George, I
think we rased it man. I said, Tommy, no, how
is that possible? He said, we needed more tape. We
kept running out of tape. So I went back at
the earlier tapes, which I thought was not not good,
(45:34):
and we put them on because we didn't have enough tape.
He didn't that wasn't the real story. He wanted to
take my chance.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yes, the version he liked better. Was it shorter or
just more laid back or yeah?
Speaker 2 (45:51):
He wanted it to sound like the original.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
You got on there.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Oh he tried to tell you. He erased, isn't that
we all know?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah? Oh, now he told me he raced it. Oh.
I got up and walked out of it. I said, man,
you just you mean the best record I ever made?
You raced it. I watched him one mile back to
the hotel. When I got there, he called me and
I said, George, come on back, man, I think I
found it. I got in there. I didn't believe they
had found it. So here I was still apprehensive. I said,
(46:27):
now you're gonna play me another strange version. So I
sat down. I said, no, play me the hit Man please,
and he put that on. I heard it bloom bloom,
and I could hear Chaka Khan in the background say
that said that's the one I'm talking about, and told me,
said that is better. I said, man, get out there better.
(46:49):
That's a knockout.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
I'm gonna tell you the very first performance I ever
gave as a drummer, I'm tell you how popular the
song was in seventy seven. By the second grade, I
could actually sit and reach the drum set. And we
had to give like a recital music recital, and it
(47:13):
was my turn. We went in alphabetic order, so I
was last. You're supposed to walk up too the microphone.
My name is Amir Thompson and six years old. This
is second grade, and I'm gonna play Harvey Mason playing
on Broadway. And literally that drum break that they do
(47:33):
boom boom boom boom boom boom, I did that and
that was like that was a moment in which the
audience exploded like that, that moment made my life. That
was the first time I like drummed them in public.
That's the first time my mom and dad knew I
had drumming talent. Like my mom's crying like all that's
(47:58):
that's that's literally how how powerful on Broadway was when
it came out. I have so many questions to ask you,
but I know we only have a little bit, so
we're definitely going to have to do it again.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
I mean, you can ask for one about one song,
just one song, and I just want to mention one,
and I want to ask about one. I want to
mention Moody's Mouthful Love because I want to say to you, sir,
that for some of us, you were the introduction to
that song. Like there was no James Moody, it was
just George Benson and so from then on. So thank
you for that, because I've been in love with that
song ever since and everybody's version after that. So, but
(48:34):
my question is about twenty twenty because the video, the video,
the song, like everything, it just felt like such a
departure from what you were used to doing. But it
was such a part of some of our childhood, Like
twenty twenty vision was like let's hear it for the
boys for some of us, you know. So can you
just talk about twenty twenty and a decision to do
that and just tell me something about the song.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
I've had the good fortune of surrounding my show was geniuses,
young musicians who were extra talented, and one was a
fellow named Randy Waldman. When Randy Waldman was a kid,
his father caught him coming from school late and said,
wait a minute, No, where in the world have you
(49:19):
been all this time? He said, well, I stopped off
of the baseball field. I was playing baseball. He said, like,
you said you wanted to play piano. He said, well
I do. He said, well, get you in here every
day and play piano, not baseball piano. I want you
here every day and when you hear him play. You
(49:40):
know how that paid off. He ended up working with
Barbara Sisan for about twenty five years as her musical
director and principal pianist, and he did some wonderful things
with an R and B group. He wrote one of
the smashes or arranged it. He's done nothing but spectacular work.
He can do it anything. So one day we're working
(50:03):
on an album and uh, the producer said, I got
this song here, sent to me by such and such,
and uh, they want you to see if you like it.
So they played it for me and I said, it's
got potential. He didn't pay me any money. He sent
it to Randy Waldman, who set up in his kitchen
(50:24):
and played all those beautiful parts. But bomp bong, but
boom bump bump boom boom boom boom, boom, bump bong boo, boom, bump, bump,
boom boom. So when he sent it to us, I said,
what I'm gonna do with this man? But once I
got into it, it fell out of my mouth all
the parts. And then we had Patty Austin, Yes, Patty Austin,
(50:47):
she jumped on that song and did all of the
harmony to all my parts, all my ad libs, and man,
she knocked that song out of the park. It was
so popular. I couldn't believe it, and a pleasure to play.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Thank you, thank you, thank you well, brother Vincent. Look,
our hour is up, but we absolutely must have a
part too, because I think the entire world Steve, do
you have one question? I can wait till part two.
I wanted to just I wanted to ask some CTI questions. Yes, exactly,
we have so many of your jazz life West Montgomery questions. Yes,
(51:25):
like you said, yeah, you're almost like a nine hour episode.
But unfortunately we have to stop at this hour.
Speaker 3 (51:31):
But happy retirement because he mentioned that, and this is like,
this is gonna be the last year people can see you,
right do your life may be sure about that.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I had to stop the regiment of being on the
road because I've been on the road for sixty two years. Yeah,
hop out a mirror.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
Wow, exactly, we'll come to you. We'll come to you,
Yes we will, yes, Yes, you know something.
Speaker 3 (51:54):
I like this.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
This is fun.
Speaker 1 (51:56):
Yeah, you know, I want to remind our audience definitely. Uh,
you know, dreams do Come True is available at your
your latest album, your latest archive, the album.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
And he'll be getting Hollywood Bowl August eighteenth. One to
mention that as well, because that's going to be a
hell of a show.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
All right. I might have to Yeah, I'm in Europe.
I might have to quit the roots then no, but
for real, thank you very much for doing this, and
again we have to have another conversation. This is way
and too important. Too many memories here, but I on
behalf of I'm Big Bill and Sugar Steve and Layah
and myself Quest Love being comparable George Clinton.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh George, Hey, that's good enough.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
I'm writing something for George Clinton. No, I'm doing We're
going to make a record together, believe to do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (52:45):
The incomparable George Benson, the one and only George Benson.
Thank you so much and I appreciate it and we
will see you on the next go round of Quest
Love Supreme.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Thank you, hey, thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
This podcast is hosted by an Afro amount, a rapper,
an engineer, and a man with too many jobs aka
a mere Quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Why you a Saint?
Speaker 3 (53:05):
Clair Fonte Colman Sugar, Steve Mandel and unpaid Bill Sherman,
the executive producers who get paid the big bucks. A
mere quest loved Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun ask
them for money. Produced by the people who do all
the real work Britney Benjamin, Jake Payne and Yes, why
are you a Saint Clair? Edited by another person who
(53:27):
does the real work, Alex Conroy and those who approved
the real work. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
West. Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
3. Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.