George Benson
FameRank: 8

"George Benson" is a ten-time Grammy Award-winning American musician and singer-songwriter. He began his professional career at twenty-one, as a jazz guitarist. Benson uses a rest-stroke picking technique similar to that of gypsy jazz players such as Django Reinhardt.

A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, rhythm and blues/R&B singing, and scat singing. His album Breezin' was certified triple-music recording sales certification/platinum on the Billboard 200/Billboard 200 chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. He has received a List of stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame#B/star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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R&B music became gigantic with people like Marvin Gaye and Barry White and Curtis Mayfield who became superstars. We tried to find a place where Jazz belonged because we didn't sell records.

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Columbus is taking off and it's about to boom, this is a hot town right now.

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Don't forget the late '70s was dominated by people like the Queen of Disco Donna Summer and everybody who was in that bag. We were already in dance mode, the Bee Gees were out with the most fantastic record the world had ever heard, so the world was in the mode. Anything outside of that mode was secondary.

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I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it.

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My whole career from the early 70s on has been mind-blowing. I didn't imagine in my life that I would ever be considered a guitar player first of all because I started off as a singer.

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The outlook for Georgia, I'm pleased to say, is good.

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I listen to other guitar players, yeah. It gives me new concepts and shows me where the instrument is going for the future and it is going some places. There are some musicians who are really putting out a good vibe with new theories. I try and keep up.

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I have not heard a whole lot of the rock genre. I tell you what knocked me out though. I was in Holland and I went to a Robbie Williams concert. There were 50,000 people there. That was an eye-opener.

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The jazz always seems to automatically come out, because it was from my jazz days that I learned that spark. And the nice thing with my band and this repertoire, which is a complete joy, is that we go beyond just playing chords and melody. It is music that can stretch out.

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