George Benson: I Remember Wes
My earliest recollections of music involve recordings I heard when I was seven years old—records by Charlie Christian with the Benny Goodman sextet and George Shearing on the piano. Those amazing performances set the tone for the quality of music that I would enjoy for a lifetime. Very few things came up to that quality for many years, and they certainly planted in me a desire to learn to play.
My stepfather allowed me to play his guitar, but he soon realized that my hands were too small. He dug an old, broken down ukulele out of a garbage can, glued it back together, and presented it to me. My first instrument!
When I was nine, my mother bought a guitar for me—a $14 Stella. And boy, was I happy! I learned to play in no time, and almost immediately found myself on the street corners in Pittsburgh playing that guitar and singing. I made a lot of money on weekends as a kid. It was quite exciting. I’d sing my favorite songs by people like Nat King Cole, Frankie Lane, and so many others. Later I would hear from fellow Pittsburgers like Art Blakey that they remembered seeing me as a little boy playing on the street. And my father used to hang out with Charlie Parker, and he told me that Charlie saw me playing on the street corner. Those were some good audiences! And though I always had a guitar in my hands, I was considered “Little Georgie Benson the Singer” for many years.
As time went by, though, the guitar rose in prominence, especially with the advent of rock and roll. The guitar really came to the forefront then. And in those days, being one of the few guitar players in town, I’d be called by various bands to play guitar. I’d tell them that I wasn’t really a guitar player, that I was a singer who plays the guitar. “That’s close enough,” they’d say, “If you want to, you can sing with us too, but what we really need is a guitar player.”
By the time I was seventeen, I was working in an organ trio, singing and playing. And at that time, my guitar playing began to step up a bit. I would also be invited to Saturday afternoon sessions at a friend’s house. And he was a “mature” guitarist, and he played nothing but jazz. We would hook up at his house where he would teach us the new chords—all the slick stuff that we couldn’t figure out on our own. We played records by Jimmy Smith, Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, and then Wes Montgomery came along and showed us all how to play guitar! But it was a 1961 Hank Garland record called Jazz Winds from a New Direction that really changed our opinion of what the guitar should sound like. A “new direction,” as the label said. And it was.
As I grew as a guitarist, it helped my singing, as well. Adding the guitar to my scat singing created something that gave the guitar another dimension. And it’s a challenge. The guitar is always a challenge. You might be able to play one day and wake up the next morning not being able to put your finger on anything. That seems especially true for jazz guitar players, because we’re trying to create something new every day. It never gets boring when you’re looking for something new to play. You might get stuck, but when you break through that wall, you’ll find another one waiting up the road for you. Enjoy your little breakthrough while you’ve got it!
Perhaps the greatest breakthrough for me—an epiphany, really—occurred in a hotel room in Buffalo, New York. A number of jazz artists were performing in Buffalo that week and in the hotel were some really big stars, including Kenny Burrell, John Coltrane, and Wes Montgomery. I was there with organist Jack McDuff. There was a party going on in Elvin Jones’ room—he was Coltrane’s drummer—so we all went down. I had to be about twenty years old at the time. I had just gotten a test pressing of a record I had made—my first one as a featured guitar player. I told Wes about it, and he asked me to bring it down. “Go get it,” he said. “Let’s check it out.” So, I bought it down and I played it for him. It was called The New Boss Guitar. Now, by that I meant the instrument, not the player! There was only one boss of the guitar, and that was Wes Montgomery! He listened and was very kind to me and gave me a nice review on it. And then he said, “George, you know I just got my new test pressing, too.” So, he went upstairs and got it and came down and he played ’Round Midnight. And brother, it was incredible. After that he said, “I gotta leave now.” I said, “Where are you going?” And he answered, “I gotta go upstairs and practice.” I thought, “Practice?! You’ve got to be kidding!” And then my eyes opened. John Coltrane already had his horn with him there in the room. He had never stopped playing. When he came into the room, he was playing. He was playing while we were listening to the records. He never stopped practicing! So, I learned my lesson back then: if you’re going to play this instrument, you’ve got to play it!
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