Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to Quest Love Supreme. I'm your
Speaker 2: host Questlove. We have Teams Supreme with us.
Speaker 1: Uh byya. How are you today?
Speaker 3: Trying not to shake? Kind to shake?
Speaker 1: Really excited?
Speaker 4: I'm really excited. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let me let me just add that this is the
Speaker 2: first show on which I'm acknowledging that we actually have
Speaker 2: a YouTube page, and should we remind our listeners that
Speaker 2: you know you can watch quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: You should watch it so you can see the beauty
Speaker 3: of this is man. Yes, and I'm not talking about Questlove.
Speaker 2: There you go exactly. Of course, we know you're talking
Speaker 2: about our guests.
Speaker 1: Bill. What's up? Broh, hey man, It's good to see.
Speaker 1: It's good to see everybody. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1: This is the mature excited because it is sir. Can
Speaker 1: see what's up? Bro? Good share everybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very excited. I'm feeling beyond the blue horizon. That's
Speaker 4: how I can describe my feelings.
Speaker 1: There you go, There you go. Yeah, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a quickie.
Speaker 2: I' gonna try and knock out sixty years worth of
Speaker 2: magic inside of an hour.
Speaker 1: So let's see if this goes way one could do it,
Speaker 1: it's us let's go. Yes, of course, here we go.
Speaker 2: I will say that you know it's been about we
Speaker 2: last spoke like a month ago, and we couldn't ask
Speaker 2: for a better way to come back with Today's Guests.
Speaker 2: And Today's Guest released his first solo album sixty years ago.
Speaker 2: Our guest today has won ten Grammys, he has topped
Speaker 2: the charts. He's collaborated with so many legends. I mean
Speaker 2: he's legendary himself. But of course, uh name it played,
Speaker 2: Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancott, and recently
Speaker 2: he's released or kind of re released, although it wasn't
Speaker 2: officially released. I'd like to get the story behind how
Speaker 2: do you have a lost album in the archives?
Speaker 1: But dreams do come true?
Speaker 2: And it came from his archive, and we are very
Speaker 2: excited to have be incomparable Pittsburgh's own Yen's Yen's Power,
Speaker 2: George Benson's A Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how you you know what?
Speaker 2: Every My mom's from Pittsburgh, and every time I meet
Speaker 2: someone from Pittsburgh, I try to catch.
Speaker 1: Them saying the word YenS.
Speaker 2: Are you that deep of a Pittsburgh or your your
Speaker 2: you don't YenS is not in your vocabulary.
Speaker 4: Oh that's okay. I've heard it all my life, but
Speaker 4: now that I'm out here in the Midwest, that would
Speaker 4: be as common as breathing.
Speaker 2: Oh really, okay, well it's good to have you. Wait,
Speaker 2: can you explain to me how far in the archives
Speaker 2: was this album and what was the idea behind releasing it?
Speaker 4: Well many years ago, after having so much success in
Speaker 4: the music business, I said, what haven't I done? And
Speaker 4: I thought of something that I always wanted to do,
Speaker 4: to work with a symphony orchestra, A person who conducted
Speaker 4: symphony orchestras for a long time, a person who's got
Speaker 4: great control of the music and the musicians, who's very
Speaker 4: comfortable with that situation. There's no better place than London
Speaker 4: and the London Symphony Orchestra. But one thing was missing.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of arrangers I had worked with
Speaker 4: over the years. All of them were very competent and
Speaker 4: very good at what they did. So I went to
Speaker 4: Quincy Jones and I said, Quincy, who is the baddest
Speaker 4: cat on the planet right now? Because you know, we
Speaker 4: lost a few people. He said, Josh, let me tell
Speaker 4: you man, the baddest cat in the world. There's two names,
Speaker 4: he said. One of them is Robert Farning. I said, wow,
Speaker 4: and where's he? He said, well, he's somewhere in London,
Speaker 4: he said, but that's the cat I recommend. So I
Speaker 4: went over to London and I found a guy who
Speaker 4: was one of his best friends, and he introduced me
Speaker 4: to him. And it went by so fast because the
Speaker 4: man is an expert writing music and conducting orchestra. Was
Speaker 4: like breathing with him. Okay, So we got together and
Speaker 4: I told him what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure,
Speaker 4: so I picked a lot of things, you know, some
Speaker 4: popular things because I didn't want to go straight classic
Speaker 4: orchestra and just try to be Frank Sinatra. We agreed
Speaker 4: on some things. Next thing I know, I was in
Speaker 4: the studio standing next to him, getting ready to do
Speaker 4: my part, and the orchestra started playing and I said,
Speaker 4: oh boy, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that.
Speaker 4: I never heard anything like that. Eighty six pieces, all
Speaker 4: eighty seven pieces of the London Symphony Orchestra and the
Speaker 4: greatest arranger in the world and his arrangements were so
Speaker 4: magnificent I couldn't even speak. So I said, maybe I'll
Speaker 4: just sit and listen to the music, take in the environment.
Speaker 4: And I did that for a couple of days. He
Speaker 4: did seventeen songs. He may have been two three days.
Speaker 4: I took that stuff home to back to America, to
Speaker 4: New York, and I just listened and I said, well,
Speaker 4: maybe I can do this song, maybe I can do
Speaker 4: this one. Now I have to work on this. This
Speaker 4: is magnificent. I said, no, I better not try this.
Speaker 4: So between me and the record company, we had an agreement.
Speaker 4: We were not going to put it out at that time. Okay,
Speaker 4: next thing I know, we put it in a warehouse
Speaker 4: and forgot all about it. During that time, mister Farning
Speaker 4: passed away and I was still hearing bits and pieces
Speaker 4: of the music, and every time I heard it, I said, man,
Speaker 4: I gotta find this music and put it back together.
Speaker 4: But I never did until recently. I had left Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4: I was with them for about twenty one years with
Speaker 4: a lot of success. So I left the company and
Speaker 4: started doing bits and pieces with different record companies, and
Speaker 4: I asked some success there too. But now I went
Speaker 4: back to Warners. I said, well, since I'm getting ready
Speaker 4: to retire, my greatest desire would be to do another
Speaker 4: record for Warners because they got all my good stuff
Speaker 4: and I want this to go in with that. So
Speaker 4: I asked my secretary to arrange a meeting with me
Speaker 4: and the executives over there, and we had a great meeting.
Speaker 4: He heard the music and said, wow, we got to
Speaker 4: put this out and that was fantastic. There's a lot
Speaker 4: more to it, but I think you got some other
Speaker 4: questions you might want to ask.
Speaker 2: We're nerds Paradise, so you're right now giving us catnip.
Speaker 2: I love when a plan like that comes together, like
Speaker 2: I love when lost albums and lost projects are finalized.
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that you know you had completion for
Speaker 2: our fans that listen to the show that are music heads.
Speaker 2: You can recall when it took Brian Wilson like fifty
Speaker 2: years to finish the Smile record.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm glad you finished it. Wait.
Speaker 2: I have a question, though, so are you saying that
Speaker 2: this is the largest orchestra you've ever worked with?
Speaker 4: I think so because I work with the New York
Speaker 4: Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Chicago'symphony Orchestra, the spurg
Speaker 4: Symphony Orchestra. That might have been a full orchestra. Maybe
Speaker 4: it was eighty seven pieces. Maybe I've done that too, So.
Speaker 1: I have a question.
Speaker 2: I want to jump ahead too far on the timeline,
Speaker 2: but I gotta know. For me, one of my favorite
Speaker 2: intros of all time is the first fifteen seconds of Breazon.
Speaker 2: Just the way that that like to me, the sound
Speaker 2: of happiness and safety and like whatever, Like when I
Speaker 2: think of like a good fuzzy memory, that song is
Speaker 2: the soundtrack when I think of, like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: something simple, you think, I mean, it could be going
Speaker 2: to an amusement park or playing tag or whatever. But
Speaker 2: for me, but in my mind, that was like at
Speaker 2: least a fifty piece orchestra. Do you recall like how
Speaker 2: big the orchestra was for the Breezing project.
Speaker 4: No, because that was a sweetening session. Those were were
Speaker 4: put on after the recordings got it, okay, But it
Speaker 4: was an incredible, incredible situation that happened then. Okay. I
Speaker 4: had a great band full of young, passionate, expert, very
Speaker 4: creative young musicians, and we were all excited because we
Speaker 4: hadn't been working together, you know, and we practiced all
Speaker 4: the time, at least three days a week when we
Speaker 4: were on the road, with practice every day. So when
Speaker 4: we did a gig, actually the gig was so easy
Speaker 4: after because the rehearsals was so intense, the gig was
Speaker 4: super easy. And there was a situation that happened. People
Speaker 4: started calling us to open for superstars, and my band
Speaker 4: was not known yet. I had somewhat of a reputation
Speaker 4: but no hit records yet. So whenever they called us
Speaker 4: to open for somebody, half of the audience left when
Speaker 4: my show was finished, and I remember I'm the opening act,
Speaker 4: so I began to notice that, and they said, George,
Speaker 4: too bad, we're not you know that we don't have
Speaker 4: a hit record. That's the only thing we needed. So
Speaker 4: through this man, Tommy Lapuma, who had heard me sing
Speaker 4: five years ago before this record was released, he said
Speaker 4: he couldn't understand why record companies were not using my voice.
Speaker 4: So I selected him to be my producer at Warner Brothers,
Speaker 4: whom I had just signed to contact with, and he
Speaker 4: came up with the song dis Masquerade.
Speaker 3: That's the first time your vocals were recorded with Macarade.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the first time we had anything meaningful, and
Speaker 4: the rest of them nobody paid my voice any attention.
Speaker 4: Even my own manager said, George, you're one of the
Speaker 4: world's best guitar player, but you ain't no singer. And
Speaker 4: I said to him, you know, I wasn't insulted because
Speaker 4: I had given up singing many years before. And I said,
Speaker 4: you know, it's strange that we could listen to the
Speaker 4: chipmunks and give them a work and give them a hearing,
Speaker 4: but you won't give me one. It won't give me
Speaker 4: a chance. And so but Tommy Lapuma found the right arranger,
Speaker 4: which is a consistent what you were talking about earlier,
Speaker 4: Klaus Augermann.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 4: I remember Tommy Lapuma coming to me asked me, said George,
Speaker 4: what do you think about Klaus Ogerman doing the arrangements
Speaker 4: for your new album. I had heard some stuff he
Speaker 4: had done earlier, and I said, yeah, that's the man.
Speaker 4: And so he went to London, got kicked out of
Speaker 4: the studio. You didn't book enough time, and so they
Speaker 4: went to finish the album in Germany. So you had
Speaker 4: two different oysters on this on this album, but the
Speaker 4: same same arranger Klaus Owen. He sent me the test pressings.
Speaker 4: I heard that orchestra. I said, wow, these guys said,
Speaker 4: put a tuck seedo on me. Man, the dressed me
Speaker 4: right up. And at first I didn't particularly care that
Speaker 4: much for this masquerade. To me, it was just another vocal,
Speaker 4: you know, and nicely done. I liked what the band did.
Speaker 4: We only had one take on it. By the way,
Speaker 4: what only there's only one take on that song? Because
Speaker 4: Tommy Lapoom, after saying he loved he wanted to hear
Speaker 4: me sing on the record. The instrumentals were going so good,
Speaker 4: you know, with breezing and quite a few others, he said, no,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna put a vocal on this alvee. I said, man,
Speaker 4: you made me learn this crazy song. I called it
Speaker 4: a crazy song. I said, man, let's recall it at
Speaker 4: least one time. So they put up a very funky
Speaker 4: microphone something people never sing in. They use them talk programs,
Speaker 4: you know, one of them long microphones, and you will
Speaker 4: see on the Johnny Carson Show. And so when I
Speaker 4: heard it back, I said, it doesn't sound that bad,
Speaker 4: except I don't like the mid Rangers and the great engineer.
Speaker 4: He turned the button knocked some of the low end.
Speaker 4: I said, oh, that's better. Do it again. He did
Speaker 4: one more click click. I said that's even better. He said,
Speaker 4: we gonna stop right there. He said, if I do
Speaker 4: it one more time, you'll sound like Mickey Mouse. I said,
Speaker 4: this a leave it there. Tommy Lpuma ran out of
Speaker 4: the studio and ran and broke up a meeting they
Speaker 4: were having at at Warner Brothers. The big wigs were
Speaker 4: at this long oval shaped table talking about money, you know,
Speaker 4: and he took all of his recording equipment over because
Speaker 4: he never does any playback without his own stuff. So
Speaker 4: he set up the recording. He said, no, this meeting
Speaker 4: is over. He's telling the big the money guys, this
Speaker 4: meeting is over. You must you gotta hear this record.
Speaker 4: So he played this Masquerade and he said, well wait
Speaker 4: a minute, man, who is that who's singing? And they said,
Speaker 4: he said George Benson And they said, but I thought
Speaker 4: he was a gutsire player. He said, well yeah, but
Speaker 4: he also sings. So he played the record and they said, well,
Speaker 4: we're gonna get this now. This was before they put
Speaker 4: the orchestra on. Wow, okay, he said, I'm not finished
Speaker 4: with it. Yet you say, I got work to do
Speaker 4: on this record, and I didn't know he was going
Speaker 4: to do all of this. I didn't know how he
Speaker 4: was going to get it dumb, but when he sent
Speaker 4: me a test pressing, it was hard to believe that
Speaker 4: it was me, all dressed up and with this fabulous
Speaker 4: orchestra with great songs, one of the baddest bands in
Speaker 4: the country. These young boys were energetic and fresh and
Speaker 4: very creative. The album came out. I we'll talk about
Speaker 4: that what happened later with that, but the album was
Speaker 4: a monster.
Speaker 3: I just want to know on Maskuarade where your mind
Speaker 3: was when you started the song, Like when you started
Speaker 3: it the way you did with I guess I would
Speaker 3: say you were scatting, but you weren't, and you were
Speaker 3: just doing the guitar parts right like when you first started.
Speaker 4: I think they call it legato. I forget the word
Speaker 4: they use for that. Harvey Mason one of the world's
Speaker 4: greatest drummers, and he was young and energetic then still
Speaker 4: going strong now he always is. I said, all right,
Speaker 4: Harvey counted off, and he started counting one, two, and
Speaker 4: I said, oh, hold it, hold it right there, I said, hooray,
Speaker 4: play these changes, and I played the changes for him
Speaker 4: and he I said, and uh, loosen it up. We're
Speaker 4: gonna leave We're gonna play legato, no rhythm, I said.
Speaker 4: And then Harvey count the time off. So we played it.
Speaker 4: Play those things, dude. I asked Tommy Lapooma, leave the
Speaker 4: mic up, man, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something with
Speaker 4: the improvisations in the beginning and in the middle, okay,
Speaker 4: And he uh, he said, okay. He didn't have much
Speaker 4: confidence in it because he was gonna throw the record
Speaker 4: out anyway. He had made up in his mind that
Speaker 4: the instrumentals were too great to a sacrifice to one vocal.
Speaker 4: So uh, they did that great intro, and that young
Speaker 4: boy or the young man at the time, he was
Speaker 4: like in his early twenties, and he was fresh in
Speaker 4: the band. He had just joined the band team. Oh
Speaker 4: you mean a gray doubt though, And I'm glad you
Speaker 4: mentioned that, because there was a great thing about those
Speaker 4: two playing together. But Hora did that intro and played
Speaker 4: that semi classical accompaniment behind my vocal, which gave it
Speaker 4: a whole new, fresh approach. And Will did it one time.
Speaker 4: M and Tommy Lupuma said to me, George, we could
Speaker 4: be here all night. It'll never get better than that.
Speaker 4: I said, I think you're right. So I left it alone.
Speaker 4: And here comes Bobby Womack getting ready to record reason
Speaker 4: with me because I begged that he come to the
Speaker 4: studio and give me something fresh to play on the record.
Speaker 4: And he came in the studio and he said, hey,
Speaker 4: man during the playback, who in the world? And he
Speaker 4: didn't use the word world. He has had an age
Speaker 4: on it, right right, right, right right, Who got a record?
Speaker 4: He got a force like that? Tell me the boomer saying,
Speaker 4: that's George Benson. Man, he said, but I thought he
Speaker 4: George Benson, this guitar player he said yeah, but he
Speaker 4: also and that was the beginning. It let us know
Speaker 4: that this record was going to be something special.
Speaker 2: I remember in my dad's band, musicians arguing the first
Speaker 2: time I heard musicians sort of having like kind of
Speaker 2: a heated debate. My dad's bass player would have put
Speaker 2: his entire life in saying that this masquerade was Donnie Hathaway.
Speaker 2: He's like, nah, man, that's Donnie Hathaway. And this is
Speaker 2: the first time I'm hearing of you. And I remember
Speaker 2: my dad's sax player, Like, no, man, I'm telling you
Speaker 2: this George Benson, George Benson.
Speaker 1: The guitar player. Now, man, this is Donnie Hathaway.
Speaker 2: And they were just like that was the first time
Speaker 2: I seen like almost It wasn't pugilistic, but it was
Speaker 2: like almost an argument brewing. Like of course they had
Speaker 2: other history of tension, but I definitely remember because I
Speaker 2: was under the impression that that was Donnie Hathaway singing.
Speaker 2: And that argument lasted for like almost ten minutes and
Speaker 2: got really heated. So I always wanted to know that.
Speaker 2: That's another thing I found out maybe two years ago.
Speaker 2: I was not aware that Bobby Womack had written Breezing.
Speaker 2: How did you know about that song to even ask
Speaker 2: him for it?
Speaker 4: It's another incredible story we're here for. I heard the
Speaker 4: original version of it. The original version was by Goborzabo
Speaker 4: and he was from Hungary. I remember when he first
Speaker 4: came to the United States during the Hungarian Revolution in
Speaker 4: the mid fifties, and he played with Chico Hamilton's band
Speaker 4: that was a great jazz ensemble. So I heard them
Speaker 4: play live when I was a kid, that was a teenager.
Speaker 4: And then this record came out reason it was super funky.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was really a unique record because he
Speaker 4: played folk music basically, but he wanted to be a
Speaker 4: jazz player. The ironic thing is my piano player was
Speaker 4: like that about Argentine where he came from. He wanted
Speaker 4: to be a jazz player, but he played Argentine folk
Speaker 4: music when he grew up. So they were adding that
Speaker 4: kind of romantic feeling to their jazz, which gave it
Speaker 4: a unique flavor. So I would never stop catch from
Speaker 4: being who they are. I didn't force them to be
Speaker 4: who I wanted them to be. I let them be
Speaker 4: who they are, and that works better. I learned that
Speaker 4: from Miles Davis. Don't tell them what to play or
Speaker 4: how to play it, just let them be themselves. So anyway,
Speaker 4: I never thought about me playing that song because I
Speaker 4: never thought anybody could come up to that that vibe
Speaker 4: they had on that record. And actually the song was
Speaker 4: written by both men, okay, written by Goboy's a bo
Speaker 4: and Bobby Woomack and Giboar. He didn't want to have
Speaker 4: nothing to do with it because he didn't care about
Speaker 4: things like that. He had a little problem, some chemical problems,
Speaker 4: and so he didn't care about things like that, but
Speaker 4: that record he would have made a fortune like Bobby
Speaker 4: Womack did. And so that's how it got off the ground.
Speaker 4: And when tell me Lapuma asked me to record it,
Speaker 4: I said, absolutely not. I'm not gonna make that record.
Speaker 4: He said why not? I said, man, that's not me. Man.
Speaker 4: People have been trying to get me to record it
Speaker 4: or to play it live and I wouldn't do it.
Speaker 4: Almost got into rumbles with people, you know, several times.
Speaker 4: So when he asked me to do it, I said, oh,
Speaker 4: here it comes again. And then I woke up. I've
Speaker 4: had to do this many times in my career. This
Speaker 4: was one of the times where it worked beautifully. I said, Tommy,
Speaker 4: if you can get Bobby Womack to come to the studio,
Speaker 4: maybe he can add something to the record that's not there.
Speaker 4: Maybe he can help do something different to make the record,
Speaker 4: give it another twist. So he called Bobby and that's
Speaker 4: when Bobby entered into the studio, listening to the playback
Speaker 4: of this Masquerade and asking who it was. Now it
Speaker 4: was his turn. He said, there was always something I
Speaker 4: wanted to put on this record, and I didn't get
Speaker 4: a chance to do it. I said, what's that man,
Speaker 4: He said, do it because that's what was not on
Speaker 4: the original recording.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: And even though I don't think my version is as
Speaker 4: good as the original recording, I like it better because
Speaker 4: it's another twist to this and it made it sound
Speaker 4: more contemporary. So that that was the difference between that version,
Speaker 4: and that's how they got off the ground.
Speaker 2: The seventies were very peculiar time for jazz artists.
Speaker 1: You know, after kind of.
Speaker 2: Like a twenty year let's say between nineteen forty and
Speaker 2: all right, let's say thirty years between nineteen forty nineteen seventy,
Speaker 2: there was this like serious jazz movement. Of course, you know,
Speaker 2: once certain figures in the art form were sort of
Speaker 2: stretching the boundaries with you know, Coltrane stretching the vocabulary
Speaker 2: and what Miles was doing and whatnot. However, I'm always
Speaker 2: curious and I always ask people that were like serious,
Speaker 2: because you know, I had to sort of work backwards.
Speaker 2: It's because of hip hop that I realized how serious
Speaker 2: of a jazz artist you were, because you know, by
Speaker 2: the time I discovered you, you were already.
Speaker 1: Singing, so I knew you as a singer.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't until hip hop sampling that I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, Like George Benson is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest jazz guitars of all time. But let me ask
Speaker 2: you when it came to the transition of doing pop music,
Speaker 2: and it's not just you, James m. Toomey, Raggie, Lucas
Speaker 2: Narratimichael Walden, like a lot of these serious musician cats
Speaker 2: in the mid seventies sort of made this decision to
Speaker 2: migrate to not even just soul music, but like to
Speaker 2: pop music. So at the time, did you have any
Speaker 2: trepidation whatsoever of like, wait a minute, I'm a serious
Speaker 2: jazz artist and now you want me to sing pop?
Speaker 2: Like were you worried at all about like if Downbeat
Speaker 2: magazine was going to roast you or for going pop
Speaker 2: or whatnot? Like was that even a concern?
Speaker 4: It was a very trying time for a lot of musicians,
Speaker 4: the ones you mentioned, the cats I worked with in
Speaker 4: the early days. I was thinking about James Toomey. He
Speaker 4: still owes me some money. Man Cold never did play
Speaker 4: for the sessions he used to do at while house.
Speaker 1: He said, I had a.
Speaker 4: Recording studio in my garage and he'd bring guys over
Speaker 4: and try out new stuff. And he brought Reggie Lucas
Speaker 4: over and we became friends the whole trip. Man Norman
Speaker 4: Connors working with the girl from my hometown, philis Simon
Speaker 4: Hillo Simon.
Speaker 1: She was from.
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, and she's from Philly, but yeah, from Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: And we were all going through it. There was no
Speaker 4: way we were going to get the prestige that had
Speaker 4: been earned by so many of those great people that
Speaker 4: you talked about earlier, Miles Davis. They had forty years
Speaker 4: on us, thirty years on us, twenty years on. We
Speaker 4: were just coming up kids, you know, youngsters in New York.
Speaker 4: We were like the new Lions, but we had know
Speaker 4: nothing of our own that could give us, you know,
Speaker 4: a seat beside these monstrous musicians that who taught us
Speaker 4: how to play and set up this wonderful music called
Speaker 4: bebop and jazz and the new stuff, you know, the
Speaker 4: ascid what the kids called acid jazz. But that was
Speaker 4: a very, very trying time. I learned that first thing
Speaker 4: you need it begins with a great song. Breezon taught
Speaker 4: me that I never would have been able to cross
Speaker 4: over without reason. Reason was a very well loved song.
Speaker 4: No no, not reason only the Breason album on speaking
Speaker 4: of it, which the song this Masquerade came out of.
Speaker 4: The lyric lent itself to a whole different society because
Speaker 4: they already loved the composer of the song, and I
Speaker 4: had never heard it before. When Tommy Lapuma asked me
Speaker 4: if I heard it before you ever heard the song?
Speaker 4: I said no, and I didn't particularly care about it.
Speaker 4: I said, that's not for my kind of artists. And
Speaker 4: when I found out who it was, Jorge, my piano players,
Speaker 4: his wife said, oh, that's Russell, Leon Russell. I said
Speaker 4: to myself, who there? Because Leon Russell I didn't know
Speaker 4: anything about him, never heard her. She said, that's my
Speaker 4: favorite artist. I said, oh, I better learned this song
Speaker 4: because Tommy said it to me too three times and
Speaker 4: I wouldn't even listen to it more than once. So
Speaker 4: I learned the song. That's why when we went back
Speaker 4: and he said we're not going to record it, I said,
Speaker 4: what after you made me learn this crazy song? Man,
Speaker 4: we're not going to record it? So he to get
Speaker 4: rid of me, he said, okay, well record it one time.
Speaker 4: Let's do it. In other words, let's get it over with.
Speaker 4: So that song came out as the greatest surprise of
Speaker 4: my life because it went so far and you were
Speaker 4: speaking about Donnie Hathaway. The other guy they thought it
Speaker 4: might be was Stevie Wonder, Yes, because he had the
Speaker 4: record out in years. He hadn't recorded something out in
Speaker 4: like maybe a year or two. When it came out,
Speaker 4: they said, gotta be gotta be Stevie when that's the only
Speaker 4: person I can think of, right, and like your dad,
Speaker 4: they swore it was that it was him or either,
Speaker 4: like you said, Donny halfway. So that's what got the
Speaker 4: record the airplay that it needed. They would give the
Speaker 4: record away if you could tell them who it was.
Speaker 4: Very few people guessed who it was on the record.
Speaker 4: They all said, oh, I know who that is. Everybody
Speaker 4: knows that's Stevie Wonder. Oh that's Donny Hathaway. And that's
Speaker 4: got us the airplay we needed in places we never
Speaker 4: would have gotten without it.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you.
Speaker 2: In the winter of nineteen seventy seven, you're sitting down
Speaker 2: in a theater and you hear this. You hear the
Speaker 2: nominees for Record of the Year is Fifty Ways to
Speaker 2: Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon, Afternoon Delight by Starland
Speaker 2: Vocal Band Wow I write the songs by Barry Memory.
Speaker 1: And if You Leave Me Now by Chicago.
Speaker 2: When they say and the winner is previous to that moment,
Speaker 2: did you really think you had a chance in hell
Speaker 2: to win Record of the Year above those records?
Speaker 4: Not a chance? N Ah, No, I didn't have a chance.
Speaker 4: But I love the other records, the big ones. If
Speaker 4: You Leave Me Now by Chicago. Yeah, there was a
Speaker 4: spectacular recording. And you could not bury Manlow out of
Speaker 4: nothing because he had nothing but multi platinum records all
Speaker 4: of his career. Just about. So I got up early,
Speaker 4: hoping I could beat people to the parking lot because
Speaker 4: there was a lot of people in that place, and
Speaker 4: I had already won two Grammys, so I was very
Speaker 4: very happy. I said, oh man, this is I'm gonna
Speaker 4: go home and start braging about my two Grammys. I
Speaker 4: got up and Barbara Stradez I said, and the winner
Speaker 4: is Jeorde Benson. I startled, man and looked around. I
Speaker 4: couldn't just said that, you know, And I looked over
Speaker 4: Tommy looked to find my nowies in the theater somewhere.
Speaker 4: I went up front and when Tommy came up, I
Speaker 4: kissed him on his bald head. I don't believe I
Speaker 4: did that. I saw that later, but that was the
Speaker 4: most incredible thing that ever happened to me in my life.
Speaker 4: And it showed me that nothing is impossible. That this,
Speaker 4: this album I came up with, this this fresh and
Speaker 4: new called Dreams Do Come True, has a lot to
Speaker 4: do with that, that concept, that that idea, that that
Speaker 4: way of thinking, nothing is impossible.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: So when you're in that moment and you I think
Speaker 2: that night, you on four altogether correct.
Speaker 4: I won three three and there were two more that
Speaker 4: came toward the album though for other people, but the
Speaker 4: engineer Al Schmidt, and I think Tommy Lapum a producer.
Speaker 4: So we won five our five grammar.
Speaker 1: I've all together.
Speaker 2: So like, how does your life change that night when
Speaker 2: you go to sleep and you go to bed and
Speaker 2: you wake up the next morning as a five time
Speaker 2: that project winning five Grammys, Like what happens to you
Speaker 2: after that?
Speaker 4: It's like I had been born on another planet, reborn,
Speaker 4: and the name of the planet was George Benson. Because
Speaker 4: everything came to me. Everything I ever imagine came to me.
Speaker 4: They came through my management. Everybody wanted to get in
Speaker 4: touch with us for something, and I was not used
Speaker 4: to that kind of attention. My mind was still on
Speaker 4: kicking butt on the guitar with my bad band.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: We had a great band, you know, and I couldn't
Speaker 4: think beyond that because I've never been that big of
Speaker 4: a star, you know, been known by people in the
Speaker 4: jazz world and R and B world and some of
Speaker 4: the pop world, but that kind of fame was highly unknown.
Speaker 4: But I begin to see the world differently after that.
Speaker 4: There was a lot more to conquer. We were in
Speaker 4: a position where we could either help or hurt what
Speaker 4: was going on in the world musically. Jazz musicians were
Speaker 4: mad at us. The R and B people didn't know
Speaker 4: what the heck it is we were trying to do
Speaker 4: accomplished because we weren't sounded like Motown and you couldn't anyway.
Speaker 4: Nobody could compete with Marvin gay Man or Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 4: So I didn't even try that stuff. One thing that
Speaker 4: time taught me. All the time it took me to
Speaker 4: gain the success that I got through the album, Reaching
Speaker 4: remember I was thirty three years old when that happened,
Speaker 4: so I considered myself in the old man. You know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, Man, I'm getting out of this business.
Speaker 4: I'm tired.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: No, there's many more albums after That's why.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, man, let me see. Since that was the
Speaker 4: first with Warners, and I think I did, I don't know,
Speaker 4: fourteen albums with Warners, twenty one albums I can't remember now,
Speaker 4: and with other people. In total, I think I've recorded
Speaker 4: about seventy albums, but there are two hundred and something
Speaker 4: with my name on the cover, so a lot is transpired.
Speaker 4: But what a responsibility?
Speaker 2: This is a question I always wanted to ask and
Speaker 2: never knew the answer to because it's not in the
Speaker 2: liner notes.
Speaker 1: But can you please settle this for me?
Speaker 2: Are you playing on Another Star by Stevie Wonder on
Speaker 2: songs in the Kiev Life?
Speaker 1: Is that you scatting at the end? That's me?
Speaker 4: No, no, Plus I'm singing along with wonderlum la la
Speaker 4: la la.
Speaker 2: You're not in the liner notes, but I kept hearing
Speaker 2: your voice because at the end you just start scatting
Speaker 2: and right on the fade out you can keep right there.
Speaker 1: You hear the scatting, and I was like, Yo, is
Speaker 1: that him?
Speaker 4: Like, does that mean it was a favor?
Speaker 1: Well, see these to kind of just grab people.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's true too. He was that kind of guy.
Speaker 1: But I let him be who he is. That's what
Speaker 1: makes him so great.
Speaker 4: He's always coming with something that you don't expect, and
Speaker 4: it's always a one. What he does is so classy,
Speaker 4: and I think that's why we got along very well.
Speaker 4: He was coming to my shows when I was playing
Speaker 4: on the Chitlin circuit. He would show up at a
Speaker 4: nightclub somewhere in America, mostly on the East Coast, because
Speaker 4: he was going with a girl who later married when
Speaker 4: he did the song Isn't She Lovely? I think he
Speaker 4: married her. I think she's from Pittsburgh, her hometown. So
Speaker 4: one day he came to the club where I was
Speaker 4: playing that night, and nobody believed it was him. He
Speaker 4: was so popular you couldn't convince it anybody in the place,
Speaker 4: even though I said, Steve, I think he might have
Speaker 4: came up and played something for us, But nobody believed
Speaker 4: that Stevie Wonder was in the club. But he was
Speaker 4: on a lot of the gigs that I did, He'd
Speaker 4: show up and he would always tooth for us and
Speaker 4: live television shows. We'd be doing live TV in Hollywood
Speaker 4: and he brusht out the back of the curtain and
Speaker 4: jump on the you know, in front of the camera.
Speaker 4: Only he could get away with that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: I've always loved him. I loved him since I think
Speaker 4: I first heard him when he was about fourteen or
Speaker 4: fifteen years old. I knew he was not going to
Speaker 4: be ordinary.
Speaker 3: George, can I ask you about another collaboratoral Quick, because
Speaker 3: we talked about breezing and you actually redid this song
Speaker 3: with him with lyrics, which I thought was kind of ill.
Speaker 3: And y'all are both to me like the voices of
Speaker 3: our generation. Algiero. I don't hear enough stories about Algibo.
Speaker 3: Can you just tell me, like how Wondrous was collaborating
Speaker 3: with Alderreau.
Speaker 4: He's one of those guys that come along. It's only
Speaker 4: one of them lifetime. You're so original. From the time
Speaker 4: he opened the mouth, you've got you know who it
Speaker 4: is and you know it's going to be good. And
Speaker 4: going on the road with him was it took some
Speaker 4: some rough thinking because, uh, career wise, we were way ahead,
Speaker 4: and we made a lot of money. We had a
Speaker 4: lot of prestiges all over the world, and we were
Speaker 4: always first on the you know, on the marquee outside
Speaker 4: you would be George Benson and Algero. A lot of
Speaker 4: people didn't like that because they love Algero together. What yeah,
Speaker 4: we worked together.
Speaker 2: Okay, after you asked this, I got a million dollar
Speaker 2: question to ask you.
Speaker 4: Good. Yeah, So I I felt strange about us being
Speaker 4: on the show, and he he wasn't used to being
Speaker 4: second to nobody. Matter of fact, we both joined Warner
Speaker 4: Brothers on.
Speaker 1: The same day.
Speaker 4: We auditioned at the place where one of the Kennedys
Speaker 4: was murdered. It was a hotel. And this was a
Speaker 4: couple of years after that, a few years after that,
Speaker 4: and we both sang or performed the same song, Take five,
Speaker 4: and you know, his version was pretty sleek, moved y.
Speaker 4: You know, he's so great. And so we went on
Speaker 4: tour and we found some songs and a couple of
Speaker 4: them he wasn't comfortable with. He said, George, why do
Speaker 4: you want me to do that song? I said, oh,
Speaker 4: it wouldn't make me do what you did. Your voice
Speaker 4: is unique, and I think people need to hear you
Speaker 4: do this kind of song because you're not known for this,
Speaker 4: but they should hear you do this kind of thing
Speaker 4: that let him know you can sing anything. And so
Speaker 4: we ended up doing some crazy things together. They came
Speaker 4: out great. One was that last song in the show
Speaker 4: about seeing you again until next time. I can't remember
Speaker 4: the title, but it was. It came out great. We
Speaker 4: made lots of money, and we knocked them out everywhere
Speaker 4: in the world. Pat it was great man.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So this is mainly a question about Al Schmidt, because
Speaker 2: I think Al Schmidt's engineering is so unique sounding that
Speaker 2: this is what I want to know Number one for
Speaker 2: me Your Weekend in the La album and also Algirose
Speaker 2: looked to the Rainbow album. Both engineered by him have
Speaker 2: such a distinct sound to it that I swear to God,
Speaker 2: you guys recorded it in the studio and just overdubbed
Speaker 2: the audience on top of it like I've never heard it.
Speaker 2: It sounds too perfect to be a live album.
Speaker 4: Al Schmidt, who used to set up the microphones for
Speaker 4: his uncle, I believe it was when he was a youngster.
Speaker 4: When Al was young his uncle said, well, go said,
Speaker 4: I got a session today, go over and set up
Speaker 4: the microphones for me, so and get it ready for me.
Speaker 4: So he knew exactly where to place microphones to get
Speaker 4: the sound that he wanted. And when I by the
Speaker 4: time I got there, he was already he had finished
Speaker 4: up all of that because he never was involved in
Speaker 4: that while we were recording. Oh okay, he did it
Speaker 4: all in front. He listened to go in the studio
Speaker 4: and he go next to the drums, and they replaced
Speaker 4: the microphone, so forth and so on. I was embarrassed
Speaker 4: one day when I got ready to say to him,
Speaker 4: you know, the piano sounds a little bit thin to me,
Speaker 4: I was almost in tears. Why doesn't he puts some
Speaker 4: bass on that microphone? Man, I'm gonna tell him about that.
Speaker 4: Then something that said, man, leave it alone. Man. When
Speaker 4: I heard those recordings back, I said, man, that would
Speaker 4: have been the biggest mistake I ever made in my life,
Speaker 4: because hisself was always right on the money. But he
Speaker 4: told me the story of how he got to be
Speaker 4: al Schmidt. Tell me he said that because you know,
Speaker 4: he used to do Sam Cook records years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 4: one day we had a big running because I'm dealing
Speaker 4: with like you said about heated arguments or heated discussions,
Speaker 4: there's always something like that between producers and artists. And
Speaker 4: Tommy Lapumer, who did not like to argue. He would
Speaker 4: keep his mouth shup, but you could tell what he
Speaker 4: was feeling because he would hint to his feelings on things.
Speaker 4: And so one day we were arguing about a live
Speaker 4: album weekend in La Yes, we were at the club
Speaker 4: in Hollywood. I forget the name of a the Roxy Theater, Yeah,
Speaker 4: the Roxy Theater on it was either on Hollywood or
Speaker 4: Boulevard or Sunset Villa.
Speaker 1: Sunset.
Speaker 4: My father who had begged me to take him out
Speaker 4: to California with him on he heard I was going
Speaker 4: to California. He said, man, I haven't seen my dad,
Speaker 4: your grandfather for twenty years. And I said, okay, Dad,
Speaker 4: come on with me now. You have a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: So my grandfather was there, My dad was there, Chaka
Speaker 4: Khan was there, Wretha Franklin. They were down front having
Speaker 4: a discussion. Aretha Franklin had to fend off Shaka Khan
Speaker 4: because she wanted to jump on the band's land and
Speaker 4: have a battle with her. I said, not on my set. No,
Speaker 4: it was incredible man. Well, here's the biggie with that.
Speaker 4: The first night, the second show, we did that version
Speaker 4: that you hear of on Broadway. Yes, I remember that
Speaker 4: was not a song that was in my playlist outside
Speaker 4: of the that we decided to record it, and so
Speaker 4: I had to dream of something to do with it, right,
Speaker 4: And it was Quincy Jones again who gave me the fop.
Speaker 4: I said, now wait a minute, now, why should I
Speaker 4: pay this in the attention? He gave me a clue.
Speaker 4: He said, you know, Jarish, many years ago, everything used
Speaker 4: to be a one bar phrase. Now it's two bar fraens.
Speaker 4: I said, what the heck is he talking about? Because
Speaker 4: I don't measure music. I just play it. Oh so
Speaker 4: you know, I just play it and when it comes
Speaker 4: to my thought my brain, I let it hang out,
Speaker 4: Let my brain handle it, and my vibe, my feelings,
Speaker 4: pour it out to the people, you know. So when
Speaker 4: he said that two bar phrase, it bothered me. I
Speaker 4: had to find out what he was talking about. Then
Speaker 4: I heard a song by Rod Temperton a bone Be Doom,
Speaker 4: bone bean be, do bop bang be dang first bar
Speaker 4: with us, I said, oh, that's two bars. That phrase
Speaker 4: finishes that the two bars first half is bomb but
Speaker 4: on bomb be you know, four beasts, one beat again,
Speaker 4: boom beat on four. Oh. I got it. So when
Speaker 4: Tommy the Poomer asked me to do on Broadway, I said,
Speaker 4: oh no, man, He said, what do you mean? I said,
Speaker 4: I can't destroy that song, man, that's a classic. And
Speaker 4: in my mind I was thinking it was it was
Speaker 4: the great lead singer the sang for for the for
Speaker 4: the UH for that group, Benny King.
Speaker 1: Benny King.
Speaker 4: I thought it was Benny King, but it wasn't. Okay,
Speaker 4: the cat who sang the original version for the Drifters. Man,
Speaker 4: what a vocalist he was. If I had remembered that,
Speaker 4: I would not have recorded it either. But I didn't
Speaker 4: remember who that was that sang that. His name was
Speaker 4: Rudy Okay. He was a gospel singer and the originally.
Speaker 4: So anyway, now I rearranged the song because it was
Speaker 4: boring to me to go bom bomb bomb. It was
Speaker 4: in doney, arm, let's all right, arm bom bom bomb bo.
Speaker 4: I said, oh man, no, we can't do that for
Speaker 4: ten minutes. So I changed it to bomb, bom bomb,
Speaker 4: bom bomb bomb made to make it a tupa friend.
Speaker 4: Right then I made a staccatto to give it some fire.
Speaker 4: Boom boom boom boom boom boxed boom boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 4: One of the guys in my band said, now, Josh,
Speaker 4: that won't work. I said, what do you mean, What
Speaker 4: do you mean that won't work? He said that it
Speaker 4: won't work. Joe, that's not the way the song goes.
Speaker 4: I said, man, you wasn't even here, You wasn't even
Speaker 4: born yet. When you talk about it won't work. He said,
Speaker 4: I'm talking man, it won't work. I'm just telling you.
Speaker 4: I said, there's a reason why I'm sitting up here
Speaker 4: in this leader's seat. I gotta find work for us.
Speaker 4: And the way I find work and keep it up,
Speaker 4: keep the fire going, man. I said, no, this is
Speaker 4: the way we're gonna record it. I said, can you
Speaker 4: play that? He said, oh, yeah, I can play it,
Speaker 4: And he played the crap out of it. He tore
Speaker 4: it up. The name was Stanley Banks. Okay, great great
Speaker 4: bass player, and so Temmy Lapuma. When we went to
Speaker 4: hear all of the tracks back. Oh, first of I
Speaker 4: have to tell you this. When I took that track
Speaker 4: on a cassette that Auschmidt made for me so I
Speaker 4: could listen to what we had done that night. I
Speaker 4: took it back to the hotel and on the patio
Speaker 4: near the pool, somebody had a boom box and we
Speaker 4: played it and they would not let me take it off.
Speaker 4: Play it again. People calling from upstairs, play it again.
Speaker 4: So we played it. I said, ah, man, I got
Speaker 4: a hot one in my hand. The next day, Tommy,
Speaker 4: the putman, says, and he played the first version of
Speaker 4: it that we did on the first show. I said,
Speaker 4: where's the where's the other version? He said, what other version?
Speaker 4: I said, Man, come on Friday night second show. He said, George,
Speaker 4: I think we rased it man. I said, Tommy, no,
Speaker 4: how is that possible? He said, we needed more tape.
Speaker 4: We kept running out of tape. So I went back
Speaker 4: at the earlier tapes, which I thought was not not good,
Speaker 4: and we put them on because we didn't have enough tape.
Speaker 4: He didn't that wasn't the real story. He wanted to
Speaker 4: take my chance.
Speaker 1: Yes, the version he liked better.
Speaker 2: Was it shorter or just more laid back or yeah?
Speaker 4: He wanted it to sound like the original.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know you got on there. Oh, he tried
Speaker 1: to tell you. He erased, isn't that we all know?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Oh, Now he told me he raced it. Oh.
Speaker 4: I got up and walked out of it. I said, man,
Speaker 4: you just you mean the best record I ever made?
Speaker 4: You raced it. I watched him one mile back to
Speaker 4: the hotel. When I got there, he called me and
Speaker 4: I said, George, come on back, man, I think I
Speaker 4: found it.
Speaker 1: I got in there.
Speaker 4: I didn't believe they had found it. So here I
Speaker 4: was still apprehensive. I said, now you're gonna play me
Speaker 4: another strange version. So I sat down. I said, no,
Speaker 4: play me the hit Man please, and he put that on.
Speaker 4: I heard it bloom bloom, and I could hear Chaka
Speaker 4: Khan in the background say that said that's the one
Speaker 4: I'm talking about, and told me, said that is better.
Speaker 4: I said, man, get out there better. That's a knockout.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you the very first performance I ever
Speaker 2: gave as a drummer, I'm tell you how popular the
Speaker 2: song was in seventy seven. By the second grade, I
Speaker 2: could actually sit and reach the drum set. And we
Speaker 2: had to give like a recital music recital, and it
Speaker 2: was my turn.
Speaker 1: We went in alphabetic order, so I was last. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to walk up too the microphone. My name is
Speaker 1: Amir Thompson and six years old.
Speaker 2: This is second grade, and I'm gonna play Harvey Mason
Speaker 2: playing on Broadway.
Speaker 1: And literally that drum break that they do boom boom
Speaker 1: boom boom boom boom.
Speaker 2: I did that and that was like that was a
Speaker 2: moment in which the audience exploded like that that moment
Speaker 2: made my life. That was the first time I like
Speaker 2: drummed them in public. That's the first time my mom
Speaker 2: and dad knew I had drumming talent. Like my mom's
Speaker 2: crying like all that's that's that's literally how how powerful
Speaker 2: on Broadway was when it came out. I have so
Speaker 2: many questions to ask you, but I know we only
Speaker 2: have a little bit, so we're definitely going to have
Speaker 2: to do it again.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can ask for one about one song,
Speaker 3: just one song, and I just want to mention one,
Speaker 3: and I want to ask about one. I want to
Speaker 3: mention Moody's Mouthful Love because I want to say to you, sir,
Speaker 3: that for some of us, you were the introduction to
Speaker 3: that song, Like there was no James Moody, it was
Speaker 3: just George Benson and so from then on. So thank
Speaker 3: you for that, because I've been in love with that
Speaker 3: song ever since and everybody's version after that. So, but
Speaker 3: my question is about twenty twenty because the video, the video,
Speaker 3: the song, like everything, it just felt like such a
Speaker 3: departure from what you were used to doing. But it
Speaker 3: was such a part of some of our childhood, Like
Speaker 3: twenty twenty vision was like, let's hear it for the
Speaker 3: boys for some of us, you know. So can you
Speaker 3: just talk about twenty twenty and a decision to do
Speaker 3: that and just tell me something about the song.
Speaker 4: I've had the good fortune of surrounding my show geniuses,
Speaker 4: young musicians who were extra talented, and one was a
Speaker 4: fellow named Randy Waldman. When Randy Waldman was a kid,
Speaker 4: his father caught him coming from school late and said,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, No, where in the world have you
Speaker 4: been all this time? He said, well, I stopped off
Speaker 4: of the baseball field. I was playing baseball. He said, like,
Speaker 4: you said you wanted to play piano. He said, well
Speaker 4: I do. He said, well, get you in here every
Speaker 4: day and play piano, not baseball piano. I want you
Speaker 4: here every day, and when you hear him play, you
Speaker 4: know how that paid off. He ended up working with
Speaker 4: Barbara Sisan for about twenty five years as her musical
Speaker 4: director and principal pianist, and he did some wonderful things
Speaker 4: with an R and B group. He wrote one of
Speaker 4: the smashes or arranged it. He's done nothing but spectacular work.
Speaker 4: He can do it anything. So one day we're working
Speaker 4: on an album and uh, the producer said, I got
Speaker 4: this song here, sent to me by such and such,
Speaker 4: and uh, they want you to see if you like it.
Speaker 4: So they played it for me and I said, it's
Speaker 4: got potential. He didn't pay me any money. He sent
Speaker 4: it to Randy Waldman, who set up in his kitchen
Speaker 4: and played all those beautiful parts. But bomp bong, but
Speaker 4: boom bump bump boom boom boom boom, boom, bump bong boo, boom, bump, bump,
Speaker 4: boom boom. So when he sent it to us, I said,
Speaker 4: what I'm gonna do with this man? But once I
Speaker 4: got into it, it fell out of my mouth all
Speaker 4: the parts. And then we had Patty Austin, Yes, Patty Austin,
Speaker 4: she jumped on that song. And did all of the
Speaker 4: harmony to all my parts, all my ad libs, and man,
Speaker 4: she knocked that song out of the park. It was
Speaker 4: so popular. I couldn't believe it, and a pleasure to play.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, brother Vincent.
Speaker 2: Look, our hour is up, but we absolutely must have
Speaker 2: a part too, because I think the entire world Steve,
Speaker 2: do you have one question?
Speaker 1: I can wait till part two. I wanted to just
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask some CTI questions.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, we have so many of your jazz life
Speaker 2: West Montgomery questions.
Speaker 1: Yes, like you said, yeah.
Speaker 2: You're almost like a nine hour episode. But unfortunately we
Speaker 2: have to stop at this hour.
Speaker 3: But happy retirement because he mentioned that, and this is like,
Speaker 3: this is gonna be the last year people can see you,
Speaker 3: right do your life may be sure about that.
Speaker 4: I had to stop the regiment of being on the
Speaker 4: road because I've been on the road for sixty two years. Yeah,
Speaker 4: hop out a mirror.
Speaker 1: Wow, exactly, We'll come to you. We'll come to you, Yes,
Speaker 1: we will.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, you know something I like this. This is fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I want to remind our audience definitely.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, dreams do come true.
Speaker 2: Is available at your your latest album, your latest archive,
Speaker 2: the album.
Speaker 3: And he'll be getting Hollywood Bowl August eighteenth. One to
Speaker 3: mention that as well, because that's going to be a hell.
Speaker 4: Of a show, all right.
Speaker 1: I might have to Yeah, I'm in Europe.
Speaker 2: I might have to quit the roots then no, but
Speaker 2: for real, thank you very much for doing this, and
Speaker 2: again we have to have another conversation. This is way
Speaker 2: and too important, too many memories here, but I want
Speaker 2: behalf of I'm Big Bill and Sugar Steve and Layah
Speaker 2: and myself Quest Love being comparable George Clinton.
Speaker 4: Oh George, Hey, that's good enough.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 4: I'm writing something for George Clinton. No, I'm doing We're
Speaker 4: going to make a record together, believe.
Speaker 1: To do it anyway.
Speaker 2: The incomparable George Benson, the one and only George Benson.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much and I appreciate it and we
Speaker 2: will see you on the next go round of Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: Thank you, hey, thank y'all for listening to Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 3: This podcast is hosted by an Afro amount, a rapper,
Speaker 3: an engineer, and a man with too many jobs aka
Speaker 3: a mere quest Love Thompson.
Speaker 4: Why you a Saint?
Speaker 3: Clair Fonte Colman, Sugar, Steve Mandel and unpaid Bill Sherman.
Speaker 3: The executive producers who get paid the big bucks. A
Speaker 3: mere quest, Love Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun ask
Speaker 3: them for money. Produced by the people who do all
Speaker 3: the real work Brittany Benjamin, Jake Payne and Yes, why
Speaker 3: are You a Saint Clair? Edited by another person who
Speaker 3: does the real work, Alex Conroy and those who approved
Speaker 3: the real work. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: West.
Speaker 2: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more
Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.