JLTT: Well, first of all, thank you very much for agreeing to do this as I appreciate how busy you are.

GB: Hello great to talk to you!

I’m here to talk to you about your new live album entitled ‘Weekend In London which was recorded at Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club.

Well, it was a lot of fun doing this album. I’ve always loved Ronnie Scotts and the world calls it ‘The greatest European jazzhouse’ though it is not on the continent. It certainly deserves its reputation because over the years they have kept ‘the best of the best’ at that place. It still has the same charm it had many years ago when I first came to it. So I appreciate Ronnie Scotts very much.

It is a beautiful venue with a lot of history. Interestingly, this album was produced by Kevin Shirley. Can you tell me about working with him?

First of all, he is a very congenial man to work with and he listens a lot to what you are saying. He is already an expert at what he is saying and an excellent producer. He was very easy to work with and he was open to fresh ideas. So we never had a run-in of any kind and it was a great pleasure to work with him. That doesn’t always happen, in the studio with producers, they have a certain idea or thought in mind and sometimes it can be completely different to the way you’re hearing things. Not so with Kevin, he’s worked with a lot of different kinds of artists and genres and he seems to have a good understanding of where they are. Artistically and in mentality.

One thing I do have to say is that your band is incredible. Who was performing with you?

(Enthusiastically) Oh yeah! I love the collection of musicians I have now and some of them have been with me for many years. The newest member is the lady who was the percussionist and singer Liliana de Los Reynes it is a really great thing because having a band today without a woman in it seems really strange. They have made such inroads in all different kinds of professions and genres in the music world. I’ve had female percussionists before and it also opens up the range vocally with the background singing when you hear the harmonics which come off a woman’s voice. It is essential in today’s music.

“That made my job easier because I didn’t have to fight the band with my vocals”

The rest of the band – Stanley Banks a bass player who has been with me for many years, Michael O’Neill the guitar player, Thom Hall is the keyboard player. We just lost our drummer who was on this album but he is from Chicago and his name is Khari Parker. He is probably the best live drummer I’ve had on the road because he seems to know the dynamics so he never over-played, played loud or overshadowed my vocals. That made my job easier because I didn’t have to fight the band with my vocals.

The other keyboard player was Randy Waldman and he was the musical director for Barbra Streisand. Before that, when he was a youngster in his early twenties he was in my band for about three years. Then twenty years later he reappeared and I asked him “Where have you been?” and he said, “I have been Barbra Streisand’s Musical Director for the last twenty years!” He does everything thoroughly and he is the first one to criticise himself if something is wrong. Each performance has to be different and we’re not looking to repeat what we did last week! Even if we are playing the same songs, there is something different about the story we are telling today. This is a fun band so that’s what we did at Ronnie Scotts. I had a great time!

You’ve released so many albums and had such an illustrious career and whenever I hear that you are doing any live shows I always think to myself “It must be a nightmare picking a setlist?!” How do you approach that?

The great thing about my career, when I started out to learn to play jazz I had a hard time trying to figure it out with the wonderful harmonies. It took a long time to come to that conclusion but jazz does crossover into the other genres. So I don’t feel any different when I play a pop song but when there is an opening for me to improvise I’m glad it is there. It has been a pleasure just to get to a place where they allow me to open up and do what I feel good about. With the guitar and the vocal, it isn’t something I force. It either works or it doesn’t. It’s not a gimmick that I do it is part of the music. We’ve been fortunate enough to find songs that allow me to do a lot of that. When it happens and it is honest it brings the room to life.

One of the highlights for me on Weekend In Londo’ is the version of Turn Your Love Around with this great keyboard tone and in my notes, I’ve put that “It feels like the music equivalent of a giant hug

(Laughs) Oh yeah? That’s a strange tune and I’d never heard one quite like it. I remember when we went into the studio with Toto and the guitarist Steve Lukather who is a fabulous guitar player. He played the piano part of the song for me first and he played it a lot slower. I said “No this is a fun tune –let’s raise the tempo” and he replied, “No it won’t work.” So we put one take down and afterwards I asked him what he thought and he said “Well…” I looked at him and said, “That’s a smash!” We had a lot of fun making that record together and it worked. It is interesting making records because there are no two of my albums which sound exactly alike. I’ve never paid much attention to that but I have to give each piece of material its own space and allow it to be what it is meant to be. Working with Richard Jones is not the same as working with Toto. I let it be what it is.

“…it has been a unique life my friend”

That’s what you should do. Then you go into Donny Hathaway’s The Ghetto and you’ve got this Herbie Hancock vibe with it and I just love how improvised it is. It doesn’t sound complicated.

(Laughs) Yeah. Donny was one of my favourite artists. I liked him because his voice and piano playing were unique. When you heard him, you knew exactly what you were listening to. He had a style and I used to write songs with him when I was not considered a vocalist and still in the guitar world. He knew I liked his vocals so we would write songs together. Then he passed away in the late Seventies but I had that experience. But that song The Ghetto, it definitely has a vibe and I went back to that. I used to make record with both of his daughters so it has been a unique life, my friend. It has a nice easy vibe and a lot of opportunity to improvise.

It is a really lovely edition on this record. You decided to close the show with the instrumental Cruise Control. It paints pictures in my mind of driving down a long road.

I’ll tell you when we recorded that in the studio it was in New York above the New Jersey line. They were trying to see the studio so they let us use it and somebody bought that song with them. We had this young fella called Little John from Atlanta, Georgia. We love playing it and we had to include it on this album because it allows us to be jazzy without going too deep into that direction. That’s probably why I like it so much.

What are you thinking about doing going forward because I appreciate it has been a crazy year? Are you planning on recording any new material?

Always in the studio with new material doing something different. Hoping to come onto something with a fresh point of view. We’ve still got a lot of fans and we are picking up new fans all of the time. My records are selling tremendously and the world is still alive for us. People are calling us daily trying to get us to do stuff. I’m thinking about doing my life story with a film. There’s a lot going on.

On the touring side of things, you are scheduled to return to the UK in June 2021 I believe.

Well, we can’t predict what’s going to happen next. No one is able to come up with an answer to that question “What’s going to happen next?” So we keep our minds open, we keep practising and I practice almost every day. That keeps my mind busy and hopefully, by then we should have some really sharp new things to present. I don’t know how they are gonna go over and what will stick out. I will have some fresh things to test out on the public. They are the ones who tell me what I should hang onto or not. If it doesn’t work I go down another avenue. I love it when someone comes up with a new idea like Turn Your Love Around was so different to everything else out there.

That is a really great attitude and outlook. I really like this album and I think it captures what you’ve got with the smooth vocals, incredible guitar and fantastic band. But you’ve got these great songs and you are brilliant at writing songs about the human condition. That is a rare thing and not a lot of people can do that and that is what really comes across on this record.

Thank you man I really appreciate that.

Thank you very much and hopefully, when you do come over we can meet up for a drink or something.

Thank you very much. It has been great talking to you.

Take care of yourself and have a good rest of your week.

Take it easy.

George Benson’s new album ‘Weekend In London’ is out now on Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group. For more information visit www.georgebenson.com