George Benson - History of his Guitars

hi guys it's ro mongoose here and this is the guitar show in this video we're going to be looking at the guitars of George Benson firstly many thanks to my good friend Tim pals fair assisting me in the research for this video George was born on March the 22nd 1943 in Pittsburgh in the USA at the age of 7 he first played the ukulele in a corner drugstore the first guitar that George Benson played was an Epiphone Emperor as George himself States my stepfather when he met my mother I was 7 years old and he brought me his Epiphone Emperor which was one of the top-of-the-line acoustic electric guitars at the time I got into that bag way back then because he turned me on to Charlie Christian records and you couldn't get that sound with a solid body guitar you had to have a hollow body guitar if he wanted to sound like Charlie Christian who was playing with Benny Goodman band at that time I fell in love with that mentality the tone that approach to guitar George's main influence when he was young was Charlie Christian he stated in the past I heard his records when I was 6 or 7 years old the first records I ever heard George received his first acoustic guitar at the age of 9 it cost $14 and it was a Gibson lg3 model and notice on this photo you could see his initials J be on the top pout of the guitar also at the age of 10 he recorded his first single called she makes me mad this was released on RCA Victor in New York under the name little Georgie despite this initial success George's parents wanted him to stop as he was missing too much school George then focused his time on learning the guitar George resumed his nightclub music career at the age of 14 when he joined the R&B vocal group called the old tears at this point George still did not own an electric guitar but when he was 15 he excitedly told his father about a sixth string at the local pawn shop so his father and George went down to the pawn shop and he walked around the window to see the guitar from two or three different angles and he said you know what I can make that when they return home Benson drew the guitar on a piece of paper and in Benson's words then my father's traced it onto this piece of oak wood from my mother's old oak chest and it took him a whole day to carve it out he broke blade after blade so guys in this photo you can see George with his homemade guitar whilst he was in the vocal group the old tears George left the old tears in 1960 to join the four counts after hearing Charlie Parker's just friends in 1962 George decided he wanted to be a jazz guitarist rather than an R&B singer also in 1962 a jazz organ player by the name of Jack Macduff came to Pittsburgh to perform at the starlight lounge a friend told George that Macduff needed a replacement guitar player George sat in on one song with Macduff's band locking what he heard Macduff invited Benson to audition for him the next day Benson toured with Macduff for three years George appeared on five of Macduff's album releases brother Jack live in 1963 dynamic in 1964 Prelude in 1964 also in 1964 live in concert around the world and hot barbeque in 1965 in these photos from the antares Jazz Festival in 1964 weirdly Jack McDuff quartet you can see George Benson here with a 1960s Gibson Les Paul which was fitted with a big speed on its album cover called the concert McDuff which was released in 1965 you can also see George in the back here playing the Gibson Les Paul when George was asked in the 1970s what he thought about solid body guitars he states I've used one once but I didn't feel that I had an instrument in my hands I'd like to fill some body I don't think that the electronics can produce what the wood does bats by Macduff and his band George began his solo recording career at the age of 21 with the release of the new boss guitar in 1964 on the label on the album cover you can see George with a Gibson Super 400 CES the CES standard four cuts away electric Spanish this model had a slightly thicker top to reduce feedback and to humbucking pickups an interesting feature of this guitar was the neck pickup he featured pole pieces which had narrower spacing the gold-plated bridge also had Super 400 edged onto it guys if you've watched my Elvis Presley history of guitars you'll also notice that he played in 1963 Gibson Super 400 CES Florentine model which belonged to Scotty Moore and he played that on stage for the 1968 comeback special 1965 George formed a new group in New York with organist Lonnie Smith and were the club's there for six weeks during this time legendary record producer John Hammond spotted Benson playing at New York's Palm Cafe on a hundred and twenty-fifth Street in 1965 Hammond signed George Benson to Columbia Records his first release for the label was its uptown and as you can see on the front of this album cover again George is playing he's super 400 guitar I'd really recommend guys that you check out a video on YouTube which is from July the 2nd 1966 and it's George Benson at the Newport Jazz Festival and you can see him playing he's super 400 live ok guys if we look at this promotional photo from 1965 for McDuff we can see here George Benson is playing what looks like to be his first kill guitar this is a guild t100 as you can see it has a sharp cut away Top Marques single binding and it looks like it's a sunburst model this was a forerunner of the Starfire series this guitar has a single friend single coil pickup this model is most likely from 1958 this photo here of George was used as a Columbia recording artists promotional photo so most likely this would have been around 1965 and you can see here George is playing a Gibson es 150 we know that it's in 1930s because in 1940 they changed the pickup and you can see that this pickup is a Charlie Christian style pickup to quote George guitars were relatively cheap then to get one of those guitars now would cost you a fortune I would go in and I would buy one and then sell it or give it to one of my friends I didn't know what I was doing should have kept it my children could buy a car with those that was my mentality at the time I changed my opinion on guitars I needed something that had a cutaway in it and the early Charlie Christian guitars did not have a cutaway so that became important to me although I cut a few records with non cutaway guitars some of my best records like White Rabbit was recorded with an uncut way Charlie Christian style guitar choices next studio album was called the George Benson cookbook it was released in 1967 and was also produced by John Hammond the reissue version of this album featured some some studio shots in these photos you can see jaws playing a very unusual guitar apparently this guitar is a 1957 white Falcon heavily modded by d'angelico in 1962 it's actually the property of the owner of lark street music who bought it from the original owner there's also papers to document the whole back story of this guitar amongst other things d'angelico replaced the binding and according to the receipt the whole job cost three hundred and fifty dollars which was a lot of money back then about half the cost of a new d'angelico as part of the documentation for this guitar there are photos of Jimmy D acousto working on the refinish this next photo is from Italy in 1967 and this is most likely a guild artists award which was made after 1965 notice the triangle abalone inlays in the fingerboard which go right through the larger pearl inlays pre-1965 artist award guitars had the abalone triangle only halfway through the pearl block George's next studio album was called giblet gravy and this was recorded in February 1968 on Verve cords and it's very possible that George uses artists award to record this album George can be seen here playing the same Artist Award as in the previous photos this promotion from guilt was released in 1968 Guild States in this ad that George Benson has been playing guild ever since he was 17 maybe they are referring to the t100 that we featured previously in this video and here we can see another advertisement from Guild around the same time in this photo here taken in Van Gelder studio in New Jersey on April the 7th 1967 you can see George Benson at the Lew Donaldson alligator Boogaloo session the guitar is in 1963 guild a 500 showing deluxe Cobb tuners with special diamond shaped buttons apparently these were designed by Gilbert Diaz of gild the plastic trust would cover is of the early style here is another photo of George with the same guitar after four years and three different record labels George Benson signed with the am CTI label in 1968 he was to be their replacement for their star Wes Montgomery who had died earlier in the year the first album for nem records was called shape of things to come this next photo was taken on the 3rd of July 1969 of a Newport Jazz Festival it shows George with a beautiful guild x500 it features an earlier style pickguard shape and knobs and also the rare diamonds so this could be from either 1953 to 58 these rare early dearmond single coil pickups were sometimes fitted to high-end models like the Duane Eddy model this guitar features an ebony fingerboard another album that was recorded at Bank out of studio in 1969 was at the other side of Abbey Road which was a collection of reworked Beatles songs this was George's last album for anm records on this album cover we can see in x500 sunburst which was probably a mid 60's model and you can tell that from the 3 tone sunburst beyond the blue horizon with George's next album which was recorded in February 1971 this was his first CGI release and looking inside the album you can see a beautiful photo of George's Artist Award and this guitars most likely the same guitar he was photographed in Italy in 1967 with it okay this next photo is from the guild guitar book and it features a George Benson custom made in 1970 this particular guitar with the serial 530 is a rare one among guild guitars it dates from 1970 and it was never listed in any of the price lists the guitar was supposedly made for George Benson who at the time was still endorsing guild guitars according to carlo greco several were made using george Barnes's acoustic electric as its superstructure the instrument pictured is the only one that has surfaced so far the pickup that came with the guitar was originally mounted on an internal wooden bar just like the George Barnes acoustical Ettrick the black finish on the top of the instrument is not original let's talk about the d'angelico new york guitar George Benson bought his 1958 sunburst d'angelico new yorker which has the serial number two 0:49 for $1000 in 1968 it was equipped with a Johnny Smith pickup it features our pine spruce curly maple evany brass celluloid mother-of-pearl blond finish a cutaway is with is 18 inches George used the d'angelico to record body talk bad Benson and live at Carnegie Hall in an interview in 1974 George said of this guitar I have a d'angelico that I love it happens to fit my hands really well and it's such a well made instrument and the response is so nice it's fitted with a Johnny Smith pick up but airlines won't let me take it on the plane with me they want to put it underneath here's a photo of George with his d'angelico in 2008 okay guys let's check out the guitar on the of this album cover so this is bad Benson which was released in 1974 this guitar was a guilt starfire 12 and he had a massive volume control which was added to these models in 1972 it had a 18th fret neck join and a later style hb1 humbucker and it was available in Ebony color as standard you might notice on this picture that although it's a 12 string guitar jaws seems to have only put six strings on it so he was playing it as a normal sort of six string guitar here is a great photo taken in 1973 of George Benson and Pat Martino backstage at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York Benson is embracing a Gibson ES 175 diecut are noticed that George has wrapped his guitar strap around the headstock of the guitar it's well worth tricking out the audio for this concert on YouTube George really play some blisteringly fast runs on his guitar here from this interview in 1974 you can see here George playing a Gibson l5 it's not sure if this guitar actually belonged to George or if he was just brewing it whilst he was performing a residency at the Ronnie Scott's Club in London when the interviewer asked George about his instruments George replies I'm using it an l5 now right guys we're gonna look at an album called Benson and Farrell this was an album made for the CTI label and featured a collaboration between Benson and jazz saxophonist and flautist Joe Farrell this was recorded between January the 20th and March of the 12th of 1976 and if we open up the album inside we can see George Benson playing a Gibson Johnny Smith model it's interesting to point out that the guild artist award was originally planned to be called the Gil Johnny Smith model Johnny Smith never used the guild due to disagreement over the way the top was carved instead in 1961 Johnny Smith became a Gibson endorser the Johnny Smith model was largely based on Smith's d'angelico New Yorker with traditional Gibson styling and body specs requested by Smith that included a 17 inch wide body and the slightly shallower body depth than the l5 and super 400 it had a 25 inch scale and a 20 fret neck the guitar started as a single pickup model but a double pickup version was soon available the album that is synonymous with this guitar is of course breezing and this album proved to be very successful for George Benson Benson employed the Johnny Smith guitar to great effect on this album and once again here you can see George with his Gibson Johnny Smith featured on the back of the album whilst researching for this video I came across a quote apparently from George Benson which stated that a guy knocked on his door with that guitar and he sold it to Benson for five hundred and fifty dollars George used the Gibson Johnny Smith guitar throughout 1976 on concerts it was also used on Good King bad this guitar returned to George's hands for the 1999 release absolute Benson in 2007 George sold this guitar at the Skinner auction house in now resides of a musical instrument museum in Phoenix George has described how in 1977 his rhythm guitar player fill up Church recommended that he try out an Ibanez at guitar Georgia bought an Ibanez a 2 4 6 1 model which was a severe replica of Gibson's Johnny Smith model he used his guitar on the 1978 live album called weekend in LA which was recorded at the Roxy Theatre in Hollywood between September the 30th and October the second this guitar featured a 17 inch body which had an arch laminated spruce top laminate curly maple back and sides it also featured a three-piece maple neck with bound evany fingerboard 25 inch scale length and a nut width of one and eleven sixteenths this next guitar is a Dickie Stowe made in 1972 for the amazing jazz guitar player growing green Rudy penser tells the following a story grant Green's son told me about when he took a trip to @d Cousteau's house with his father to pick up the instrument he loved that guitar so much that he spent days without putting the guitar down this particular dear Kista is an 18-inch New Yorker in an amazing tobacco sunburst finish the guitar has a spruce top flame maple back and sides maple neck with ebony fingerboard a mother-of-pearl inlays on the fingerboard you can see grant green's name in mother-of-pearl the headstock has New Yorker inlaid in mother of pearl as well after grant Green's death in 1979 the guitar belong to George Benson for many years however when Rudi pensa traveled to Arizona to photograph Benson's collection he agreed to sell the guitar to Rudi aside from grant green's initials which were inlaid in the fingerboard the only other modification specifically for grant is especially made pickup that was installed for him in place of the drm pickup which usually came with a guitar bill Lorenz at one time and design engineer with Gibson offered to make a special low impedance pickup for grant just as he had done for Wes Montgomery grant accepted the offer and says his special pick-up sounds better than the dearmond but adds that only Lawrence could explain why George also owned a 1980s d keysto Excel model although he auctioned this guitar off in 2017 ok guys this next guitar is a 1961 Gibson l5 si es the guitar serial number three eight zero to full was owned by George Benson but previously it was owned by a West Montgomery and used on the 1964 classic album moving west as well as the album's going out of my head which was recorded in 1965 and the album a day in a life from 1967 as you can see from the photo it sports a Florentine cutaway one of my prized possessions is West Montgomery's Gibson l5 with the flying teen cutaway that was pictured on the album a cover moving west this was the guitar where's recorded many of his hits like windy and going out of my head I used it for a West tribute concert at the Hollywood Bowl George later passed this guitar on to the legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny to quote Pat I'm really not that materially orientated but I thought if I could ever get one of West's guitars that would be something I'd really love one thing led to the next and we all knew that George Benson had one of West's guitars and somehow I wound up with the l5 from George it's the 1961 Gibson l5 CES that we all know from the cover of moving West and George used it on the first couple of CTI recordings he was on he used it as a studio guitar I think George could pick up a telephone pole with a cable on it and it would sound effing amazing he seems kind of impervious to whatever he's an interesting case that guy in late 1978 whilst recording the weekend in LA live album backstage George met a representative from Ibanez guitars the rep said to George we would love to have you with our company George replied you know you make great guitars but they're not originals so the rep asked George do you have any ideas and George said yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Guitar Show

Views: 83,713

Keywords: jazz guitar, rig rundown, archtop guitar jazz box, gear, guild, johnny smith, artist award, give me the night, guitar, d'angelico, d'aquisto, ibanez, gb10, gb20, how to play jazz, learn jazz guitar

Id: rLSA7BRLvNE

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Tue May 26 2020