"Their songs were magnificent": Jazz great George Benson on the Beatles' mastery and influence

Legendary jazz guitarist, singer and songwriter George Benson joined host Kenneth Womack to talk about what makes a hit record, how he became friends with Paul McCartney, his new album “Dreams Do Come True” and much more on the sixth season finale of “Everything Fab Four,” a podcast co-produced by me and Womack (a music scholar who also writes about pop music for Salon) and distributed by Salon.

Benson, the 10-time Grammy Award winner known for such songs as “On Broadway,” “Breezin’” and “Give Me the Night,” was considered a musical prodigy as a child, though at the time his hands were “too small” to play the guitar. As he told Womack, his stepfather instead taught him to play the ukulele at age seven, and soon he was playing on the street corners of his hometown of Pittsburgh. “Everybody got to know Little Georgie Benson,” he said. And when he went to school, where “there were 1,400 white students and 30 Blacks,” he was called on every time music was needed for a school event.

He eventually “grew into the guitar,” as he explained, and it “became my number one instrument. It was the greatest challenge of my life and became a friend to me.” Though he had been recording for several years, Benson released his first full-length album, “The New Boss Guitar,” at the age of 21 in 1964 – the same year the Beatles came to America. “Their songs were magnificent, and they had great stories,” he said of the band. “They let it hang out, and they were not afraid to say that some of their favorite artists were African American. So, when Black musicians went to Europe, they were well accepted and known already.”

A few years later, Benson would record “The Other Side of Abbey Road,” his classic jazz homage to the Beatles’ 1969 album. “That was one of the greatest rewards of my life,” said Benson. “I became friends with Paul McCartney, who at one point when that album was released, got in touch with my people and said, 'Tell Mr. Benson we enjoyed what he did with our music.’ What a reward that was for me. Then I knew I was on the right track. It really meant a lot to me.”

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That right track has led Benson through many decades of musical success, up to and including his latest release, “Dreams Do Come True: When George Benson Meets Robert Farnon,” which features an album’s worth of orchestrations that were unearthed after more than 35 years. “I thought they were lost,” said Benson. The collection includes his takes on such standards as “Autumn Leaves,” “At Last,” and “A Song for You,” plus the Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

As for covering the tune, Benson said, “It don’t come no better than that. In order to be great, you have to know what great is. [The Beatles] were excellent songwriters, excellent performers of their songs, and they couldn't have been done any better – unless,” he remarked with a laugh, “they added Ella Fitzgerald.”

Listen to the entire conversation with George Benson on “Everything Fab Four” and subscribe via Spotify, Apple, Google or wherever you’re listening.

“Everything Fab Four” is distributed by Salon. Host Kenneth Womack is the author of a two-volume biography on Beatles producer George Martin and the bestselling books "Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles” and “John Lennon, 1980: The Last Days in the Life.” His latest book is the authorized biography of Beatles road manager Mal Evans, “Living the Beatles Legend,” out now.