George Benson was about to walk away from music. Then a phone call changed his life

George Benson has never been shy about trying to find a wider audience for jazz guitar.

Less than a month after the Beatles hit the streets with "Abbey Road," he was in the studio reimagining those songs in his own image for "The Other Side of Abbey Road," a bold move that inspired one jazz DJ to start spinning it, then take it off and make a show of smashing it to pieces on the air.

It was six years after that release that Benson sent a triple-platinum triumph titled "Breezin'" to the top of Billboard's album chart, a breakthrough largely driven by his soulful reinvention of the Leon Russell song "This Masquerade," which peaked at No. 10 on Billboard's Hot 100 and won Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards.

That was the first of several major pop hits for the legendary jazz guitarist, from his remake of the Drifters smash "On Broadway" to "Give Me the Night" and "Turn Your Love Around."

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Benson has checked in by phone from his Paradise Valley home in advance of a sold-out show at Chandler Center for the Arts to talk about his life in music, from the day he touched his first guitar to how he had been thinking of retiring when he got the call from Warner Bros. Records that led to the recording of his most successful album.

"I'm getting ready to get out of here and go to Mission Viejo near Los Angeles," the guitarist says. "I've got a concert tomorrow night. Gotta warm up for Arizona, you know."

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Question: Are you in Arizona now?

Answer: I'm in Arizona at my home. I've been at this particular place for the last six or seven years.

Q: What brought you to Arizona?

A: I used to come here and play every year, every year and a half. But one of my friends lives here and he invited me to his house for a party and he had the basketball team over. It was quite a party. I liked his house. I came back through here and he didn't have the house. I said, "What happened?" He said, "Well, me and my wife got a divorce and I sold the house." I said, "You sold the house?!" He said, "I think it's up for sale again now." So I went over and I bought the house that day. First house I ever bought that my wife didn't see first.

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Q: When you said the basketball team came over, do you mean the Phoenix Suns?

A: The Phoenix Suns came over. All but Charles Barkley. But I met him later. Very interesting and nice guy. A very different kind of guy. We share the same health club. Every now and then, he's in there knocking off a couple pounds. Me too. And getting my voice together. I use saunas and Jacuzzis, things like that, to keep my voice in shape.

Q: That's important. How do you like living here in Arizona?

A: I love it. I know for sure I'm an African. And I must come from a hot part of Africa because this is my kind of weather. I like the heat, man. I don't like snow. And you know if you want some, you can go on up to Flagstaff and get all the snow you want.

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George Benson on growing up in Pittsburgh and discovering guitar

Q: I'm sure you saw your share of snow in Pittsburgh. What do you recall of growing up there?

A: Pittsburgh is a lovely place. I went to an all-white school basically. There were 1,400 students. Only 30 of them were African-American. And it was right in the heart of the ghetto. It was called Connelly Vocational High School.

I left there way back in 1960, '61. And the teachers were the same when I came back years later. My career had taken off as a guitar player and they couldn't believe that, you know, because I didn't do that when I was in Pittsburgh. I was known as Little Georgie Benson, the singer. And I had a ukulele in my hand.

Then later, I picked up a guitar just to strum some chords. But Jack McDuff took me on the road when I was 19 and introduced me to all this craziness out here. And I saw the variety of this incredible country, the different weather patterns and sceneries, mountains and lakes and the two shores. It was quite an experience, like going to a great school.

Q: What drew you to jazz as a kid?

A: Well, my natural father never married my mother. He was in the war when I was born. I was born when my mother had just turned 15. So I almost grew up with her. And she married my stepfather when I was 7. He was a musician, too. Like my father. My natural father played piano, drums and trombone. And my stepfather was the one who introduced me to guitar.

He went to the pawn shop, got his guitar out and his amplifier. And I heard that sound coming out of that speaker. I couldn't believe that little wire was carrying the sound from the guitar to this box on the other side of the room. As a 7-year-old, that was fascinating.

He went to the bathroom and said, 'While I'm gone, don't touch that guitar.' Man, you can't tell a 7-year-old that. As soon as he left the room, I jumped all over that guitar, trying to make some sounds. He came back in and said, "Well, now you're gonna have to learn to play it."

Q: Were you already interested in music?

A: My mother had introduced me to music from the time I was born. She was always singing or humming something. Even when she ate, she hummed (imitates the sound of mother humming with her mouth full). But she took me to a lot of movies. So I saw all those great musicals with the dancing and the bands.

And she took me to all the programs they had downtown at the Murphy's 5 and 10 and Kaufmann's, all those stores in downtown Pittsburgh. At Christmas time, they had a lot of programs. It was all musical.

One day, she lost me in the store. She couldn't find me. So she went all the way back to where she came into the store. And there I was. I'd never gotten past those speakers they had in the front of the store playing music. She let my hand go and that was it. I stayed right there and listened to the music. So she knew from the beginning that music was gonna dominate my life.

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George Benson says 'I learned to love all kinds of music'

Q: When did you know music was gonna dominate your life?

A: I just thought that was life, you know? I learned to love all kinds of music. What was coming on the radio was a mixture because I lived in a multiracial neighborhood with Italians. We had Jewish people, a small bit of Spanish and a mixture of everything else. Irish. I found out I'm part of all that.

My grandfather's Irish and Welsh and Native American. My grandmother was pure Native American on my father's side. So I got all those mixtures in there, and they all play a part. It makes me comfortable around people. I think that's one reason why my career is so big. Because there's nothing strange to me.

People are the most interesting thing there is, because there are no two alike. They all have traits of their upbringing and their experiences and their bloodlines. I think about that, and it makes for a better relationship between me and my fans. But I can't stay on the phone all day, my man. You got some important questions to ask me?

Q: Well, you were talking about how your upbringing made you comfortable with a variety of music and you've had a lot more success on the pop charts than a lot of jazz musicians. Do you think that's why you've been able to do that?

A: You know, it used to be a sin for a jazz musician to play anything but jazz. That law was kind of broken with Ella Fitzgerald when she sang "Can't Buy Me Love" by the Beatles. After that, we started hearing crossovers. Country people always had a crossover tune that made it all the way up north into the pop world, like Glen Campbell and a few other people that I met later in life. And they made it all right.

As long as it was musical and incredible, you're gonna get some ears, you know. Some listeners. So I went on that. If you play something people want to hear, they'll buy it.

From 'The Other Side of Abbey Road' to hitting No. 1 with 'Breezin''

Q: Is that what led you to "The Other Side of Abbey Road"?

A: That was a sin at the time. My jazz critics tore me up about that. But I loved making that record. It was so fantastic. We were live with the chamber orchestra. We had eight or 12 people. I'm trying to read this incredible music and I realize I can't. So I put the music down and depended on my ears. And we came up with a quite interesting album.

The word was passed to me by Paul McCartney and the Beatles. It said, "We love what you did with our music, man." So I was happy we had done that album, even though the critics were eating me up about it, tearing me down.

Q: Well, you really made those songs your own. And that's kind of the essence of jazz, right?

A: Yeah, but a lot of people have forgotten that.

Q: When you recorded "Breezin'," did it feel like that could blow it all wide open for you?

A: I didn't know. Because nobody had ever been there before. They'd been telling me things like that since I started in New York. "Oh, man, you don't know how big you gonna be. You gonna be gigantic." I kept waiting and waiting.

Finally, I decided, "This is gonna be my last year. I've gained a lot of things. I've been the No. 1 jazz guitar player in America. Hey, man. What more can you ask?" I'd had a couple almost hits. Not big hits, but medium hits. Or small hits. So I said, "Hey, that's about all I'm gonna accomplish, man."

But then I got a call from a guy who said "George, don't tell anybody I told you this. You didn't hear this from me. But have you ever heard of a man called Nesuhi Ertegun?" I said, "I heard of Ahmet Ertegun." Matter of fact, I had met him before. But I had never heard of Nesuhi. This guy said, "The word is out. Nesuhi Ertegun says, 'I want George Benson on Warner Bros. Records yesterday.'" And that was it.

He had a feeling I was gonna be important. And he nurtured my career. He made them work that record. They didn't get lazy on it, because he would let them. "Stay on this record." And they did. They took it to No. 1 and then it won Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards, 5 million albums worldwide.

Nobody had ever been there before from the jazz world. I knew it was important. So after a year or so, I changed my mind. I said, "Maybe this is where I'm meant to be." But anyway, brother, I've got to get ready for this gig. Look forward to meeting you live one day.

An Evening with George Benson

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12.

Where: Chandler Center for the Arts, 250 N. Arizona Ave.

Admission: Sold out.

Details: 480-782-2680, chandlercenter.org.

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: George Benson reflects on 'Breezin' and the 'sin' of crossing over