Monday, May 25, 2015

George Benson JET article on him being a Jehovah's Witness

Entertainment


George Benson tells how he copes with fame, family, career and the stresses of show business


By Robert E. Johnson

JET Associate Publisher

Singer/guitarist George Benson was once hired and fired on the same night, but he stayed on the job nearly three years until he told the bandleader, Jack
McDuff to find a guitar player to replace him.  "  I was very young and I was not a guitar player," Benson recalls.  " I was a man who happened to play
guitar because I was a singer.  I had little knowledge of the guitar behind me, " he explains.


At Chicago's Jazz Showcase, Benson performs beneath portrait of pianist/ composer Duke Ellington, one of his musical heroes.


" Jack hired me because I sat with him and he liked the way I made him sound, but he didn't know that I was not a (guitar) soloist.  I couldn't improvise so he
hired me and fired me the first night, " Benson chuckles.  Interviewed at his sprawling estate in Teaneck, N.J., Benson, a mutli-million selling recording artist,
a multiple Grammy Award winner and a multi-millionaire, relishes the recollection and continues:  "Jack promised me that he would find me another gig and said
I could hang in with the group until he could find another guitar player".  The band was on the road playing nightclub dates to enroute  to New York.  By the
time they reached the Big Apple several weeks later, Benson had learned the jazz organist's whole book.  He went on to record six albums with the jazz group,
having learned to cope with the stresses of his initial insecurity through continual study and practice.  " I had to learn more dexterity.  So I devised a method, it
was like a short cut, learning how to play swiftly on an instrument," Benson allows.  McDuff never got around to firing him and stopped looking for a guitar
player.  But Benson started looking for new opportunities to move his musical career up the ladder of success.  He had to find a way to increase his
earnings- a failed marriage and a new marriage.  " My first marriage didn't last very long.  We were both too young, he says.  " My wife was in her teens and
so was I.  I was 18 years old with all that responsibility.  We didn't know what we were doing.  It was mostly physical attraction.  We had to be with each
other."  Like most male teenagers at that time, he lived in fear of being drafted for the war in Vietnam. " I imagined that I was going to be drafted and killed.  I
said ' Oh, I'd better get on with life and have my life now' so that's what we did."  It was not very long when the marriage crumbled.  Before Benson could
pick up the pieces, he met another beauty.  " She was a southern girl, very subtle and a very careful person," he smiles.  " The first night that I met her, I brought
her picture home and I told my mother, " See this girl, I'm going to marry this one'.  I still got the photograph from the first night I met her and we eventually did get
married."


Benson says his wife Johnnie turned him around. His song, Turn Your Love Around, is the biggest single he ever recorded.

Benson's oldest son, Robert, 23, attended Berkeley School of Music and is an accomplished saxophonist.
In his office at home, Benson holds a framed copy of JET cover which features Natalie Cole and him.  Benson says a career highlight took place in Brazil, where
he played to a crowd of 350,000 fans whose applause rocked the stage.

A Jehovah's Witness, Benson helps spread his faith

With a little money and lots of talent, Benson and his bride, Johnnie, left his native Pittsburgh for New York in another career move.  The year was 1966.  " We
spent our last dollar to get to get to the gig and when I went to put my guitar on the bandstand, there was another guy up there,"  he says.  The bandleader
told Benson the job was taken, creating " the first big trauma" for the newlyweds. " Johnnie cried for me, but now was my turn to be strong," he remembers.
" It was a big favor because I would have been in that band playing sideman for another year or two," he says.  This was the turning point that would lead to
fame, a family, a fortune and a formidable career.  " The move for me at that time was to start my own band and to start experimenting and getting myself to a
point where I would express myself totally," Benson says of his first band put together with jazzman Lonnie Smith. " But having Johnnie there was a lot of
strength for me, " he confides.  In the decade that followed, Benson began turning out chart toppers like This Masquerade from the triple-platinum selling album,
Breezin' and later On Broadway from yet another platinum-selling LP, Weekend In L.A.  With success comes the stress of avoiding the pitfalls that have doomed
so many recording and concert stars- sexually loose female groupies, paternity suits, drugs and alcohol.  " There is a sexual attraction that happens through
the music, which is quite normal in that sense," Benson concedes, " but you have to keep things in perspective and realize that this is all a part of the nature of
the business that we in.  I was once a part of that craziness but I woke up."


Benson credits his wife, children and religion for keeping him awake.  " I give a lot of money to the Watch Tower Bible and Chapter Center because the
information in their magazines is helpful to youths and is giving them hope for the future instead of giving them a dim view of what is to come," he reveals with
pride.  The composer, whose hit tune, The Greatest Love, is his most requested song, finds special fulfillment with his three sons who are still at home.  He
brings them (Robert, 23; Marcus, 21; and Christopher, 11)  the same message.  When discussing drugs, he tells them: " If you never get into drugs, then you
don't have the problem of trying to get off drugs.  We started teaching this early to our kids.  We don't leave our children on the playground while we go study
God's morals.  Our kids are right there listening.  They grew up with God in their heads."  The concerned father also admonishes his children not to smoke.
" We don't smoke so that's something that they can't pick up from us, " he emphasizes.  " The best way to get someone to listen to what you are saying is by
example.  If you set the example then he has a model to go by, " Benson points out.  He is using his fame to point the way as he continues to gain more acclaim
as a soulful singer, superb songwriter and sensational guitarist.


Conducting a Bible reading session in their home, Benson, his wife Johnnie and their sons, Marcus (l) and Robert, are joined by Mrs. Verda Marshall and
daughter, Genevieve.  They discussed subject" " Who The Devil Is."











As for myself, I don't believe in the "devil".  I see no evidence of there being a "devil", humans can act devilish and that scares me more than any supernatural entity could.  It is interesting that they are not reading directly from the Bible and from the Bible alone.  JW's cannot read the Bible without using Watchtower Bible and Tract Society literature as a supplemental aid.










































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