George Benson

Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Church Street, Wednesday, July 22, and Thursday, July 23

GEORGE Benson is in bed when The Guide calls for our arranged interview at the outrageously early (by musician’s standards) time of 9.30am.

He doesn’t know the reason for my call, and doesn’t seem to have been told what newspaper I’m from, but nonetheless he clicks immediately into affable, interview-ready mode. When you’ve released your first single at the age of ten, won ten Grammy awards, worked with Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis, and been honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you’re probably well accustomed to the more disorientating elements of being in the public eye – such as an early interjection from an unexpected journalist.

“I just woke up man,” says Benson in his deep Pennsylvanian drawl. “But it’s cool, it’s cool.”

He’s in Zurich, on a European tour which includes two nights at the Brighton Dome next Wednesday and Thursday. Benson has some “very pleasant thoughts about Brighton.”

Now 72, the icon of jazz, soul and pop music is showing no signs of slowing down, and, he says, is even attracting new demographics with his selection of hits from 36 studio albums.

“I don’t know where they come from, but the very fact I have younger and younger people coming to see my shows all the time is a good thing. We’ve got ten year-olds at the front, cheering and jumping up and down.”

Funny Benson mentions ten year-olds, as that is the age it all started for him. Pre-teen Benson recorded his first single, She Makes Me Mad, before he’d entered high school. There was much interest surrounding the young, talented guitarist, and Benson looked set to fully realise the dubious role of ‘child star’ – until his mother intervened.

“I was just a kid then, I didn’t know what was going on. I had no idea about the business end of things. My mother eventually said to my manager: ‘no more, he’s too young. He needs to go back to school and become a normal kid.’”

Was he frustrated at the time, upset even, by his mother putting a halt to his fledgling, promising career?

“What my mum told me to do, that’s what I did. I was not up to having people call on me all the time, just because they wanted to hear me sing. I had to think about when and if I wanted to sing. I was only ten years old! I didn’t want that level of attention.”

Fame did eventually find Benson though, with the largely instrumental 1976 album Breezin’ hitting the top of the US pop charts and ‘going platinum’. If this record, and Benson’s work up that point, had garnered praise for its super-smooth yet complex jazz stylings, he was soon being called a ‘traitor to jazz’ (as Benson has since put it) in some quarters as he began to venture into more vocal-led pop territory.

“The world is one big home for all of us, and music especially is like one gigantic dinner; I wanted the chance to sample every part of that dinner,” says Benson, of this change of direction.

“I’ve won so many awards in so many different categories. Jazz opened the door for so many people but it doesn’t have to be that alone. Things are evolving.”

One element of Benson’s music that has not shifted much is his focus on love and romance. He references the recently deceased Michael Masser, the songwriter behind many popular love songs, as a master of the genre, as well as expressing his sadness at Masser’s passing. Benson puts the perpetual appeal of his own romantic numbers, like In Your Eyes (written by Masser) and You Are The Love Of My Life, down to the thematic universality of love.

“A lot of the songs I sing hit people in a common area where we all meet, you know? That’s why they’ve lasted so long, they talk to people.”

The timelessness of Benson’s music is evidenced by his astonishing Grammy haul – the first of his ten awards arrived in 1977, and the last in 2007. They’re pride of place in his Arizona home now, but Benson recalls that naïve, humble kid again as he remembers his first encounter with the prize.

“The first time I thought about a Grammy was when someone called me up and said: ‘hey congratulations, you’ve been nominated for a Grammy’” he laughs. “I said: ‘what the hell is a Grammy?’”

Starts 7.30pm, tickets from £47.50. Call 01273 709709.

Edwin Gilson