Raised on Radio- George Benson

I think the music of my youth is the best ever. For a second, I will pretend that everyone doesn’t also think the music of their youth is the all time best. I will also pretend that any given time, there isn’t an active scene for every genre if you look for it. The transition from the 70s to the 80s really felt like a true blending of cultures. Perhaps it took disco dying and those bands reinventing themselves into rock. Perhaps it was videos replacing the radio. In any case, there’s no bigger artist that brought music from the 1970s to the 1980s than Kool and the Gang. Just kidding, of course. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I doubt you would take me seriously if I gave any other answer to that question but Michael Jackson. Still, Kool and the Gang’s 1984 album Emergency is really that moment for me where Rock and R&B combine. There were others of course, Cameo, Gap Band, the Dazz Band, Chaka Khan and Rufus and of course, plenty more that I wouldn’t hear until many years later like Zapp, George Duke, the Brothers Johnson Bootsy’s Rubber Band, and others that weren’t being played on my particular radio channels. Also, there were the guitar and jazz fusion bands like Weather Report and Spyro Gyra, which again would not have been on my radar but were making some noise. I did hear jazz voices like Lou Rawls and Al Jarreau on the radio, and Stanley Clarke even had a Top 40 radio hit Which brings me to this post. George Benson is probably best known for being one of the greatest jazz guitarists on the planet. There are plenty of places to read his story, but for the purpose of the story of what I am going to tell, I am focusing on 1976 to 1984 where Benson put 14 songs on the Billboard Top 100. Breezin’ from the 1976 album of the same name is a song I can’t really discuss reasonably. It is a light jazz song that likely is one that I have heard on the radio just about as much as any. I know there’s a crowd for that but it’s not me. But Benson in the early 80s, now we are talking. “Give me the Night” popped up recently on television (in a show or ad, I forget) and I get it, it’s timeless. I remember it was a favorite song of mine at the time and it still stands up. It is sort of a summary of his long career- it’s jazz, funk, pop, soul, disco and rock. Probably no shock that Quincy Jones was the producer. I will throw in “Turn Your Love Around” as a little bit more jazzy but still great all around all time song. Again you have an all star cast with Bill Champlin, Steve Lukather and producer Jay Graydon. My memory gets fuzzy and nostalgic radio isn’t kind to artists but 1983’s “Let Me Love You One More Time” was another big hit that I recognized as soon as I hit play. You also got some members of Toto helping out (Howard and Paitch this time). No telling if there’s more Benson #raisedonradio radio staples that I have forgotten in the ensuing 40 years.