Jazz legend George Benson rocks Macao's Venetian Theater and tells Rebecca Lo why digital downloading is killing the industry for established recording artists.
He began the familiar ballad, putting his own unique stamp on The Greatest Love of All while conjuring up ghosts of Houston's more popular cover version. The Venetian Theatre became choked with emotion as every member of the more than 1,000-strong audience keenly relived the tragic loss of Houston earlier this year. As he sang the last ballad, his voice broke and he stated: "This is hard for me to sing" and walked off the stage without another word.
His band, professional to the last note, proceeded to finish the song, packed up and followed Benson. We were all feeling the love by that point. Benson is the kind of man to inspire emotions, and those emotions transfer to songs that sell like hot cakes.
Born in Pittsburgh, Benson famously began his musical career on the ukulele at the age of seven. He grew up during the golden age of Motown and at a time when records sold in the millions. Though he has been making music as diverse as jazz, adult contemporary and pop for decades, he still loves what he does and still retains a wide-eyed wonder at being able to do what he loves best.
"I never expected to do any of this stuff," he admits in the green room before his Venetian Theatre's one night only show. "I always felt like a scientist when I was a kid-I love solving problems. The song may have a good melody and good harmony, but it needs some excitement. I hear the boring parts of a song and I think, let me fix this."
Illustrating his point, he sings: "They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway," and continues speaking, "and I would change what Quincy Jones had done. I didn't want to record it because I had such great respect for his voice. But the song bored me, so I changed it from a one bar phrase to a two bar phrase, then added my improvisations."
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