- I Got A Woman (Ray Charles/Renald Richard)
- Out of The Blue (Henry Nemo/Will Jason)
- Bluesadelic (George Benson)
- Durham’s Turn (George Benson)
- Good Morning Blues (Billy Vera)
- I Worry ‘Bout You (Norman Mapp)
- Without Her (Harry Nilsson)
- She Went A Little Bit Farther (Mack Vickery/Merle Kilgore)
- Goodbye, Columbus (James Yester)
George Benson – guitar, vocals (01, 02, 05, 07, 08)
Luiz Bonfá- guitar (02)
Plus others unknown
Produced by Creed Taylor
Originally issued as A&M SP-9-3025
Recorded on April 30 (09), June 4 (05-08), August 19 (01) and 20 (03, 04) and September 3 (02), 1969, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
01 published by Mijac Music/Unichappell Music, Inc. (BMI)
02 published by Indano Music Co./Universal Music Corporation (ASCAP)
03 and 04 published by Songs of Kobalt Music Publishing/Triangle Music Company (BMI)
05 published by EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. (BMI)
06 published by Embassy Music Corporation (BMI)
07 published by Beechwood Music Corporation/Golden Syrup Music (BMI)
08 published by EMI Al Gallico Music Corp. (BMI)
09 published by Sony/ATV Melody (BMI)
(P) 1984
The A&M/CTI catalog got a bit of a revival in 1984, when a number of the original albums – 18 in all – were reprinted for the first time in years. Each release restored the classy gatefold covers of the past with glossier covers than the matte-finished originals had. Each maintained its original catalog number, with the number 9 inserted into the matrix to indicate the albums’ $9.98 suggested retail asking price. Two compilations celebrating the A&M/CTI legacy, each oddly titled Audio Master Plus Series Sampler, were also put out, with both sporting all-new Pete Turner photographs framed by Sam Antupit’s distinctive design.1
The most surprising of these releases, however, was George Benson’s I Got a Woman and Some Blues, an album that had never been issued before. Recorded some fifteen years earlier over several sessions in 1969, the awkwardly-titled album (surely Creed Taylor would have gone with a catchier moniker) presents a conundrum. While it certainly was not “[o]riginally scheduled to be A&M/CTI’s final release,”2 as the newly-issued album itself claimed, the evidence suggests the result is a hodgepodge of sessions that were not intended to be issued at all. It’s an uneven mix of just about everything Benson was into at the time, presented in such a way that suggests the producer might have given up on the whole thing and moved on to something else altogether.
At the time of this album’s release, Benson was between pop hits “Lady Love Me (One More Time)” and “20/20,” songs that sound worlds removed from what’s happening here. The album’s appearance probably surprised the guitarist and the producer equally. None of the musicians are identified, except guitarist Luiz Bonfá, an unexpected collaborator who’s credited on “Out of the Blue” only. One can guess that Hubert Laws is the flautist on the conga-heavy “Durham’s Turn.” Another guess suggests Charles Covington – or possibly even Lonnie Smith – on the organ for “Bluesadelic,” which also features a terrific sax solo by yet another unknown player. Still another guess is that Marty Sheller handles the charts; it’s surely not the work of Don Sebesky.
The program is undeniably eclectic, effectively showcasing facets of Benson’s talents on a wide range of material. But apart from two strong originals (almost jam tunes) and two effective covers (“I Got a Woman,” “Out of the Blue”), the material barely merits much attention: Billy Vera’s “Good Morning Blues,” Nilsson’s curious “Without Her,” Faron Young’s maudlin country hit “She Went a Little Bit Farther” and The Association’s unmemorable theme to the forgotten 1969 film Goodbye, Columbus. Perhaps the song with the strongest pedigree here is former jazz singer Norman Mapp’s “I Worry ‘Bout You.” Originally, the flip side to a 1959 Arthur Prysock single, “Worry” was flipped to the a-side for a single from the 1966 Creed Taylor-produced Arthur Prysock/Count Basie. “I Worry ‘Bout You” was also waxed by Marvin Gaye, Etta James, Joe Simon and Irene Reid.
The album’s best tracks are surely the Benson burners, “Bluesadelic” (a title possibly riffing on the then newly-formed band Funkadelic) and “Durham’s Turn.” It’s as much a shock that they lay dormant and unheard for 15 years as it is surprising how they sound more like Blue Note dates of the period than CTI turns. (Think Lou Donaldson’s 1968 Midnight Creeper, on which Benson appears.) Ray Charles’ 1958 hit “I Got a Woman,” which the guitarist recorded with Brother Jack McDuff in 1964 (though it remained unissued until 1969), finds Benson joyfully scatting, much as he would on later hits “This Masquerade” and “On Broadway.” Only “I Worry ‘Bout You” and “Goodbye, Columbus” are the other guitar features and, regrettably, neither performance is particularly remarkable.
“Out of the Blue” finds Benson singing the lovely theme to the 1947 film, accompanied by the seductively intermingling guitars of Benson and Bonfá. This is an ideal vocal feature for Benson and one well worth rescuing from the vaults. The other vocal pieces – “Good Morning, Blues,” the whiny “She Went A Little Bit Farther” and the just plain weird “Without Her” (which sounds as though Benson doesn’t know what he’s doing with it) – were probably not worth the recovery effort, however.
Still, if I Got a Woman and Some Blues isn’t a consistently rewarding musical document, it opens a window into Creed Taylor’s production technique. The evidence suggests the producer struggled at this point with how to best present the guitarist. It’s among the least cohesive packages Taylor has overseen and possibly the most eccentric of showcases for Benson’s unassailable talents and abilities. The result was obviously rejected at the time (even the title track was shelved as a single release) and, despite some notable and rewarding moments to be heard, it seems less than likely that the producer or the artist would have approved of its belated appearance here.
Endnotes:
- For the George Benson release, designer Donald Krieger merely matched Sam Antupit’s design but neglected to give the album the Pete Turner photograph the Audio Master Plus Series samplers received. Instead, Melanie Nissen presents an odd composite of a jiggly Gibson in front of what looks like a photograph of the tropics at night. It hardly suits a George Benson album – or one on A&M/CTI. ↩︎
- I Got A Woman and Some Blues was originally scheduled as A&M/CTI SP 3025, with six more titles scheduled in the series. Not all of these numbers were used and, of course, the issued albums were not necessarily released sequentially. Tide (3031) stands as the final A&M/CTI release while Stonebone (3027), issued in Japan but not the US, was likely the final release “scheduled” in the series. Once Taylor and Benson began working on The Other Side of Abbey Road (A&M/CTI SP 3028), their plans for issuing any part of A&M/CTI SP 3025 were likely abandoned altogether. Even the album’s scheduled single, “I Got A Woman,” went unreleased. ↩︎