1. Soul Limbo (Steve Cropper/Donald “Duck” Dunn/Al Jackson, Jr./Booker T. Jones)
  2. Are You Happy? (Thom Bell/Jerry Butler/Kenny Gamble)
  3. Tell It Like It Is (George Davis/Lee Diamond)
  4. Land of 1,000 Dances (Chris Kenner)
  5. Jackie, All (Eumir Deodato)
  6. Don’t Cha Hear Me Callin’ To Ya (Rudy Stevenson)
  7. Water Brother (Don Sebesky)
  8. My Woman’s Good to Me (Billy Sherrill/Glenn Sutton)
  9. Jama Joe (George Benson)
  10. My Cherie Amour (Henry Cosby/Stevie Wonder/Sylvia Moy)
  11. Out in The Cold Again (Rube Bloom/Ted Koehler)

George Benson – guitar, vocal (03, 08, 11)
Richard Tee (01-05, 08, 10, 11), Rodgers Grant (06, 07, 09) – piano
Bob Bushnell (01-05), Gerry Jemmott (01-07, 09), Jim Fielder (08, 10, 11) – bass
Leo Morris [Idris Muhammad] – drums  
Paul Alicea, Angel Allende, Johnny Pacheco – percussion
Lew Soloff – trumpet
Bob Porcelli (alto sax solo 01) – saxophone, flute (05)Jerome Richardson – saxophone (01-05, 08, 10, 11), flute (05)
Sonny Fortune (alto sax solo 06, 07)  – saxophone (06, 07, 09)
Joe Farrell, Arthur Clarke (01-05), Hubert Laws (06, 07, 09), Joe Henderson (08, 10, 11) – saxophone
Jerry Dodgion – flute (05)
Produced by Creed Taylor

Arranged and conducted by Marty Sheller

Originally issued as A&M SP 3020

Recorded on April 29 (06, 07, 09), April 30 or May 6 (or May 16) (02-04) and 20 (08, 10, 11), 1969, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Tracks 01 and 05 recorded on April 30 or May 6, 1969.

01 published by Al Jackson, Jr. Music/Irving Music (BMI)
02 published by Sony/ATV Melody (BMI)
03 published by Arc Music/M. Jones Publishing Co./Olrap Publishing, Inc. (BMI)
04 published by EMI Longitude Music (BMI)
05 published by Almo Music Corporation (ASCAP)
06 published by Fifth Star Music/Rudy Stevenson Music (BMI)
07 published by BMG Platinum Songs US (BMI)
08 published by EMI Al Gallico Music Corp. (BMI)
09 published by Communicate Music Co./Songs of Kobalt Music Publishing (BMI)
10 published by Sawandi Music/Stone Agate Music (BMI)
11 published by Anne Rachel Music Corp./Ted Koehler Music Company (ASCAP)

(P) 1969

From its opening bars, Tell It Like It Is tells a wholly different story than we’ve come to expect at this point from A&M/CTI. It sounds nothing like Creed Taylor’s previous 19 productions1 and finds George Benson in a decidedly different context than any of his earlier outings would have indicated. Released in August 1969, Tell It Like It Is is, first and foremost, an unabashed soul record. “A male singer,” wrote a surprised Billboard, “apparently Benson, appears on the album.”2 Yes, Benson sings on three tracks, “Tell It Like It Is,” “My Woman’s Good to Me” and “Out in the Cold Again,” but the real surprise isn’t hearing his voice. It’s how natural and genuine his delivery is; he lends these tunes the very soul they deserve. Benson is as gifted a singer as he is a guitarist, his lush soulful tenor caresses melodies with an unmistakable individuality that equals the way his fingers fly distinctively over a fretboard. Sadly, the album itself doesn’t do much to give the singer or the guitarist the stage he deserves.

Tell It Like It Is “sounds” different for a few reasons. First, the record itself hues rougher than usual, with horns and percussion a little too high up in the mix, as though overmodulated. It noticeably lacks the clean, slick or perfectly mastered sonics that Rudy Van Gelder brought to nearly all of his productions. More jarringly, Benson’s usually mellifluous guitar sounds at times either poorly recorded (“Soul Limbo”) or jangled beyond all recognition (“Are You Happy,” “Land of 1000 Dances”). Undoubtedly, though, the most notable difference is Benson’s horn-heavy “soul context,” aptly provided by arranger Marty Sheller (b. 1940). It’s unlike anything out of Benson’s past or the entirety of the A&M/CTI catalog – but, in fairness, it’s a much more soulful outing than previous soul records in the series. Sheller (b. 1940) was best known at the time as the crafter of Mongo Santamaria’s many Columbia hits (1965-70), a fine group of hard soul and funk numbers driven by the leader’s ferocious percussion. (Hubert Laws, who was in Santamaria’s band between 1963 and 1967 and still recording with the bandleader at the time of this album, plays sax on Tell‘s three best tracks.)  

The program is an uneven mix of funky instrumentals and crooner soul with a lovely samba thrown in to mix things up. Where Sheller succeeds most with Santamaria, he likewise shines with Benson – that is primarily on the funk numbers: “Don’t Cha Hear Me Callin’ To Ya,”3 Don Sebesky’s “Water Brother”4 and Benson’s own remarkable “Jama Joe,” a Caribbean-inflected number boasting a fantastically-fingered solo from Benson himself. Eumir Deodato’s expressive “Jackie, All,” brings out the best in Benson the guitarist, yet the gentle cast of this tender performance seems entirely out of place here. Sheller, it should be noted, provides Benson with an unusually sensitive flute-choir support that perfectly cushions him and anticipates the simpatico symbiosis the guitarist would find years later with flautist Joe Farrell. Farrell, in fact, makes the first of his CTI appearances on Tell It Like It Is and is joined by a number of new names to A&M/CTI productions, including Joe Henderson5 and Sonny Fortune (who solos beautifully on two songs).

All too often, though, Tell It Like It Is sounds more like a Mongo Santamaria record of the period with special guest George Benson, rather than the Benson showcase it should have been. More sensitive programming – either stick to the soul or focus on the funk – seems required and such an impressive guitarist and singer as Benson deserves a more compatible hand on the charts. It’s another one of those albums A&M was likely perplexed by and likewise unable to effectively promote.6 Even so, the album did reach a respectable number 43 on the Soul chart and number 145 on the Billboard 200.  The album’s single, “My Woman’s Good to Me,” a cover of a country song by David Houston, reached number 113 on the singles chart.

Predictably, DownBeat was less than enthusiastic about Tell It Like It Is. “This set was obviously not meant to appeal to jazz listeners,” writes Chris Albertson in a scathing one-star review, “and it does not make it as a pop album.” He adds, “Creed Taylor should really get five stars for this album – a more skillful demonstration of how to thoroughly waste a very gifted performer would not be easy to find.” Albertsen praises Benson’s guitar and singing but despairs over the “triter than trite” arrangements, poor sound and the deception in the album’s title. “If broad, commercial appeal is what A&M is after,” Albertsen writes, “they would be better off presenting Benson as a vocalist and furnishing him with some imaginative arrangements of the pop-soul ilk.”[vi] 7

That’s exactly what Warner Bros. would do for George Benson – six years later – with the landmark Breezin’ (1976).

About the cover: The cover of George Benson’s second A&M/CTI album presents the catalog’s second artist’s portrait. Here, the Antupit frame is the last in the Betwixt-style covers, and Pete Turner’s photograph surprisingly returns to the red-orange tint of his earlier Impulse portraits (Count Basie, Milt Jackson). Here, the cover lists the album’s song titles, a catalog first: a probable way to alert potential buyers of the swing from jazz to a more soul/soul-jazz program. Note the photo’s lack of guitar (only the strap is seen) and a stand that suggests a singer’s microphone. The back cover’s kaleidoscopic image may be Pete Turner’s way of illustrating the shifting musical blends the album offers.

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Endnotes:

  1. Although the inside sleeve of Tell It Like It Is clearly indicates that Rudy Van Gelder recorded the album, the recording itself is audibly different than any other RVG recording. At points, it is harsher and overmodulated in ways that are very unusual for a Van Gelder recording. RVG researcher Dan Skea, too, questions whether the recordings that yielded Tell It Like It Is and I Got A Woman and Some Blues – recorded around the same time, but not issued until 1984 – were actually recorded by RVG. It is possible that RVG mastered the recordings while someone else recorded them. ↩︎
  2. Billboard, August 9, 1969, p. 68. For the record, Benson had previously sung on such albums as It’s Uptown (1966), The George Benson Cookbook (1967) and Goodies (1968) – but these vocal performances were decidedly more jazz inflected. ↩︎
  3. “Don’t Cha Hear Me Callin’ to Ya,” composed by the underrated Rudy Stevenson, was first recorded by Wynton Kelly in 1966, then by the 5th Dimension in 1969 and later by Junior Mance in 1970. The song was also featured on the J & K album Stonebone, also with George Benson. ↩︎
  4. It’s curious to find a song by Don Sebesky on an A&M/CTI album that is not arranged by Sebesky. But the ultra-funky “Water Brother” is a worthy choice. It was first heard on the composer’s Esmond Edwards-produced Verve album The Distant Galaxy (1968), with features for Sebesky on Moog synthesizer, Warren Bernhardt on clavinet and Hubert Laws (who is also on Tell It Like It Is) on flute. ↩︎
  5. Henderson would go on to appear on Freddie Hubbard’s first two CTI discs, Red Clay (1970) and Straight Life (1971), and gets featured billing on Art Farmer’s Yama (1979, released 1982). Apparently, the tenor saxophonist himself was signed to the CTI label in 1979, but no such Taylor-produced Henderson record ever emerged. ↩︎
  6. An ad for Tell It Like It Is appeared in the September 4, 1969, issue of DownBeat – seemingly promoting the album’s (not altogether wisely chosen) single “My Woman’s Good to Me” – but this magazine was the wrong audience for this record. The same ad also appeared in the August 9, 1969, issue of Record World. ↩︎
  7. Chris Albertsen, “George Benson: Tell It Like It Is,” DownBeat, March 5, 1970, p. 20. ↩︎