ALBUM OF THE WEEK # 292 GEORGE BENSON - BREEZIN' (40TH ANNIVERSARY - 1976)

[RJhog (Admin)]

Disclaimer: All info that does not reside in my brain is gathered from wikipedia.com (mostly because Jon can't stand it) unless otherwise noted.

How 'bout a bit of a curve ball this week?  Since it's First Friday, let's go with an anniversary release, one of three albums released by George Benson in 1976.  I'm pickin' this one because it was also a number one Billboard album, which keeps nicely with the overall theme I have been working on in 2016.  For those of you that aren't familiar with him, George Benson is a jazz and soul guitarist and vocalist whose first album was released in 1964, while his most recent effort hit the shelves in 2013.  That's a very lengthy career right there. 

The album itself spent two weeks in the top position on the Billboard Pop Albums Chart in 1976.  The single This Masquerade was a Top 10 pop hit while Breezin' was a mild hit, though it failed to crack the Top 40.  It also nabbed Grammy Awards for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical and Record Of The Year (for the song This Masquerade).  

I vaguely remember the title track getting some airplay, but I can't for the life of me remember This Masquerade.  The latter is a terrific song though, and Benson has a very good voice.  Can't say the album has any special meaning to me as I've just purchased it recently.  I got a remastered copy with three bonus tracks for a cool $3.99.  What do you think?

Side One:

1. Breezin'I

2. This Masquerade

3. Six To Four

Side Two:

4. Affirmation

5. So This Is Love?

6. Lady

[Niels (Mod)]

Is this a test?

I remember hearing the title-track before. It's easy listening from the 70's radio.

I would never, ever, ever put this on at home. I would feel like I was wasting my time. I really mean "so much good music, so little time", even though it sometimes sounds like, I hate a lot of music. That's just because I have/choose to listen to albums like this, and new "Smash or trash"-songs. There are soo many great classic rock albums out there, but still I have to listen to this for the next half an hour or so. 

You knew, that I would bitch about this album, so why should I hold back.

It's not bad music at all. I'm just not the customer. 

The second track reminds me of music from my childhood TV-shows, until he starts to sing, then it sounds like a Stevie Wonder-song. Sometime around 1990, I probably would had liked this album a lot, but I was very confused (musically) at that time, because my favorite kind of music had developed into Hair Metal-crap, and I was sick of it.

No, honestly it's very nice listening to. Very, very soft.

I like the last track on side 1. A good soft instrumental. My 90 year old mother would fall asleep to that track, easily.

I truely understand, why some people like this music, more than I understand why some people like Venom and King Diamond.

There, I'm at the last track, and still awake.......but for how long? Amasingly, the last track sounds like the most boring of them all. No, it's okay, just another soft easy-listening instrumental track.

[Scott]

I had two major sources of musical influences in my life. The obvious one was found in my brothers album collection and the second was my best friends older brothers.  One of his older brothers was a straight ahead rocker who introduced me to April Wines First Glance album among others, and then his other brother was a jazz guy.  He played a ton of Earth Wind and Fire (Now you know why I love them so much) but he also played the Commodores, Stanley Clarke and this guy!  They had one of the cleanest sounding systems I can still remember to this day.  I can still hear the details in the production of some of these albums...  Albums like Stanley Clarke's Modern Man, Kenny Loggins Nightwatch, Santana Moonflower, and so on...  If you listened close it sounded like different tunes everytime you heard them.  And that's kind of what we did, I guess it was our improv version of a music appreciation class, and it worked.

That said, it worked for many of these jazzier artists, and certainly Bensons albums were appreciated.  But they didn't take as well as the aforementioned albums.  Songs like Affirmation ring nice bells for me, though there's a lot going on musically, Niels is ultimately right, its easy-listening.  But if the mood strikes you, turn this up just a bit and sit between the speakers and let it take you away.  It still works!!

Great post IMO!  Though I will likely not purchase this, if I had to choose this would be the Benson disk I get...

[Jon]

I don't think this will go over very well with a majority of the folks here, but I'm not of of them.

Yeah, I've heard the first two tracks on this album many times, especially the second one but mostly the single edit. Years ago I thought it was Stevie Wonder.

Funny thing is that while listening to the rest of the album, I kept thinking of Chuck Mangione and his 1977 album that was a big seller, Feels So Good. The title track was a big single as well. So, I wonder if the title track would have been a bigger hit a year later. Maybe not, but I can wonder. Instrumental's as singles? That's just so wrong. Right?

Nice choice. Wonder if someone will compare this to Kenny G?

[Scott]

2 out of 3 reviews are positive!  Nobody dumb enough to compare Kenny G to real music.... sheeesh..