George Benson: ‘My mother taught me how to be a human being’

At 16, Iwas keen to learn something that would enhance my pockets for the rest of my life so I was studying commercial art. It was an incredible situation because that was not something African-Americans did at that time. I went to a very privileged school. It was built in the heart of the black ghetto. When they asked me why I wanted to be an artist I told them I was trying to find a trade. They said well, you can’t get in the unions so you’ll probably never get a job as a commercial artist. I think they were right – eventually I found that was indeed the case.

I gave up my idea of being an artist and left high school when I was 17. I went out into the world and I made a career for myself as a musician. Everyone in the country – in the world in fact – knew me. And one day I was back home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a guy shouted across at me, hey George, Professor Rhodes told me to say hello to you. And I thought, who the heck is Professor Rhodes? I only know one Rhodes and that’s Gerry Rhodes who was in my year at school. And this guy said, Yeah, that’s him. I said, why did you call him Professor Rhodes?

And he said, he’s a professor now!” I mean, get outta here! This guy was at school with me, studying the same thing as I was. And now he was the biggest man in the art department at Pittsburgh University. It just goes to show, never give up just ’cause things start to get hard.

I was working as a professional musician when I was 16 but I wasn’t accomplished. I don’t think I had a real guitar before I was 16, just a homemade thing. I worked a lot of jobs with my singing group, I sang and danced, and we made two or three dollars a night. That was about it. I didn’t think I was good enough to become an internationally known musician, that was just a dream. When they were making the school yearbook they asked us, what do you want to be when you leave here?

I said I want to be a guitar player in a big band. And I saw that book years later and that’s exactly what it says under my name. There’s a picture of me and it’s ridiculous – I look like I was two years old. But here’s the reality; a few years later I took the greatest big band in the world, the Count Basie band, on the road for a year. And all I’d ever wanted was for a band to let me play guitar.

I was a happy young man. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have any money. One of my friends used to keep a couple of little bags of Kool-Aid with him. Kool-Aid was a little sachet of powder that cost five cents. You added it to water, and if you added sugar too you got a sweet drink.

When you went to a restaurant they always gave you a glass of water and there was salt and sugar on every table. So we’d empty our Kool-Aid into the water and pour in some sugar and hey, we had a sweet drink. And it cost us nothing. We were happy youngsters.

My family knew I was into music and they were thankful I’d found something to do. My mother and I were always close. She gave me my morals. She taught me how to be a human being and that’s as big as it gets. Life ain’t about dollars, though they’re a big part of it, don’t get me wrong.It’s about having a good relationship with the people around you ’cause we share this planet with other people, it’s not all about us. She passed away a few years ago but those principles have stayed with me through my life.

She was a gigantic fan of me. When she talked to me she always said my name like I was another person. ‘I always tell people George Benson is my favourite artist.’ I said, why don’t you say my son is your favourite artist? But she never addressed me like that, it was always ‘George Benson’.