The nine-year-old who cut a record and grew into a guitar great

George Benson was playing ukulele in a corner drug store at seven, and was paid a few dollars for it. At eight he was on guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on weekend nights, until the police closed the place. At nine he cut four sides, two of which came out on RCA Victor as a single. All this happened in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where he later dropped out of high school to put music first.

He learned straight-ahead jazz through several years with organist Jack McDuff, and his first album as a leader, The New Boss Guitar of George Benson, came out in 1964 when he was 21. Miles Davis put his guitar on “Paraphernalia” in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he released The Other Side of Abbey Road, a set of renditions of songs from the Beatles' record, then signed with Creed Taylor's CTI Records and became a core member of the CTI All-Stars. He also played on Stanley Turrentine's Sugar and on Freddie Hubbard's First Light.

Then came the mix that made his name: jazz guitar alongside pop, R&B and scat singing. His album Breezin' went triple-platinum and hit number one on the Billboard album chart in 1976. Tracks like “Breezin'” and “On Broadway” show how the same hands could suit both an instrumental groove and a vocal hook. His concerts stayed well attended through the 1980s, and later songs such as “Give Me the Night” and “Turn Your Love Around” kept a large audience listening.

Today the numbers look like this: ten Grammy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Still, the arc is better read in the details, from a nine-year-old with a record in his name to a musician that Pittsburgh's public schools honoured with a degree in 1987. His guitar still speaks first, and the voice follows it with ease, which is why a song like “Lady Love Me” works for jazz fans and pop listeners alike.