on this special icons edition of "our world" with black enterprise, two music legends, i go tarrist and vocalist george benson and singer/songwriter bill withers, they're up next. hello, everyone. i'm ed gordon. welcome, later in the show you'll hear from bill withers whose easy voice and great writing has given up some of the most classic songs of a generation.

but first, the legendary singer and guitarist, george benson. little georgie benson began to sing at 8 years old and became a local star in his hometown of pittsburgh. but it was his prowess on the guitar that brought him attention in the jazz world as he began to play with greats like miles davis. after moderate success with some solo albums in 1976 benson released the album "breathing." from that lp which became the first platinum jazz album to his latest "songs and stories," george benson became a hit machine. ♪ turn your love around don't you turn me down ♪ >> reporter: this masquerade "give me the night" on broadway and "turn your love around" are a few of the songs that have become automatic sing-alongs for

an entire generation. a lot of people don't know that you have been singing literally since you were a small child and in your hometown of pittsburgh, had really developed a following as a kid and then a teenager and you sang, then played the ukulele and then graduated to guitar. >> that's exactly right. my father told me that he and charlie parker used to watch me play on the corner. i thought he was -- i thought my father was making this stuff up. he said oh, no, me and charlie parker used to listen to you. art blakely and billy eckstein, all saw me when i was a kid. >> it's interesting because you had a great opportunity to work with literally the contemporary greats of your time. and so when you kick off that list of a miles davis or herbie hancock, ron carter, et cetera, et cetera, the fact that you now live in that same road, if you will, was it your work ethic that allowed you to reach that

height do you think if. >> i think that's a lot of truth to that because i always felt they were watching me. there was high expectations for georgery benson. you don't know how big you're going to be. even though guys can't imagine what happened to little george benson. ♪ lots of love so give me the night ♪ >> training amongst the greats certainly got him ready for the big time, but it was benson's ability to match his smooth vocals and unmatched guitarist that made him stand out. we talk about the endearing nature of songs and i watch people when you perform the fact that you can start a lick and get just two or three licks in a crowd, screens, i take it that you probably don't take that for granted? >> no, i don't. because i saw the power of what that did to my life, that one song.

♪ are happy here with this lonely game ♪ >> it was unprecedented in the whole world of jazz music that you could reach that height and sell the kind of records, we sold 2.5 million records the first year. sold 10 million copies that record "breathing" but that was a banner world. like the whole world turned into the planet george benson. >> what's given you about so few can do, you can take a hit song that clearly and the classic example of it to me is "love ballad" i don't know how anybody approached "love ballad" after jeffery osbourne did what he did to it, yet not only did you have the gumption to do it, but you had the ability to make it yet a hit again. you have never shied away from finding a hit song and making it, frankly, your own. how do you do that? >> a producer said to me once,

he said you can make any song a hit, just depends on how you arrange it, how you approach the song. and i never forget it. and i remember something quincy jones said to me, he said, you know, quincy, you know george, everything used to be one by frames. it took me a while to figure that out. what's he talking about. one bar is four beats. don't, but the next bar repeats, same thing over. won't. i said that's boring. i'm going to change it to that two bar phrase that quincy was talking about. that's one bar. the second bar, don't. ♪ neon lights around on broadway ♪ >> and it worked. then i put the stuff on that they didn't do on them. the whole trip that made it my

own piece of music. and it really went over well. >> back with more in george benson in a moment. >> if we try hard enough we can get bill withers to write us. what? i said that ain't going to happen. ♪ no >> our her is brought to you by chevy, an american revolution. but only malibu has onstar. big deal. i'll just use my phone. let's say we crashed. whoops, you lost your phone and you're disoriented. i'm not disoriented. now you are. onstar automatic crash response can call to see if you're ok. onstar emergency. is everything ok howie? you don't answer, they can automatically send help to your exact location. i think i'll ride with you. the award-winning malibu. from chevy.

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after four decades and ten grammys, the guitar master shows no signs of slowing down. his latest album "songs and stories" has original songs from some of the great writers of our time, including smoky robinson and lamont dozer. benson even convinced the great bill withers, who hadn't written in years, to come out of retirement. the guitarist says music is really all about the song. >> everything begins with one and the foundation in the music business of a hit record is the song itself. and then you got to have those two great elements, got to sound good and feel good, those are musts. you have to have those. and then if you got a great story to tell, you got people's ears. so i always look for songs that are like that, because here i am, a guy came here to new york, trying to prove i belong, paid

all these clubs, beating people up with thousand notes per second trying to play with precision and fire and we did that. had some great bands. and we did all those things, but the things that went over with the songs that people could remember, easy listening sounds. ♪ lady love me one more time kisses in the moon light ♪ >> they loved that. ♪ give me the right feeling on broadway ♪ >> i said what? is this what you want to hear? i have plenty of that. >> george, what's amazing, too, is that you have been able to take these guys who have written these songs over decades with this new project, you've got smoky robinson, lamont dozer and you brought really an idol of so many and a man who is iconic, who has not, i told you, i was with him not long ago, who

hasn't done anything by means of songwriting or performing, to our detriment as fans for many, many years, talk to me about the collaboration with bill withers here. >> i'll tell you, that was like pulling teeth. but i hadn't seen him in so many years. we used to be on the road together back in the late '70s when i had "on broadway" and "this massacre raid" and he was on the show and i remember him saying, i don't like the road i'm going to take off, not going to do this. he did. disappeared. his songs kept showing up, you know, and every last one of them were top of the line songs and i kept saying, man, i wish i had that. you know. and so, the producer, john burke, he said george, i think we can -- we try hard enough we can get bill withers to write us. i said that ain't going to happen. he said he agreed to have some lunch with us. a few weeks later he called us

and said, i have something that i think you might appreciate. i said to myself, might appreciate. anything he puts on a piece of paper has value. >> george, finally, what's left for you? >> i finally realized that music is infinite. ain't no end. it ain't going nowhere, ain't going to go away. when you think about just a few years ago on the same streets, with the club with the same name, the greatest musicians that we know of, charlie parker, dizzy ga lesspy, miles davis they all played these clubs, but if you turn on the radio you don't hear them. it doesn't mean that their music is gone. it's going to resurface and we're going to discover how truly great. they're probably going to be bigger than they are now, if you can imagine that. so many things that can happen, every time i tried to retire, everybody said you can't retire.

come over and play some music. that's why i kept it going. ♪ with love >> now on to legend number two, after leaving the navy, our next guest took his acoustic guitar and moved to los angeles to pursue a singing career in 1967. good material was hard to come by, so bill withers began to pen his own music. ♪ and that's when the magic happened for this late bloomer. his first album "just as i am" was released in 1971 and boasted legendary tracks like grandma's hands and "ain't no sunshine." the latter won the grammy for

the best r&b song and those songs were just the start of a string of classics delivered by withers. "lean on me," "use me" "lovely day" and "just the two of us" are a few of titles that have stood the test of time. when you look at the bill withers catalog and you now look back and see those years, those early, mid '70 years when you were just firing on all cylinders, did you have any indication when you were writing them at that time, performing them, doing it at that time, that you had something special? maybe not a classic, but you were on to something special? >> you know, i had an odd thing. actually, i'm probably more listened to now than i was then. because then, first of all, i started this music thing late, i had been in the navy nine years, you know, i was socialized as a

whole different kind -- i was socialized as a sailor and an aircraft mechanic, so music was sort of a -- kind of an early, mid-life afterthought for me. it took a while for people to get me, i guess. ♪ well it's too hot to sleep and i'm too grown to eat i don't care if i die or not ♪ >> that may be true, but his music has touched millions. his gift is in writing simple, clever, relatable lyrics. much of your music, bill, has touched the hearts of so many people in that we associate with it and you know exactly what you were talking about, whether it's grandma's hands or "ain't no sunshine" or the myriad of songs that you put out there, what was it about you that could speak to i suspect what you lived and

give it publicly to people? >> well, first of all, if you look at my whole thing, you know, things that people would know me by, a large part of it wasn't about boy/girl stuff. boy/girl styles change from now, you know, now people go pretty far, like, you know, what they want to do to each other specifically, graphically and whatever. i think the fact that i dealt with subjects like grandmothers, that's unconditional kind of love. it's not that fickle, you know, i love you until i find somebody that looks better than you. "lean on me" nothing to do with the boy/girl thing. so i think once something like that is injected in there, it's transferable from generation to generation to generation.

and also humility doesn't hurt for things to last. you know, for you to admit that you were not the winner in this situation. now, boy these guys are winners, my money, my car, my thing, my whatever, you know what i mean. so if you look at things like "ain't no sunshine" there's a vulnerabili vulnerability, you know what i mean? you know, even something like "use me" that's kind of sassy in one way, but there's a vulnerability in the other one. you know, so i think the subject matter of that stuff and the fact that it was just kind of a generic kind of affection thing. ♪ any time she goes away >> more with the one and only bill withers right after this.

>> somebody's always accusing me of writing something about some woman that i didn't even know when i wrote it.

the hits that span decades have been remade and sampled by many, and even though withers stopped performing years ago, his music is as popular as ever. >> for me, i know when i'm done writing something, when i see something. >> in your mind's eye? >> yeah. if it makes you see something, you know what i mean? you mentioned grandma's hands. everybody sees something, different visuals from people like barbra streisand, who's jewish and recorded that song, she didn't see the same grandmother that i saw, but you see something, you know what i mean? at least for me. if it suggests something visual, then i say okay, i'll keep this. >> how much of what you wrote was auto biographical, that you

truly lived it? >> that's a fun one. because somebody's always accusing me of writing something about some woman that i didn't even know when i wrote it. probably it's a generic thing, you know, hopefully, hopefully in the course of your life, you have all these different contacts and experiences and like you say, times when you win, times when you lose, times when you just run away because you don't even want to stick around for the results, and you are just sitting around scratching yourself and different stuff crosses your mind at different times. i don't know if i plained that very well. but probably everything is autobiographical for everybody. >> what, for you, i ask this of many musicians and unfairly so,

almost asking who's your favorite child, is there a consummate for you, a favorite bill withers song? >> well, to me it's like they're all one song, you know. we wake up different days feeling different stuff, you know. there are different requirements for different times. so for me, it's like -- it's like a book and there's certain chapters, you know what i mean? >> let me go to the horse's mouth and ask you a question that is often written about you and i wonder how much of it is true. the fact that you, in a sense, like a barry sanders, walked away from what you did so well and what you loved as many saw as a premature age, it is often coined you walked away from it because you were so disgusted with the industry, you wanted no more to do with it and that was it, how much of that is real? >> first of all, i'm not that fragile. i'm also not that dumb.

that would not be very smart. so no, no, it's just -- it just wasn't in my dna to keep -- probably what i'm missing is, i don't have that gene that needs to draw attention to myself. and i'm also a practical person, you know. i mean, i make a good living, so threw there was nothing that drove me to just keep grinding away, you know. ♪ six years to lose it all have mercy that's a long time ♪ >> we'll be back right after this.

that does it for this edition of "our world" our thanks to george benson and bill withers. visit our website at blackenterprise.com. until next time, i'm ed gordon and thanks for making our world, your world.

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