George Benson has revealed how he acquired his most famous guitar at a knockdown price - proof that he was as smooth at cutting deals as he was at playing those jazz licks.
In a new interview with Guitarist, Benson recalls the moment when he got his hands on his iconic Gibson Johnny Smith, which has now been listed on Reverb for one dollar short of a million!
“I purchased it from one of the bravest guys I’d ever met,” George says. “His girlfriend sent him to her old boyfriend’s house to get the guitar she had just bought for him before they broke up.
“He went over there and knocked on the guy’s door. I’d call that brave! The guy came to the door and said, ‘No, man, not my guitar!’ He said, ‘Yep, you’ve got to give it up.’”
The guitar was promptly sold to Benson, who remembers the deal going down like this.
“He didn’t play guitar and said, ‘Man, I’ve got a guitar here, and somebody said you might be interested.’ I said, ‘Let me see it.’ It was an old Johnny Smith guitar.”
The guitar was, in fact, brand new, and once Benson worked this out, he made his move.
“I knew what it was worth,” he says, “but I made him an offer of about half of what it was really worth. He said, ‘Man, can’t you give me more than that?’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll add another $50.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s more than the other guys, you got it.’”
This was the main guitar Benson used for his classic 1976 album Breezin’, a crossover smash that hit number one on the jazz, R&B and pop charts in America.
As he said of the signature sound of that album: “It was the Johnny Smith guitar and the Polytone amplifier.”
As the guitar’s current sale price proves, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
