One Song - George Benson's "Give Me the Night"

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Are you ready to get smooth One Song Nation? Join Diallo and LUXXURY as they break down George Benson’s “Give Me the Night,” a song that helped usher in a wave of jazz-influenced pop music in the 1980’s.  The guys talk about the dream team of producer Quincy Jones and songwriter Rod Temperton, George Benson’s unparalleled ability to play the guitar, scat and roller skate backwards, and why this song is an anthem for sexy uncles everywhere.  Plus, if you can help Diallo figure out the identity of a song that’s been stuck in his head for decades, he might buy you dinner! Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/OneSong today. Have you ever dreamed of starting a business? Go to TailorBrands.com/podcast35 for 35% off all Tailor Brands services today. Get to Insurify.com to compare car insurance quotes in real-time and start saving today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is such a good vibe in the studio today because we have a feel-good song for y'all today. I got a smile on my face, ear-to-ear-e-to-ear grin. It's feel-good, but it's also smooth. Luxury, are you ready to get smooth with today's song? I'm ready to hit the quiet storm hard and ride this song all the way to the sunset, my friend. Well, listen, this song is by a jazz master. It earned him a Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and reached number one on the Billboard Soul Singles charts, number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

And number two, on the Billboard Hot Disco Singles chart, RIP to the Billboard Hot Disco Singles. I wish we still had that chart. We got to bring that chart back. I would listen all day long. That's right. You know, back by a legendary producing and songwriting team. This song paved the way for jazz musicians looking to break into pop music. Yeah, we're going to talk about, is it jazz?

Is it jazz fusion? Is it pop? Is it R&B? It might be all those things. It's one of the happiest songs ever recorded. It'll make you feel so good. You'll say, ditt-dab-dab-d-da-da-da-woo. Without a hint of irony.

Welcome to one song, and today that song is Give Me the Night by George Benson. Mr. Devil Wears Prada 2 in theaters. Merrill Street, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci are back. In light of the recent scandal, I'm here to restore your credibility. I did not hire you,

and all I need to do is bide my time until you fail. On May 1st, icons. I'm going to make something of this job. Rain. Be the bridges I burn. Night my way. Forever. I just love my job.

Get tickets now. The Devil Wears Prada 2. In theaters May 1st, directed by David Frankel. I'm actor-writer-director and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell. And I'm producer, DJ songwriter, and musicologist Luxury, aka the guy who whispers. And if you want to watch one song, please go to our YouTube channel and watch this full episode. And while you're there, please like and subscribe.

We've got a song for the uncles today. All the sexy uncles out just to have a good time. All right, Diallo, before we dive into the story of Gimme the Night, You were telling me about a moment where you realize that you love this song. Yeah, man. I mean, like, there's always that moment where, like, a song from your childhood or your past, you know, comes back. And you're like, oh, you know, I don't just remember this song. This song is really, really good.

It's good. It's really good. And I think for me, give me the night, I am, as you know, sometimes DJ, back in my earliest DJing days, especially out here in L.A., the actor Wendell Pierce hired me to come to DJ his house party. all I heard was house party. I was fresh out of college. And, you know, so I invited, like, a couple of my friends to this party. Like, I invited six friends.

It's like a young DJ foul thing to do, like, to get hired for the game. You didn't have no guest list. Yeah. So, like, invite a couple of people to the party. So I invited, like, I invited, like, six of my best friends at this party. And it turned out his house party was more of, like, a dinner gathering. Like, he only invited, like, 12 people. So you outnumbered the actual party.

So, like, I have, like, a third of the party guests at this party. But Wendell was so cool about it. And he was just like, oh, man, don't worry about it. Just come on it. And I remember we were playing this party and, like, my friends are dancing with his friends and stuff. And then at one point, you know, this is in the vinyl days when, like, you know, the records you bring are the records you play. You had a crate and it was heavy and that's all. There is no.

None of your friends are helping you with those crates. No, no. I was breaking my back and, like, the crate, the milk crates were eating into my fingers. I probably had, like, 150 plays. I was a young DJ. Give me the night. I put it on. And everybody just started dancing and, like, the vibe just.

it was such a good vibe. And one of my friends, shout out to my friend Craig Bowers, he knew all the moves that George Benson does in the music video, like when he's in the roller skates on Venice Beach. So he starts doing that, and everybody was just laughing at him and having a great time. And it was just a vibe.

But I was the point, I was like, you know, there's so many things about this song, long before I knew what a STEM was, or even like very much about, like, you know, the bass. Because, you know, again, public school kid, I played the marching band,

but I just didn't know much about bands. I could never have broken this song down or told you who produced it or what was good about it, but I just know that the finished product was awesome. In my memory of the video, by the way, he's roller skating and playing the guitar, right? He totally is. He's roller skating on Venice Beach with a guitar in his hand.

I think it's actually one of those times where, like, the music video just, it accentuates what's going on in the song, both musically and lyrically so well that to me, All three are completely intertwined. I don't think the man gets enough credit because, like, we're already going to talk about on this episode how he, besides being a mad insanely talented guitar player is an incredible singer while he is playing guitar. But while he is roller skating, that's almost a bridge too far for me to handle this man's talent. Dude, there's a scene where like he's like doing like he's roller skating in a circle with his guitar and they're like early break dancers and there's like a guy with a boom box on his shoulder. and you're just like man that's the fittest beach i want to visit man that's like with muscle beach you

could probably run into Arnold Schwarzenegger on that muscle beats that's like 1979 when they probably shot the video so it's crazy it's so crazy we're gonna have so much fun today luxury what does this song and george benson mean to you well so deep in the recesses of my memory having heard it like when i was really really like i know not even a teenager yet um it has that special vibe of being happy memories that are super vague and almost melancholy nostalgic so it's like i don't have any specific memory other than it just evokes childhood 100%. It's like I put it in the same category as Patrice Russians forget-me-nots. These are two of my favorite songs of all time. And they can never be toppled from that position because they're so core and deep in my nostalgia. Yeah. Yeah. And they just

hold so much space. Literally the use of reverb in these songs, I think, is part of that. These are very reverby songs. The vocals are almost coming from outer space and the claps, et cetera. That's such like a It's like a production detail that I only now have the language for. Exactly. It's so interesting that that evokes nostalgia because of that production usage. That's exactly what I mean. Like it evokes nostalgia, but it's also like now we have a language. We have a way of talking about these things that the young us didn't have.

By the way, you bring up Patrice Russian. We're going to be talking about another singer. Oh, we love her. Patty Austin, who does the background vocals on this. So much to dive into. So give me the night brought George Benson to pop stardom. But before that, Diallo, what can you tell us about the jazz scene in the 70s that leads to this crossover success? Oh, man.

This is a, there's so much that I want to say about this because I feel like a lot of times jazz, you know, it gets left out of the conversation in the musical evolution. In the pop, in the pop sort of hip-hop rock. Yeah, not among you and your and the musicologist and the serious music music. And on the show, to be fair, it's come up the shock-a-con episode, obviously Steely Dan. So we have mentioned it, but you're right. It seems almost, it's very peripheral to the conversation. these canonical songs. I feel like usually people say, oh, there was the blues, which gave forth rhythm and blues.

Maybe they'd leave in that step. And then to rock and roll. And I feel like what gets left out is jazz's role in all this, because in some ways, and it was only in talking to you about this episode, I think the jazz had maybe an outsized influence on the black music of the 80s, whether it's the Michael Jackson pop of it or the hip hop of it. And the jazz artists were having a moment in the 70s. You know, this is post civil rights. They're experimenting. They're experimenting. They look different. You know, they look different than the hard bop musicians of the 50s and the 60s.

And whether you're talking about Dexter Wansel, Norman Connors, Donald Byrd, who has this amazing jazz funk run in the 70s with songs like Love Has Come Around. Yeah. I totally agree. And I think part of what's happening here is that jazz as a sort of purist, medium has hit its peak and started to fade in terms of the financial repercussions of performing as a jazz musician. So there's a necessity in some ways. Like that's something you're going to go to the, you're probably not going to go out and be like, hey, babe, let's go. By the early 70s,

rock and roll has entered the fray and we've got funk coming into it. So a lot of it's out of necessity that some of the players are bringing in themselves. The jazz players are, there's fusion starts to happen in the early 70s. So there's rock and roll. There's funk. There's, and then by the mid-70s, it's all fusing together so that each of these different genres start to borrow elements from the other ones in this really, I think, healthy cross-pollination, which in some ways comes out of jazz by itself ceasing to kind of really exist as a viable format

for these players in terms of finances, in terms of money. But it seems like they're pushing albums. I mean, like, you know, so you have everything from like the creator has a master plan. To more crossover stuff, like the weather report. Yeah, yeah. to even what I would call proto-hip-hop, Gil Scott Heron, and the last poets. Yeah.

When the revolution comes. When the revolution comes. When the revolution comes, some of those will probably... I would argue that it's the jazz artists of the 70s that really paved the way for the 80s because think about it. You've got somebody like Quincy Jones who produces off the wall for Michael Jackson. He's coming in from jazz. And he's like, hey, I'm going to really leave this important. print with, you know, this R&B singer over here.

Quizzy Jones isn't producing Earthwin and Fire. He's not producing like sort of like the major R&B artists of the late 70s, but he's coming in from jazz and he's kind of creating his own lane. And you've also got people like Kirby Hancock who quite honestly made the first song that I ever heard with scratching on it, which is Rockett. Yep. So I feel like jazz gets left out of the conversation quite unfairly. Even if you don't consider how much hip hop once it starts sampling,

sampling goes to the jazz well for its sampling. You know what you're making me realize, too, as you're saying it, is that in some ways, jazz gets folded in to many other of these genres. We talked about the specificity of what I meant by that in the Seeley Dan episode, we kind of went down a path, and the Shaka Khan episodes as well. It's beyond the scope of this episode to talk about, quote, unquote, what is jazz? And to answer it succinctly, but what happens is some of the aspects of jazz, like the swing rhythm or the instrumentation or the scales or chord changes aspects.

some of those things find their way, or in the case of hip-hop, the actual recordings. What's happening with jazz is sort of splintering. Some of these elements find its way into various recordings on a sort of individual basis. So you have some chord changes from the jazz canon are in, say, a Steely Dan situation, or some of the scales find its way into a solo on a Shaka Khan record. Or the person we're talking about today, George Benson. So that's part of what happens to jazz. It starts to become part of the language and the grammar of other genres.

But at the same time, jazz still exists in its own lane as well. So what's happening in this song is we're getting the instrumentation, the literally the prowess on guitar that George Benson brings to the song. That he's had since he was a little kid. These chord changes, though, and the instrumentation and the rhythms and the bass lines are kind of more on the funk disco side of things. And the vocals, with the notable exception of what Patty Austin is doing with her backing vocalist cohort, you know, the vocals are,

a pop song. It's got a pop chorus, music everywhere and lots of love and everywhere. But then you got a little vocalese, a little scatting. So little elements are sprinkled throughout. Yeah, he didn't leave jazz totally behind. Oh, and obviously the solo and the scatting. So there's little elements of jazz are sprinkled throughout, but you've got the basis of it is, is the funk, the pop, and the disco. I just think that like, you asked the question, what is jazz? I think that this truly is about as close as a jazz record at that time could come to being just a, a mass massive pop and R&B hit. I mean, like, it would be like if right now, Kamasi Washington or somebody like him had, Robert Glasper had like the number one song in the country. Like, it would be kind

of mind-blowing. I feel like this is that. I think what you can say definitively is that in the 70s, jazz is trying to find its way. Some of it is going more traditional jazz. Some of it is going literally to outer space. And some of it is trying to find its space in more mainstream music. Luxury, can you tell us a little bit about George Benson's role in that transition and his place and bringing jazz influences to pop. Absolutely, y'all. Let us have a brief introduction on the man born, George Benson on March 22nd, 1943 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Prodigy, right off the bat, love music, grabs a ukulele when he's seven, and is playing in the blues. In the town square. Yeah. And at age eight, he's already playing guitar at a nightclub, an unlicensed

nightclub, no less, Friday and Saturday nights. Where is this nightclub with an eight-year-old on guitar? This sounds like something that, uh, Stefan. on on Saturday Live. Bill Hader's character. So there's a nightclub with an eight-year-old on guitar and it's completely underground. By the way, quick shout out to Rick Biotto, who had a great interview,

like a really comprehensive interview with George Benson recently. Really great stuff. And by the time he's nine years old, he's already in the recording studio. He's not washed up by nine, like a lot of those eight-year-olds. This is from 1954.

It's quote, Little George Benson. The song is called, She Makes Me Mad. I mean, he's singing about what nine-year-olds relate to. There's somebody in their lives who identifies as a she, and they have made them mad. Yes. I love this song. She made me mad. I'm so honest. And that brings us to a really important

moment when he's around 17 years old and he sees another musician playing who just changes the course of his life to the next direction. And that is West Montgomery. Oh, wow. One of the greatest guitar players of all time, not just in jazz, but just period. Like the influence on jazz musicians of course like George Benson, but also influenced Hendrix and Steve I, rock guitarist. He's one of the all-time greats. Yeah, so that's, listen, the guy's catalog is filled with heaters, but that one is called Four on Six from 1965, a live album called Smoking at the Half Note. And when young George Benson, age 17 now sees him, it blows his mind. It gives him a whole new sort of way of

thinking about the instrument. So Benson's career continues to progress at a pretty rapid pace. He's He's only 21 when he joins Jack McDuff's band. Yeah. And then in 1968, he starts working with Creed Taylor, who's one of the most important producers in jazz history, long career in jazz. He's credited for bringing Basanova to the States. And in part, he's brought into Creed's fold. Creed Taylor has his own sub label at A&M called CTI, famously.

Yeah, I love CTI. Yep, CTI is, you know, if you ever see a CTI label at the record store, snatch it up. It's going to be good. And in some sense, Creed Taylor was somewhat explicitly replacing his star, West Montgomery, who had just passed away with George Benson, sort of the new rising West Montgomery in many ways. And here from 1970, this is a record that Benson did call it Other Side of Abbey Road. It's all Beatles covers. And here's his version of Here Comes the Sun.

But let's not forget, he's a monster musician. I don't know if I've made that clear. We got to hear some of George Benson's like, like he's a hard bop. These are fast runs on the guitar with like crazy breakneck tempos. This is one of my favorites. This is from 1973. So live recording of the song, Olio by Sunny Rollins. Like I almost feel like my ears are not fast enough to hear what his fingers are doing.

What was fun with that was because I launched us kind of in the middle of that track. And it took me more than a moment to find my way into the tempo and like where the one was. Where the one was. Yeah. I love that. Also, we're taking this little. detour into like just investigating some of this early jazz and early George Benson because it really makes it, not stark contrast, but knowing this is where he comes from. And then we get into this

song, it's the eclecticism of this man and the eclecticism of his talents. Going into this episode, I did not know that he was quite the renowned jazz guitarist that he is. You know, I just knew, oh, that's George Vince. That's the guy on roller skates. That's the guy on roller skates, right. You knew he was talented on the roller skates. Yeah, I was like, let's hear about his roller skating career. All right. Well, that brings us to 1976. This is a pretty crucial year in the George Benson career because this is the year that he gets a new label. That's Warner Brothers. And he finds a new producer. And there's a story behind how he chose this producer, which I want to tell. One of the unsung heroes of this episode is a gentleman called Tommy Lapluma. Tommy Lapluma is a famous producer. He's a jazz pop icon.

He's partially credited for coining the term or at least popularizing smooth jazz. But he's worked with George Benson. He worked with Miles Davis. Barma Streisand, Diana Kral. He did Natalie Cole's Unforgettable. He got five Grammys. And he tells the story about how he saw George Benson live in the mid-70s. And he saw him sing, which was, you know, we've now played a couple of early singing George Benson songs, but he was not known for that.

Not only was he not known for that, but it turns out that. He's actually discouraged that points in his career from singing. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. So he tells the story that he saw him sing summertime from Porgy and Bass. So he knew he could sing. And he didn't understand why record companies weren't letting him sing as he tells the story. So he met with him when he was looking for a label.

This is 1976. George is leaving. He's about to join Warner Brothers. And part of the reason why he later tells La Pluma is when they had this meeting, he asked him, why aren't you singing more? We think you should sing more. And George had wanted to sing. And apparently Benson said, well, you know, Creed Taylor, when I was at A&M,

wanted for me to focus on being known for the jazz. Like, he thought it would be potentially confusing to the marketplace, essentially, if it was anything other than jazz instrumentals. Basically, Creed wanted him to be the next West Montgomery, quite literally, like, keep on doing what West did. So he tells the story that later on, a part of no small part of why he signed to Warner Brothers and took on Tommy Lapluma as his new producer,

was that he knew that Tommy recognized his vocal talents, and he wanted to start doing it more. I love that. George Benson's commercial breakthrough is this song. It's called Breezen. It's from 1976. This was the number one pop and R&B record of the year, but it's also one of the best-selling jazz records of all time.

Let's listen to a little bit of Breezen. Oh, yeah. I got to take a sip for this one. Oh, my God. It's such a vibe. This is everything you need. This is everything you need. That just sounds like you're sitting on some grass.

Some people are smoking some grass. Listen to these players. This is one of those songs, everybody's heard it. At some point, I didn't know it was called Breazin. I didn't know it was George Benson. Oh, you couldn't think of a better title than Breazin either. Instrumental songs are a pain. There's no G, apostrophe N, Breazin.

Oh, I know. How did we ever identify these songs before Shazam? Oh, don't get me sorry. Literally, like someone who would have had to walk into like Amoeba Records would be like, the other song, man, na, na, na, na, na, na, man, nah. Like, the line at the information desk at record stores must look like American Idol because everybody was singing the songs.

Da-da-da-da-da. Exactly. Well, D-D's used to back-announce a little more, too, to be fair. Like, a lot of where you'd be hearing it would be on the radio problem. Yeah, totally, totally. But still, you're right. I mean, like, it's hard. There's no vocal in the song.

You would have to sing, what's that song that goes da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. By the way, it's hard to listen to the song. I am in a sweater, and I got rocking a chain outside my shirt. Like, I feel like I am in a breeze and mood. By the way, that's a Bobby Wilmack song. The original version was done by Gabor Zabo, in 19, 71. Here that is. So Benson tells the story that he didn't want to do the song at first. He liked the original version a lot and thought it stood on its own. He didn't need to redo it. But he also

thought that maybe the melody was a little too simplistic. So as you'll notice now that you've heard both versions, Womack came to the studio and Benson asked him to like add something to it. And that's where we get the da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da so we have Benson to thank for Womack coming back to add that crucial, crucial aspect of the song we all know. love as Breazin. So going back to why Tommy and La Pluma is one of the unsung heroes of this episode. Again, he signed George, or George signed to Warner and wanted to work with La Pluma on the basis of his wanting to sing and noting that La Pluma thought he should. Well, this is where he steps out as a singer and the song is called This Masquerade. It's written by Leon Russell, had already been

covered by Helen Reddy and The Carpenters. But this was La Plumas telling George that he thinks he should sing, step up to the mic and do it. So he sings this. That's a first take, by the way. It's on a cheap mic because no one was expecting him, first of all. That wasn't set up. Al Schmidt, the engineer, tells the story that this was George Benson session. Nobody had any expectation that we needed to get the vocal situation set up. So we just set up, he had a cheap $60 mic lying around. He handed it to him just for the sake of speed. and everyone in the room sort of looked around and goes, oh, damn, this is happening.

George Benson is now a guitar player slash singer. And that ended up being the first single from the record. It won a Grammy for Record of the Year, was nominated for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, and George Benson is suddenly a singer as well as a guitar player. All right, so Benson's off to the races as a insanely talented jazz guitarist, but also now a maker of huge pop song hits that he sometimes sings.

That trend continues with 1978's huge hit, another huge hit. Another cover, by the way, which is this one. This is on Broadway. That's from his 1978 live album, Weekend in L.A., which was recorded at the Roxy right up here on Sunset in Hollywood. That's incredible. He tells a great story about how the original version, by the way, this is another 60s Girl Group song.

It's written by not just Man and Vile, but also Lieber and Stoll. It's sort of a meeting of the minds of two of the building's greatest teams came together. The original version was by the cookies and then the crystals. The famous version is by the Drifters, and I'll play you a little bit so you can notice a difference. If you'll notice the original version, that 1963 recording by the Drifters, it's a little different. One of the major differences is that you've just got a one-bar repetition. So it's da-da-da-da-da. So what Benson did was he turned it into a two-bar loop,

which is more of a like asked-and-answered kind of thing. So you have done-dun-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-c. He also made it more staccato, gave it a little more funk, and continues his rise at the charts. That one goes to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, number two on the soul chart, and he gets a Grammy for best R&B vocal performance for that. So definitely coming into his own as a vocalist at this point.

Well, listen, Weekend in LA is a hit album. It comes out, it gets certified platinum. He releases a compilation album called Space, and then he releases a 17th album called Living Inside Your Love. This is his last one from this period produced by Tommy Lapuma, and it only goes gold, which would be great for anybody else. But, like, you know, in this business, you're only as good as your last album. You know, that's what the Tommies of the world would probably say.

That's your Tommy Boy. That's by Tommy Vitola. But it could be Tommy Lapuma, too. And then enter Quincy Jones. And Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton, who we've talked about so many times on this show, they're coming off the hot, white hot success of Off the Wall, which I believe at that time might have been the best-selling R&B album of all time. Like everybody's talking about it.

And Quincy is looking to assign artists to his label Quest Records, and he goes to George Benson. And he says, hey, man, I like what you're doing. but he's like, do you want to make the greatest jazz record of all time? Or do you want to go for the throat? And George is like, I want to go for the throat. So to hear Patty Austin tell it, when they begin the sessions that will eventually produce,

Give Me the Night, it's like two Titans, you know. And there's a little bit of a clash because George is not a crossover star, but he's a major star. I mean, the man has 17 albums out there. People know who he is. Quincy obviously already a legend, but it's like two legends. Like, you know, there's some tension, there's some back and forth. But at the end of the day, I think that what ends up happening is that George trust these guys with the hot hand.

Yeah. I mean, Quincy and Rod have the hot hand. I always, Quincy in 1979, early 1980 is like T-Pain in 2006. He's like Lil Wayne in 2007. He's like two-chain. He cannot miss. In 2012. It's like songs that like we would not normally pay that much of.

attention to just for them being on it, just for them sprinkling their magic on it. It's like they cannot miss. They just can't miss. And that is what we have with Gimme the Night. One of my favorite facts about this album is to hear the people involved tell it is that at this period, Quincy and Rod are going out all the time. They're going out to nightclub all the time. And it's just so that they can get the vibe of what it is to be clubbing during this period.

I think it was Patty Austin. It was like, yeah, you know, some people are like, oh, they're just Playboys. but no, they were doing research, which is what I typically say when I go out to night clubs. I'm like, babe, I'm doing research. I wish I could visit some of those clubs. I bet you there's some great stories there. But thankfully, we have the lyrics of the song,

which I think paint a pretty clear picture of some of the shenanigans they were getting into. No, I think you're right. I think if you listen to the lyrics of this song through the lens of exactly what you're discussing like, the idea of Rod and Quincy together out on the town in Hollywood in 1980, it puts a whole new shine on what the song's about. Absolutely.

And I imagine them like driving in a car, convertible down Beverly Drive because there used to be nightclubs on Beverly Drive near where the Beverly Center stands today. And man, they must have had some really good times. I will also say that you create music and I used to DJ music. So I was in the research business. Like my whole job was based on what will make people dance. What are people loving to move to right now. Oh yeah. No better place than what the DJs are doing in the nightclubs. Yeah. And I imagine the tempos, the instrumentation, all of that stuff is valuable data. So valuable. And I would imagine a someone who's making music like every now and then you're like you know what let me just go out

and see what sounds good in the nightclubs space let me see what what people are moving to it makes such a difference because well first of all quincy and rod are their focal point is clearly the radio like that matters the most what's going to sound good in the car radio maybe on your headphones or your home stereo but there's also you got to triangulate between what's going to like be on the nightclubs too because that also has sort of the underground sauce that kind of has the cool the hip factor which starts which bubbles up into the pop later on so So they're trying to get it from all the different angles. They've obviously mastered how to get the radio songs,

and they're mastering how to get those disco songs, too. You know, earlier you mentioned the reverb you hear in this song, and just the general production sound. Totally. And I never thought about this before. In talking about how this song is jazz and R&B and pop, I'd also say it might be one of the very first 80s boogie songs. Because if you think about it,

artists like Juniors' Mama used to say, slaves. watching you. Like all these songs sort of feel like the children of, you know, children meaning like a year or two later, the children of giving the night by George Benson. Oh, interesting, right. I think of Boogie, too, having the bass lines,

the rubbery 16th note baseline, and with synth bass. And with synth bass. What we're about to find in the stems here is that we have, not just one, but two baselines going concurrently. One of which is absolutely a slinky, buggy bass line, I think that's a good connection. We've come to the stems, and after the break, there will be music in the air and lots of loving

everywhere, because we're going to give you those stems. And maybe, just maybe, you can help us identify a song that I have been unable to identify for more than a decade. I'm going to sing it to you, and I could really use your help. We'll be right back. The start of a new year is the perfect time to get organized, set goals, and prioritize what matters most. For me, a top priority is financial wellness, which feels more important than ever. Thanks to Rocket Money, your goals are achievable. They show you all of your subscriptions right in one place and help you easily cancel ones that you forgot you've been paying for.

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slash podcast 35. Don't be a statistic. Set your business upright from day one. Welcome back to one song where we get a little lit of some white wine. Here in the studio, I think that's water. I'm pretty sure that's water. Luxury, before we get into the Stimps,

tell us about the production team behind this song. Well, Diyah, as you alluded to moments ago, this is a group of people that we've talked about. It's a dream team. We've talked about these folks on previous episodes. In fact, I would recommend a good sister episode to this one. Might be the Thriller episode because like that song, this song was written by one Rod Temperton, British man who had come from the band Heat Wave. Just amazing talent. Incredibly talented guy. We're a huge fan of all of his songs. The Deeper Dive is available to you on that other episode. We're going to cut to The Chase, which is that he wrote. 100% of this song. There are no splits to speak of. He is the man, or rather at this point, his estate as he is dearly departed, against all the royalties, songwriting side of things. One thing I love about Rod, give props to Patty, because I didn't know this before, but like when she talks about working with Rod, she talks about a guy who comes in with very

specific song ideas, but can barely play the piano. Like even when it comes to the chorus, like he's playing them like individual notes. And that's always been my fresh. because I like hear songs in my head. I'm like, hey, oh guys, this is the song and I'll go over to piano and I'll be like, plonk, like I can't get it out. It's so frustrating. But to know that Rod has that same thing going on. It gives me hope. It gives me hope that one day I'll be able to write some amazing stuff. What I love about it is exactly to your point. The fact that this man wrote these genius songs, completely to your point, Patty Austin, she says songwriting was quote, a process Rod had down to a science. He would hear a chord in his head, play each note individual. individually. And yet his core changes, again, this is her words, are insanely sophisticated,

and they're constructed through sheer tenacity and genius. In other words, he had a sound, he had a vision, for he knew how the song should go. And he meticulously laid it out in his demos. And we'll hear the demo for this in just a second. And Bruce Swardian, the engineer, again, from the Michael Jackson days, this is part of Quincy's dream team. Svidian says that Temperton was the, quote, most disciplined pop music composer I've ever met when he comes. comes to the studio, every musical detail is written down or accounted for in Rod's mind. And bear in mind, as you just mentioned, as theologist said, that's with no musical training whatsoever. He was able to capture all these ideas as a demo, one note at a time, one, you know, very slowly but meticulously.

Well, let's hear a little snippet of the demo and you'll hear just what they're referring to. That's the song. That's the song. Every little detail, not every, every, every, but like 99% of the melodic ideas are in there already. Totally. I think someone's one called a Quincy the master tweaker, which means something else in rave culture. But in this context, it makes a lot of ideas. Yeah, I think that some of the, you know, Dr. Dre, Diplow, there are a lot of people who, you know, they say the producer, you know, will hear something that has been brought 50% of the way, 75% of the way.

You can figure out the percent, but then they'll be like, you know what it really needs is this and that. And like, and they bring it the rest of the way. And I think that's totally legit. But I love that. I love the idea of collaboration, creating something more than any one person could probably bring to the equation. So Temperton writes the song, Quincy loves it. In his words, he thought it was very serious, quote, a mixture of bebop with Patty Austin, which I guess means the sort of the jazz and the pop and the funk.

Everything is happening all in one place here as he wanted it. So he brought it to George. They had already been in the studio a month. They were done with the record in his mind. He packed his bags. He was leaving. And he goes, Quincy called and said they had one more song for me. I wanted to go home, but he insisted,

man, it's a good song. It won't take long. So he goes to the studio, and let's listen to what they started to record, shall we? Should we get into the stems? We're drummers, so let's start where we usually start with the drums. This is John Robinson, one of the most recorded drummers in history. You've heard him on Off the Wall, rock with you. We Are the World, and he's on that Daft Punk record that came out a couple years ago that we all know and love.

We're lucky. Here's John Robinson playing the simplest drumbeat known to humankind. And that's it. Do do, do, do, too. That's a 110 kick and snare funk beat. Could be funk. Could be disco. I'm calling it funk for the sake of our game.

Rock skate. It could be anything. It's perfect. It could be anything. Well, let's bring in some other instruments, shall we? You want to hear. Yeah, you know what? I want to talk about the bass.

I was listening back, and I couldn't help but notice that there were two bass parts. You know, there was track one base, and then there was like a track eight or nine base that I just can't take seriously. I don't know why. I have, I have, we have beef. We have beef. We have beef. We have bass beef.

Base beef. Because I will say, I love Herbie Hancock. It's a beefy base that we have beef over. I love Herbie Hancock. Bow, no, no, no, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That always sounded silly to me. The headhunter, is that what that one's going? Yeah, yeah, totally.

That bass light always sounds a little. It's just, it's not what it's doing. It's the instrument that's being played on. It's the sound. It's the sound. It's the sound. It's bass content with sort of an envelope that's a little bit silly or noticeable or funny it's funky it's a little watery

rubbery dated what is that instrument and what is it doing on this song well let's listen to Richard T play the synth bass you have no idea how fulfilled I feel right now how can you not love this I'm upset that you find this to be hold on let me be clear to the one song

nation lesser than I love those notes I actually love what it brings to the song but in isolation that bass sounds silly to me I don't know it sounds like this is boogie based we were just talking about this That's a boogie song. This is Evelyn Champaign King. Oh, listen.

I feel like I'm in Salem and I have a few too many black cats in my house. You're a bass witch? That's a dope name. Listen, Richard T. is not acting alone in terms of the bass lands. Oh, gosh, no. He is occupying one of two bass lines that are amazingly concurrent. The other one is by Abraham LaBoreal on bass guitar.

Who kills it? Can I just say right out of the bat, kills it when you're listening to this song. It's almost like when I'm listening to Flea on a song. I'm like, how's that bass doing all that? I mean, not for nothing. He's number 42 on bass players list of the 100 greatest bass players of all time. And here's the bass line on bass guitar. And then we'll hear them together and how masterfully they blend.

I can listen out all day. Can we hear some more Abraham on bass, maybe that bridge? Let's do it. I'll bring some drums in. Feels all right. No shit. The drums. didn't need to do much because when you hear them lock in like that to that baseline.

It is satisfaction. You're right. That drum didn't need to do anything else. It was perfect the way that it was. You already have a song here. You wanted to play the bases together. I sure did because the interplay between them. So if you go back to our, I think Earth One and Fire had two bases as well. We did Let's Groove. So we heard Verdeen on bass guitar and then there's also a synth bass. And what happens just from a production standpoint, you've got a limit. area for bass content. They're competing with each other, EQ-wise, frequency-wise, but even the notes themselves. So we'll listen right now to the interplay between Abraham and Richard on bass guitar and synthesizer bass, and we'll hear how they handled that. This interplay, this dance. It's this dance.

So the bass. Yeah, oh my God, those little pops are so satisfying. The bass guitar is EQ. It's a little brighter. We have a little more high-end in it. There's also a handful of notes like the pops that are only in the base. guitar, not in the synth bass, which is it's got kind of a low pass filter on it. You're not hearing any high end. So it's really just giving you more growly, what, throaty lows. Throat lows. Thrody lows are coming in the mix here. It's so interesting to me because I feel like just two years later, they would have known to make that synthy base a little bit more like 8080 for the lack of a better term.

Like it would have still served the same function. To get that sub function like the sub base. But it would have sounded less Herbie Hancock and the headhunters. No, we don't really have sub-base yet. That's an interesting point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also want to point out that you said how, like, you know, you don't want to overproduce. The drum's doing enough. And these two baselines have to find, you know, they have to do this dance. They have to find the open spaces and not step on one another. It reminds me of what was said about Luther Vandross as a background singer because they were like, everybody who ever worked with them. Never too much. Amazing song, recorded in an hour.

You know, that's insane to me. And there's a connection to that song will be getting. into in a minute too. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. They said that Luther was always able to find those spaces in between the nose and just figure out what to do there that like no other singer would think about. That's a big part of being a live performing musician, which is, by the way, you've laid the groundwork for everything that's going to come from this point forward in this song, because there's a dance between all of these little elements. So it starts with the bass. The drums being a simple foundational groove really helps the other pieces be syncopated and work together,

finding little funky pockets. We talked about a CV Wonder episode. We're getting close to something, which is one of my favorite elements of any song, very much this song. Is it the best part? We'll figure it out. But we're getting to the synths.

And when you played for me some of these stems earlier in the week, I was just like, man, I could live in this moment. I could live in these stems all by themselves. Oh, yeah. Herbie Hancock on Rhodes piano here has, oh my God, it's a performance from beginning to end. While he is repeating, because again, there's just a really simple part, which is the verse and the chorus and then a bridge. There's really two musical ideas happening.

But he is performing it the whole way. The performance is, it's not a loop. And the performance has these wonderfully little subtle changes from beginning to end. So we're going to have to like limit ourselves to hearing as a little chunk of it. So here is Herbie Hancock on electric piano. You can't not snap. You cannot drink. You cannot not drink.

Dap-da-da-da-do. Gimme the Night. So that's the Gimme the Night. I mean, to go with that synthet. That's what he's doing during the Gimme the Night. During the chorus. And during the verse, he moves to this, which is, I think, the part that you are the most satisfied by.

But we'll find out. Is this the best part of the song? Is this the best part, fight me? And let's hear how that interplays with what we've already heard. Because, again, we're building this, like, masterful interplay of syncopated parts. If I bring back the synth bass and the bass guitar, here's how that works with that syncopated thing

that Herbie was doing. And you hear why you need this underneath. Just to lock it all in. Stone groove. It's a stone groove, baby. It's a stone groove, baby. It's so good. Also, when you're playing the stems for me this week,

I noticed that there were two tracks that both seem to be the sense. Yeah. And I think you said that's because it's in full stereo. Like, one is getting one hand and the other is getting the other. I would do an episode just listening to four minutes of Herbie Hancock. Check this out. Comping on this song. That was so cool, but the hip hop in me is like, why has nobody done this?

Check this out. Looping in real time, y'all. That should be a sample. Yeah, it is now. That's a sample. Someone should just put a beat under that. Wait a second. Can you play just the drums?

Uh-huh. Can you play just the drums? And maybe we can get this in real time. Check this out. We both did the same thing. Come on. That's a remix. It's waiting to happen.

Why are we doing this podcast stuff? We could be making millions making remixes. This is where I've been for the last decade. It's obsessed with stems and remixing them and listening to them and talking about them exactly for that reason. It's just there's so much gold in there waiting to be heard, talked about, and maybe remixed and, you know, contextualized, sampled. It's all. There's one of these days we're going to hang out outside the show and we're going to actually create something. But until then, that was the, that's, that's.

a remix playing to happen. I'm sorry. And then in the bridge, Herbie does a little bit of this, and then he's joined towards the end with this beautiful synthesizer part, which is by, credit just to Michael Bautiker. That's star and dies. Then you know we can fly. So when we're on and on it. It's so perfect for like hitting the highs. That rise is so dramatic. It's so good. And by the way, I just noticed what's the lyric, that starlight looking at your eyes? No, it's Starlight. Oh, I thought about that.

It's Starlight. I absolutely thought about that. I'm trying to put Starlight in somewhere. He's obsessed with Starlight. This is before, it's before, go back to our thriller episode. Starlight, through those who remember. For those who haven't heard it, cover your ears. For those who have heard, you'll be reminded.

Spoilers. Starlight was the original title for Thriller. That's right. And a year earlier, he'd been trying to shove that word into every song he wrote, apparently. He was convinced Starlight was going to be. He was like, hey, listen, heat wave, George Bids, that's fine. Starlight's gonna buy my boat. That's your tiny British man accent.

He's a tiny British man. That is not fair to rod. We've been talking a lot about George Benson, the guitarist, this episode. So let's hear George Benson, the guitarist on Give Me the Night. Let's hear him. Well, there's actually two guitarists. And I'm going to talk about... Oh, that's right.

Yes. There's actually a second guitarist called Lee Rittenauer. He's one of the unsung heroes of this episode. For more than one reason. For more than one reason. So Rittenauer, when he's eight, he's playing guitar already. And by 16, he's on his first recording session with Mamas and the Pappas. He also, he also, he also, he's,

so famously, besides having a list of credits as long as your arm, including Lena Horan and Steely Dan and Sonny Rollins, Peggy Lee, he, we mentioned Strawberry Letter 23. That's him playing on the Brothers Johnson version. He's playing the original guitar solo on that record. And Quincy works a lot with the Brothers Johnson too. Absolutely.

Yep, that's Quincy on that record. So he gets into Quincy's camp. And according to an interview with him, Quincy Colin said, you got to help me update George's guitar sound. First off, I love how he says, he says, Lee, it's Q. I wish I had. The machismo to call it people

like luxury is D but Q is such a definitive letter Anyway, I just love that Lee, it's cute Go ahead. Nothing against D&B but you know a lot of D&Bs in your life. You only know one Q Very few Q's. If that many. Few Ques.

So Lee Rittenauer comes in and he tells the story about how he helps set up some new sounds like compression and reverb like basically a new pedal board for George Benton's setup which is still relatively clean but he is adding some subtle stuff to make it sound more current. And we'll get to it in the second. He also plays a part in the very famous solo, which we'll be hearing in a moment. But first, let's hear the guitar parts from Gimme the Night,

starting with this one from George Benson, which I might call the hook. Maybe this is the hook of the song. Yeah, that's it. This tiny little thing. It's all you need is that. Which, of course, as we just heard in the demo, was in the demo. Yeah. But when George does it, it's something else, isn't it? And I love this. How does it become the hook of the song? Well, listen, apparently earlier, earliest versions, and we heard it on the demo. Yeah. Earliest versions of the song, it wasn't quite as frequently used in the song. It wasn't the hook. According to Benson, quote, Quincy heard my guitar part in the middle. Master tweaker. Master tweaker said he wanted it all over the record, including the intro, and that became the hook. Yeah. So I guess it was sort of one of,

you know, listen, all these Rod Temperton songs are laden with hooks. There's like 15, 20 melodic ideas and and little fun ear candy going throughout the track, but apparently it wasn't until Benson played it, and Quinson was like, that's the one right there. That's something special. That's something special right there. And I can't imagine this song without the prominent whoo-woo.

You know, it does really make a huge difference in the song. Well, what it also appears to be the case is that between that and the solo, that's really George Benson's guitar contribution to the song. And he also played this other part, crucially, I should say. So George Benson on the song Gimmie the Night is playing da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And of course, the very important scat chorus that we'll be hearing in just a moment. And the other main part interlocking with it is by Lee Rittenauer playing with a Mutron Octaviser. Let us hear that now.

It's hard not to move on that. And I'll add back George's part so you can hear how they sounded together. And just so you can hear how these interlocking parts continue to interlock, I'll bring back Herbie, then I'll bring back Richard, and I'll bring back Abraham, one at a time. So here is both guitar parts, Herbie on Rhodes, bass. The interlocking is just so satisfying. To my left brain, like the mouth side of my brain is like, oh, all these little ideas that like perfectly don't. But then your heart is also feeling the overall emotion.

My heart is pumped. Yeah, absolutely. I like the story about the solo in this song because, you know, George Benson finishes his work and he's off to Hawaii, which sounds like just a good life. Just lay down some music and then go to some house you own in Hawaii. And unfortunately, there's an studio mishap as the second engineer, not the main engineer, not Bruce Svidian, but Bruce Svdien.

Sweetie would never make that mistake. Svdian would never do this type of thing. Or he might and blame it on somebody. It was an underling. We don't know. But according to written hour's telling of it, the solo, the incredibly famous solo,

where George Benson plays the guitar line and sings it at the same time, which we'll hear in a second, was accidentally erased, or part of it was erased, which is insane. So they, and this is back in the days.

It's just the last part for the record. But Quincy and the guys know he's not coming back to do that part. No, no, he's off to Hawaii. He's done with his record. It's like, in fact, he doesn't even know about it. So they're not bothering him.

Yeah. There is a logistical thing where this is back in the days before Pro Tools, of course. So this is a multi-track session with multiple machines involved. There's like 100 tracks going on. So it's no small feat to get in there and try and fix something like this. So Rittenauer tells the story. He gets a call from Q. It's like, Lee, it's Q.

I can't do the voice. You got to get down here and fix the solo. All the gear is here. He set it up anyway. So you can basically step into George's shoes. like George and essentially take over these last three bars that got accidentally deleted. So Lee played the solo, the last two or three bars. And by the way, it's important to mention, he's recreating what was on, they did have a cassette tape, a recording, not usable for the

final mix, but just so he could learn it and play it exactly. So that's what he does. He goes in, and remember, George is scatting it too. So he's got to play to the scatting. He's got to play to George's line. So let's listen, and then I'll finish that story. So you can hear what I'm talking about. It's so cool hearing this iconic guitar song without the singing, right? So somewhere around here got deleted. So somewhere around that, you know, last three bars is where Lee takes over. And it seems seamless to my ear. Yeah, apparently so seamless even George didn't hear it.

So fortunately for Lee, the scatting part was still intact. I'll play that for you now. This is George singing what he played. I'll mix it together. So this is around the time when it gets erased. So this is what Lee has. So it's kind of helpful that he sang what he played so that Lee could listen back and perform with George's voice in his ears

what the notes were to play. Apparently that was helpful as a guide. And this iconic solo we now know is a patchwork of George. and Lee. And to your point, for many years, Quincy was like, don't ever tell George. So for at least 10 years or so, it was a secret that George never knew about. And then I guess at some point, many, many years later, Lee is like, apparently walking through the airport with George. And he says, like, oh, by the way, you know that this thing happened where I had to go in and Quincy wanted me to fix some things on the track. And George was hearing it for the first time. He never knew.

this entire decade of it having been the peak hit that it was all through the 90s. I like that because the story goes, George's like, oh, I might have to go back and listen to that. It's like, George, it's been all over the radio for the last way. Do you really have to hear it again? I never noticed, yeah. Listen, we'd be remiss if we didn't talk briefly about the solo scat. I just need to point out one thing that was really fun for me learning about was how he was influenced by Charlie Parker for the scatting.

Oh, wow. Listen, singing and scatting is a huge part of jazz, obviously. And it really literalizes this idea that your instrument is your voice, right? So when you think about Charlie Parker playing sex, that is him, that is the melody of his soul, right? He's not singing lyrics, but he is singing with his instrument. And I think George recognized that earlier on. He tells the story that his dad said, why don't you play like Charlie Parker? And he put on this song called Just Friends.

And he would listen to in the jukebox over and over. He learned every note. And as he tells the story, Benson tells the story, I couldn't play it on guitar when he's a young man, but I could sing every note. Wow. So that starts this idea that like, oh, wait a second, I can sing and play and sort of learning to play as he's singing it. So the singing, kind of like with Lee Rittenauer, the singing of that melody of that Charlie

Parker solo helps him learn it. And when he does it live, people go crazy. And it's like, wait a second, I've got something here. And that's how it becomes one of his signatures is the singing, playing thing. So I love that story. We've got Lee on the song. We've also got some amazing background vocalists on the song. Yeah, it's Patty Austin, Diva Gray, Jocelyn Brown, Tom Baller, and Jim Gilstrop on backing vocals.

All great background vocals, but I do want to call out Patty Austin because this is right before she has her own, you know, huge, huge career as a solo artist. Well, with a huge hit with another Rod Temperton song, right? Yeah, baby come to me with James Ingram's great, great song. I will say my favorite Patty Austin song is actually a Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, very early, early song by them called The Heat of Heat. but play some of these great background vocals. All right, well, Patty tells this great story. She goes into the studio, the tracks are already recorded, and because she's a jingle singer,

she has the skill set to just walk in, sight read, and make whatever it happens sound, in her words, make whatever the product is sound orgasmic. It's a very funny anecdote where she says, Rod sang the melody to me in his horrible voice. Patty go dibby dabba-dabba-dabby-woo. And I had to interpret it. It was hilarious.

I love that quote because I was like, Like, how do I spell out dibby dabba dabba dabby woohoo? And she did that. She did that. So here's Patty and company, dibi, dibi, dbby dabbying. Yeah, that's so deep. Oh, my God. That's so good.

And until we did this episode, I did not know they were saying, in the evening. So that was, even that helped clear some stuff up. But you can't do without doing. Yeah, yeah. That's so violent. That's like a violent note. Violent, I think it's angelic. Oh, my God, it's so sexy. It's so jazz. And it's just like, it's crazy.

It's kind of like so unexpected in a wonderful way. I love it. That's another aspect of jazz in this song. Is that choice of scale? We've got to talk about the scatting. I mean, like, how many number one songs in our lifetting in them? Very few. Before we get to that, we have one more part, which is really crucial.

Towards the end, we have this woven series of, repetitions in the background vocals. And here it is. It's the we can reach. It's a new melody that comes in. We can reach the stars. Why am I singing it when we got these guys to sing it? We can reach the stars if we try. Feel you need me the line.

I'm so glad you played that part because in all the times I heard the song, I never knew what they were singing there. I heard voices, but I never heard we can reach the stars if we try. So now next time you hear that impress your friends at the party. with we can't reach the stars if we try. So the song has to sing her, George Benson, eat crap, everybody who told George Benson he couldn't sing. One of the greatest vocal performances,

see if you can sing this song while scatting, playing guitar and roller skating. I will say it is the dealer's choice. What section of the song you play for us here? Verse one, George Benson, give me the night. Whenever dark is falling, you know the spirit of the party starts to come all right Until the day is dawning.

Can I just say as a writer, I love these lyrics. Whenever dark has fallen, you know, the spirit of the party starts to come alive until the day is dawning. You can throw out all your blues and hit the sea lights. Reminds me of another song, put on your red shoes and dance to blues comes to mind. Dave Bowing? Absolutely. Absolutely. Let's dance.

So these lyrics, again, like, it's easy to think that, oh, this song just happened and it worked perfectly. but these are some really well-cadenced written lyrics. Everything comes together perfectly to have this uplifting mood. The interplay of the lyrics and all those instruments we've been talking about just creates happiness in four minutes of audio content, right? Absolutely. Can I tell you what my absolute favorite line in this entire song is? I want to hear it.

It is in verse two, and maybe you just play a little bit of verse two. You need the evening action. I'll place to dine a glass of wine a little late row. That to me sums up so much about this song. This is like every uncle's dream. A place to dine, a glass of wine, a little late romance. Like that is a mature lover for you. I love late romance.

That is a guy. He's like, hey, listen, I just want a place to dine, a glass of wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a little late romance. He's not looking for an all-night bender. He doesn't have time for that. He doesn't love the energy for that, I should say. He's not that guy from Bright Lights, Big City, saying you're not the kind of guy who

usually ends up in a place like this. He's not Jay McCurney or the mediocre Michael J. Fox movie, Barry the same. No, he just wants a place to dine, a glass of wine, and a little romance. The late romance? I think it's meant to be a double entendre, too. Not sexually a double entendre, but like a late romance, meaning late in the day, but also like maybe late in life.

Late in life, maybe. I hadn't even thought about that. That's what I was thinking. Let's hear the bridge. And if you feel all right, then we can be love us, Because I see that starlight look in your eyes. Twinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. What a fucking perfect song.

God damn it. It's so clean. It feels good. It's a feel good song. It's a feel good song. It's smooth. Look, give me the night. George Benson, what a great artist.

One thing I'll say also towards the legacy of this song is that, you know, he says that when he was coming up, everybody was, you know, learning these different, you know, jazz instruments. But after the Beatles, everybody switched to guitar and you get everybody. playing guitars. So in the 70s, even jazz musicians are playing guitars. And this is a period where there's sort of like, you know, you could maybe call it the hegemony of the guitar. You know, absolutely. Nowadays, it's Ableton, I would argue. Like nowadays, every single genre, whether you're in country or dance music, hip-hop, doesn't matter. Almost everybody knows Ableton. Everybody's working off of, you know, laptops. Not laptops replaced the guitar. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a through line that you can make

between somebody who's such a pure technician guitarist like a George Benson, right through Prince, Prince who doesn't often get included in like the list of like the great guitar players of all time, but should. You've got that legacy. And again, I'm going to keep coming back to this. Jazz plants the seeds, maybe even more than R&B for the coming of hip-hop. So from Quincy Jones, who with Off the Wall and after this album, Thriller, is going to pave such a new way for R&B in the 80s with.

guys like Herbie Hancock and his contribution to hip-hop culture through Rocket, and just the fact that hip-hop is always sampling jazz, you know, this song really points out the role that jazz played in the development of music through the 80s and 90s. I think that's well said. I mean, one thing for me is when we think about legacy, is I was reminded in preparing for this episode. You mentioned the guitar and how the prince is,

often when we think of guitar, when we think of guitar players top 100 of all time. It's a pretty long list. A lot of those are white dudes. I think a lot of that has to do with white guys making the list. That's in no small part. And it's also maybe because the genre of rock is favored over jazz sometimes. And it's not all the time.

And to be clear, these lists are eclectic. Rock is the guitar genre. It's a little bit of the guitar genre. A little bit what happened in 1967-ish is that the guitar shifted from having a very central plays in jazz to being the fundamental thing of rock and roll. In part because it enabled people to pick up the instrument and quickly learn it. You have punk rock. You have garage rock before that. It didn't maybe start in 67. My point is that the legacy of guitar, you know, going back to Charlie Christian even before West Montgomery and then to George Benson. And then of course, Jimmy Hendrix

and then, of course, Prince, as you mentioned, there are a lot of incredible black guitar players. But more than that, the history of guitar is very much in the realm of black musicians. being incredible guitar players and influencing generations, not just in jazz, but also in rock and also other genres. I feel like the conversation changed

when that footage of Prince playing with Eric Clapton and all those other guys on stage, sort of went viral in like the early 2007-ish, and then it came back. But it was at my guitar gently weave. He had to play a rock guitar solo in a rock band by the Beatles.

And he had to be up there with literally all the legends and do it so well, by the way, that you get the sense that they're all staying out there like, that's a bad motherfucker. Well, George Benson's a bad motherfucker too. He's a bad motherfucker too. We absolutely, I think have demonstrated that with this song.

All right. Now for our contest, which we don't usually do contests, but this has been bugging me for a long time. There is a smooth jazz song that has been stuck in my head now for well over a decade, and I really need your help. I can't figure out what it is. It sounds like this.

Banana-na-na-na-da-na-da-da-a-da-a-da. Doon, do do do do. Banan-da-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d. I think there's a modulation. What era, like, what instruments? What's the sound? I think it's... 80s?

I think that's a trumpet. 60s, 80s? Hold on, let me hear in my head. I think that's a trumpet. It's definitely late 70s, probably early 80s, probably early 80s when I think about how it sounds in the mix. Okay. So one song, Nation, listen, if you're the first person to,

identify this song successfully, I will buy you dinner because you will have saved me from this headache that I've been suffering from 10 years in the making. I've asked so many people. I've sung and they're like, oh, that sounds so familiar. Bashir to Questlove, nobody can solve this. Nobody can solve this for me. Maybe you recognize it. If you do, please put it in the comments.

Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gym with you, the one song nation, and with each other. You want to go first? Sure. So this week, we are still dealing with LA fires in the aftermath. In that light, my selection this week is a song that I really loved that I heard kind of late last year. It's by a band called Brajean. The song is called Working on it. And these are local artists and they lost their apartment and all their equipment in the fires. I'm going to post a link to their GoFundMe, but this tune is sick and it's called Working on it by Brezjon. So these guys have a GoFundMe. I'll link to it in my link in bio on any of my profiles and, you know, go support them. And the rebuilding is going to take a long time in this city. So yeah. Diallo, what about you? Do you have one more song from this week?

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying about the fires. And so I'm going to select Blame It All on Love by Poolside. We know he was affected by the fires as well. Yeah, I mean, our friend Jeff, who goes by Pullside, we've mentioned him on the show pre-fires as a band whose music we live. like and who influenced me from the Bay Area, a friend of mine from San Francisco, and was at his home not that long ago cooking me tacos, and now that home and Topanga is gone. It's really sad stuff. We'll both have in our link in bios. We'll have links to GoFundMe, so you can help support these artists as they rebuild post-fire. Absolutely. As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and

TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, D-I-A-L-L-O, and on TikTok at Diallo. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And now OneSong officially has its own Instagram and TikTok. That's right. Go follow at One Song podcast for exclusive content, behind-the-scenes moments, and all the music that you love. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube right now. Just search for One Song podcast.

We'd love it if you like and subscribe. And if you made it this far, I think that means you like this podcast. So please don't forget to give us five stars. leave a review and share with someone you think that would like the show. It really helps keep it going. That's right. Luxury help us in this thing. I'm producer, DJ songwriter, and musicologist Luxury.

And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Casey Simonson with engineering for Marcus Homme and Eric Hicks. Additional production and support from Razak Boykin. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Eddings, Eric Wael, and Leslie Guam.