Just three weeks after the U.S. release of
the Beatles' swan song,
Abbey Road,
Creed Taylor ushered
George Benson into the studio to begin a remarkably successful pop-jazz translation of the record (complete with a parody of the famous cover, showing
Benson with guitar crossing an Eastern urban street). It is a lyrical album, with a hint of the mystery and a lot of the cohesive concept of
the Beatles' original despite the scrambled order of the tunes.
Benson is given some room to stretch out on guitar, sometimes in a bluesy groove, and there are more samples of his honeyed vocals than ever before (oddly, his voice would not be heard again by record-buyers until he signed with Warner Bros.).
Don Sebesky's arrangements roam freely from baroque strings to a full-throated big band, and
Freddie Hubbard,
Sonny Fortune, and
Hubert Laws get some worthy solo space. Yet for all its diversity, the record fits together as a whole more tightly than any other
George Benson project, thanks to his versatile talents and the miraculous overarching unity of
the Beatles' songs. One wonders if
the Fab Four liked it, too. ~ Richard S. Ginell