{"id":249,"date":"2016-07-02T15:03:26","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T15:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/martinphilipsmith.wordpress.com\/?p=249"},"modified":"2016-07-02T15:03:26","modified_gmt":"2016-07-02T15:03:26","slug":"inspirations-for-the-martin-smith-band-number-5-the-magical-george-benson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/?p=249","title":{"rendered":"Inspirations for the Martin Smith Band number 5 &#8211; the magical George Benson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.martinsmithband.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Martin Smith Band<\/a> moves closer to being a going concern, with the <a href=\"https:\/\/martinphilipsmith.wordpress.com\/2016\/06\/25\/the-new-band-has-a-keyboard-player-a-name-and-a-facebook-page\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news that our line-up is \u00a0now complete<\/a>, we\u00a0continue this series of tributes to the great bands and artists from whom we derive our inspiration.<\/p>\n<p>George Benson was undoubtedly one of the first guitarists to really grab my attention and inspire me to become a better player. Also, let&#8217;s face it, he&#8217;s no mean vocalist either! \u00a0His trademark of scat vocals in unison with his instrumental lines adds an exciting dimension to his sound. I have yet to hear a better exponent.<\/p>\n<p>Because he is both instrumentalist and singer and has moved effortlessly across genres (jazz, soul, funk, ballads etc) I think his contribution to the world of music is sometimes under-appreciated. \u00a0To\u00a0me, he is simply one of the all-time great guitarists.<\/p>\n<p>Here he is performing On Broadway at Montreux.<\/p>\n<p>[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OmenumjA6k8&amp;w=560&amp;h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the Martin Smith Band moves closer to being a going concern, with the news that our line-up is \u00a0now complete, we\u00a0continue this series of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/georgebenson-01.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alterativus.com\/martinphilipsmith\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}