George Benson is feeling the love. After alternating between vocals and electric guitar, grooving to hits such as This Masquerade, Turn Your Love Around and Take Five, the 69-year-old 10-time Grammy-winning jazz and crossover musician is enticed back for an encore.
The born storyteller remembers how his next song was originally recorded for the 1977 Muhammad Ali biographical film The Greatest because their voices sounded the same: "It's all about the fuzz," he jokes, referring to the trademark whisky-edged burr that had women swoon the world over whenever the grandfather of 20 crooned a love song.
"I was in front of the Empire State Building and a girl, maybe 16 or 18, came up to me and said that she was my biggest fan," he relates on a recent visit to Macao. "She then said that she was going to record my song and that it would be a big hit. I said, sure. She was right. This is a tribute to the greatest vocalist of our time: Whitney Houston."
He began the familiar ballad, putting his own unique stamp on The Greatest Love of All while conjuring up ghosts of Houston's more popular cover version. The Venetian Theatre became choked with emotion as every member of the more than 1,000-strong audience keenly relived the tragic loss of Houston earlier this year. As he sang the last ballad, his voice broke and he stated: "This is hard for me to sing" and walked off the stage without another word.
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