Born 22 March 1943, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. This guitarist and singer successfully planted his feet in both the modern jazz and easy-listening pop camps in the mid-70s, when jazz pop as well as jazz rock became a most lucrative proposition. Testament to Benson's prestige was the presence of Hancock, Earl Klugh, Miles Davis, Joe Farrell and other jazz musicians on his early albums. Four of these were produced by Creed Taylor, who signed Benson to his own CTI label in 1971. Benson was impressing audiences in concert with extrapolations of songs such as "California Dreamin'", "Come Together" and, digging deeper into mainstream pop, "Cry Me A River" and "Unchained Melody". From Beyond The Blue Horizon, an arrangement of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit' was a turntable hit, and chart success seemed inevitable - especially as he was now recording a majority of vocal items. After Bad Benson reached the US album lists and, via disco floors, the title song of Supership cracked European charts, he was well placed to negotiate a favourable contract with Warner Brothers Records, who immediately reaped a Grammy-winning harvest with 1976's Breezin" (and its memorable "This Masquerade"). As a result, companies with rights to the prolific Benson's earlier product cashed in, with reissues such as The Other Side Of Abbey Road, a track-for-track interpretation of the entire Beatles album.