George Benson - The Best Of George Benson (1989)

Released in 1989, this anthology is a generous cross-section of tracks from Benson's CTI period, where he consolidated his jazz/soul guitar credentials just before striking gold with Warner Bros. All of the albums except Benson & Farrell are touched upon with one or two tracks, and CBS is enterprising enough to reach a bit further for "I Remember Wes" (from the anthology CTI Masters Of The Guitar) - an octave-laden theme that soon enough turns into pure Benson - and a gentle solo outtake from Bad Benson, "From Now On." The only "unrepresentative" track per se is the vocal on "Summertime," in the sense that there were hardly any vocal tracks to pick from in the CTI catalogue. -- Richard S. Ginell ~