I was recording my very first CD ‘Blue Planet’. My producer had ties to George Benson and knew that George had a track in his closet he wasn’t using, So he talked him into reworking it into a duet with me, NILS. Nils , who?
Exactly I was a total unknown at that time and George Benson wasn’t just going to record with this guy he never heard of. But my producer was persistent and got George to agree to meet with me when he was in LA. We met up in town and walked back to his hotel.

I’m not a guy who is easily star struck, but George Benson is a legend and I used the time to ask him about his favorite guitar. First he gave me the Ibanez answer. They just had released the George Benson model. But then back in his hotel suite, he disappeared for a moment and came back with a $50,000 D’Aquisto Jazz guitar.
It was an absolute magnificent instrument. He sat down on a chair right in front of me and put this jewel in my hand and said: “play”. I don’t remember which was more scary, the fact that I was holding George Benson’s $50,000 favorite or that the master himself was staring at my fingers as I was thinking of something to play.
But I just shook it of and started to jam. And something amazing happened. George stopped me and said “Hold on, show me that lick, How did you play that?” And I got to teach George Benson a new guitar lick.

Then he picked up the guitar and I was going “ Oh, what is that, what is this..?, show me.” So we spend quite a while trading licks and having fun with it. George did agree to record the duet with me. It was called “Yesterday’s Dream” and was released on my “Blue Planet” album.

As a Thank You for being one of my subscribers I want to give it
to you for free – no strings attached.
Download my version of ‘Yesterday’s Dream’ here.

If you like the track you might also consider checking out Blue Planet. It was my first album I recorded, seven years before I had a break through with Pacific Coast Highway.

🙂
Peace, Nils