What links Rod Stewart, George Benson and Zumbi?

If you’re asking yourself who or what Zumbi is then go and check out yesterday’s post. OK, so I’m going to assume that we’re all up to speed on Zumbi. I’m sure you guys know about the other two, but just in case, this is Rod Stewart:

This is Rod on a visit to Brazil in 1978. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect Rod didn’t need much persuading to wear a sunga…

And this is George Benson:

Looks pretty happy with himself doesn’t he?

So what do these guys have in common with each other and also with a 17th Century leader of escaped slaves?

Give up? OK, first of all have a listen to this (if you have the attention span of a goldfish and seriously can’t listen to a couple of minutes of music, then just skip to 35 seconds into the song):

Hmmm, getting anything? Sound familiar? Don’t make me sing it out loud for you – it’s the exact same tune as Rod Stewart’s song “Do ya think I’m sexy?” which was released in 1978. Problem is that Jorge Ben Jor’s version came out in 1972! Jorge’s people went after Rod in the courts, claiming plagiarism, and unsurprisingly won. Rod went on to donate his royalties to UNICEF.

So, we have a link between Rod Stewart and this Jorge Ben Jor character. And those of you who read yesterday’s post all the way to the end (that’s all of you right?) will recognise that it was also Jorge Ben who sang the song Zumbi in the final video clip. So where does George Benson come in?

Well, the clue is in the name. You may have already noticed that in the video clip above, he is referred to as simply Jorge Ben, whereas in other places you will see him named Jorge Ben Jor. The J in Portuguese doesn’t sound like the Spanish J – a Spanish Jose sounds like ho-ZAY but a Portuguese Jose sounds like zho-ZAY. So Jorge Ben sound very like the first two thirds of George Benson. Apparently so much so that there was somehow a mixup with a royalty payment such that GB ended up with a whole load of JB’s money! Jorge decided to add a little extra to his name to avoid such confusion in future.

Now I’m not saying George definitely knew about it (I’m not saying that), but just look at him – looks a little bit like he might have engineered this whole ‘mix-up’ thing doesn’t he?

So, now he is known as Jorge Ben Jor. And he is one of my favourite Brazilian musicians. Born in Rio in 1942 he mixes samba, funk (the original, non-Brazilian variety) and rock to great effect. I first discovered Jorge through his brilliant album A Tábua de Esmeralda (The Emerald Tablet) – I strongly urge you to find a copy or simply trawl YouTube listening to the tracks. They are bright, catchy, interesting, strange and basically just have such brilliant melodies you can’t help but love them and sing along.

Jorge before the name change.

Some of his songs are a little unusual. There is a lovely song about a beautiful tie that a guy is wearing. The entire song describes how amazing the tie is, the beautiful colours and details, to wear a tie that beautiful would turn an ugly man into a prince! I particularly like this one because I can make sense of the lyrics (strange as they are!). Some others are a little baffling, celebrating the arrival of some alchemists for example. When I asked my wife what “Hermes Trismegistos e sua celeste” was all about, she just shook her head and said, “ah, he writes a lot of songs about weird stuff – ancient Greece, mysticism. Don’t worry too much if you don’t understand what he’s saying, no one does!”.

So I hope you take the time to check him out – seriously I can’t imagine how anyone could listen to that album (A Tábua de Esmeralda) and not love it. Oh, and if you think you’ve never heard of this guy or his music before, check this out. He wrote this song when he was 20 and it launched his career. This is the better known (certainly outside of Brazil) cover version performed by Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66 – still say you’ve never heard of Jorge Ben (Jor)?