"Turn Your Love Around" is one of many major R&B, jazz and pop hit singles for George Benson

George Benson

George Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....

. The song was written to help fill out Benson's 1981 greatest hits album, The George Benson Collection

The George Benson Collection

The George Benson Collection is a compilation album by George Benson, released on the Warner Bros. record label in 1981. The album was a two-record set, and was compacted into one disc. In addition to old material, the album featured two new songs, including his #1 R&B hit "Turn Your Love Around"....

. It reached number one on the soul singles charts and number five on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 singles charts in early 1982, as well as the top ten on the jazz chart. The song won a Best R & B Song Grammy Award at the 25th Grammy Awards in 1983 for Bill Champlin, Jay Graydon, and Steve Lukather (of Toto) as its composers.

The original inspiration for the song came to co-songwriter Jay Graydon

Jay Graydon

Jay Graydon is a Los Angeles songwriter, recording artist, guitarist, singer, producer, arranger, and recording engineer. He is the winner of two Grammy Awards with twelve Grammy nominations, among them the title "Producer of the Year" and "Best Engineered Recording". Jay Graydon has mastered many...

 in the bathroom. He explained to Songfacts: "'Turn Your Love Around' was a gift, and it's the gift that keeps giving. I was in the bathroom when I came up with the melody, and I was sitting down, if you get my drift. Well, I got off the can as fast as I could and got to a cassette machine so I wouldn't forget it. George Benson was coming in town Tuesday, so I had four days to come up with a song for The George Benson Collection. And I was gettin' nothing. And then bang! I just came up with this melody for the chorus when I was in the bathroom."

The song is notable for being one of the very first pop hits to feature a Linn LM-1

Linn LM-1

The LM-1 Drum Computer, manufactured by Linn Electronics Inc., was the first drum machine to use digital samples of acoustic drums. Conceived and designed by Roger Linn, it was also one of the first programmable drum machines...

 drum machine

Drum machine

A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...

, programmed by noted session drummer Jeff Porcaro

Jeff Porcaro

Jeffrey Thomas "Jeff" Porcaro was an American session drummer and a founding member of the Grammy Award winning band Toto. Porcaro was one of the most recorded drummers in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions...

.

This song was sampled on the album version of Lil' Kim's

Lil' Kim

Kimberly Denise Jones , better known by her stage name Lil' Kim, is an American rapper and actress who was a member of the group Junior M.A.F.I.A.....

 "Not Tonight" and on the Japanese 1 million hit song "Da.Yo.Ne." by East End X Yuri

East End X Yuri

East End × Yuri was a short lived collaboration between the Japanese hip hop group East End and the singer Yuri Ichii, ex-member from Jpop girl group Tokyo Performance Doll.-Members:East End members are Gaku, the MC , ROCK-Tee, a DJ , and Yoggy, another DJ ....

 in 1994.

External links

• "Turn Your Love Around" [ Song Review] on Allmusic website