John Benitez | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | John Benitez |
| Also known as | Jellybean |
| Born | November 7, 1957 New York City, U.S. |
| Origin | New York City |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Songwriter, musician, producer |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar |
| Years active | 1976–present |
| Labels | Jellybean Music Group Chrysalis/EMI Records EMI Records |
John Benitez (born November 7, 1957), also known as Jellybean, is an American musician, songwriter, DJ, remixer, and music producer. He has produced and remixed artists such as Madonna, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and the Pointer Sisters. He was later the executive producer of Studio 54 Radio. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked him as the 99th most successful dance artist of all-time. [1]
Benitez was born in the South Bronx neighborhood of New York City, the son of Puerto Rican parents. [2] After his parents divorced, Benitez and his younger sister Debbie were raised by their mother, who worked in the executive offices of Sloan's supermarkets. [2] Benitez grew up enjoying music and would watch deejays at local clubs. [2] Benitez borrowed his sister's record player and practiced on two turntables. His sister nicknamed him Jellybean as his initials are J.B. and from the expression "Know what I mean, Jellybean?," he said. [2] Benitez attended De Witt Clinton High School and John F. Kennedy High School, but did not graduate. He would skip school and play at hooky parties. When a neighbor paid him to play at a Sweet 16 party, he realized he could have a career as a deejay. [2]
In 1976, Benitez got a weekend job deejaying between salsa bands at a club called Charlie's in the Bronx. [2] He convinced the owner to open a non-alcoholic dance club, and he used the live audience to experiment on. [2] By this time, he was kicked out of school for truancy. [2] Benitez wanted to move to Manhattan, so he worked at a club called La Mariposa in Washington Heights. [2] Then he switched to the Experimental Four club in Midtown Manhattan. [2]
In 1978, Benitez was making $100 for a four-night week when he moved to an apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. [2] After earning a high school equivalency diploma, Benitez enrolled at Bronx Community College as a psychology major and took voice and diction classes. [2] In 1979, Benitez worked back and forth between Manhattan and Long Island. He worked seven nights a week at Hurrah, and Le Mouches in New York City, Club Marrakesh in Westhampton, Blue Cloud in Southampton, and La Falafel. [2] Between 1976 and 1980, Benitez also played at New York New York, Studio 54, Le Jardin, and the Grand Ballroom. [3] He eventually settled at the Electric Circus and Xenon in New York City. [2] In 1981, he was hired as the resident DJ at Funhouse. He hosted a weekend dance radio show at WKTU. [4] Soon, Benitez was influencing the dance charts. He pushed the records "Planet Rock" (1982) and "Let the Music Play" (1983). [2] Record companies would send him awards when the records went gold. [2]
In 1983, an executive from Warner Bros. Records introduced Benitez to Madonna at the Funhouse. [2] At the time she had released one single, "Everybody" (1982), which he played at the club. They became friends and Madonna asked Benitez to remix her 1983 debut album Madonna; soon after a romance ensued. [3] Benitez remixed her singles "Burning Up", "Borderline", and "Lucky Star." [5] He also produced "Holiday," which was her first international top ten hit song. [3] "While I was launching her career, I was launching my career as a producer," he said. [2] Benitez continued to deejay at the Funhouse while producing and remixing for other artists. [2] In 1984, Benitez remixed Madonna's hit song "Like a Virgin" and landed a producing deal with EMI America Records. [2] In May 1985, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager opened the Palladium in New York City. They asked Benitez to play at the grand opening and be a resident deejay at the club. [3] After Benitez's production of Madonna's song "Crazy for You" went No. 1 the same week, Rubell decided that Benitez has become "more of a commercial-record producer than a cutting-edge spinner" and decided to replace him. [2]
Benitez remixed songs for various artists, including for Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Billy Joel, David Bowie, Sting, Talking Heads, Deniece Williams, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, the Pointer Sisters, and ZZ Top. [2]
In 1985, Benitez signed a production deal with Warner Bros. Records. [6] When Warner Bros. asked Benitez to produce a non-rap song for the Krush Groove soundtrack, he suggested Debbie Harry, who was resurrecting her career. [2] They composed the song "Feel the Spin" (1985) together. Benitez produced Whitney Houston's Top ten hit "Love Will Save the Day" from her 1987 sophomore album Whitney . Benitez was the musical producer for the film The Principal (1987) and produced the theme for Mel Brooke's film Spaceballs (1987). [2]
Benitez had success with his own records as well. Between 1984 and 1991, he had nine recordings placed in the top ten of the U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, including three number ones. Benitez released his debut album Wotupski!?! on EMI America in 1984. His 1984 cover of Babe Ruth's "The Mexican," for which he recruited original singer Janita Haan, regarded as a pivotal moment in the electro-hip hop underground scene, and was his first number-one single on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. [4] His single "Sidewalk Talk" (US No. 18, UK No. 47) was written by Madonna and became a top 20 hit, which made him the first DJ to appear on the pop chart as an artist. [2] Four singles from his 1984 album Just Visiting This Planet reached the top 20 in the UK. [7] The 1987 track "Who Found Who" (US No. 16) features Elisa Fiorillo. [7] In 1991, the album Spillin' the Beans saw Benitez work with John Oates, Roy Ayers and Roy Hay. [8] The single "What's It Going To Be" featured Niki Haris, one of three main vocalists on the album together with Cindy Valentine and Deanna Eve. [9] The album received mixed reviews with Ian Cranna in Q Magazine calling it "functional but forgettable". [8] Other vocalists who have performed on a Jellybean release include Adele Bertei and Richard Darbyshire.
In 1995, Benitez launched an independent Latin label, H.O.L.A. Recordings (Home Of Latin Artists), which was backed by Wasserstein Perella and PolyGram Records. [10] After not playing anywhere for a decade, David Mancuso invited Benitez to deejay at The Loft in New York City in 2001. [3] Benitez continues to deejay globally. [3] He owns Jellybean Productions, Jellybean Soul and Jellybean Music Group. In 1995, he founded the now-defunct H.O.L.A. recording label (House of Latin Artists) which developed hip hop and R&B music by bilingual artists and released recordings in both English and Spanish. Voices of Theory signed with this label. [4] In 2005, Benitez was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame. [11]
Benitez is currently the executive producer of Studio 54 Radio, which is heard exclusively on SiriusXM Satellite Radio (Channel 54). Studio 54 Radio launched in 2011. It features 1970s and 1980s classic dance from Jellybean's personal collection and the vaults and collections of Studio 54 insiders. [12]
Benitez dated Madonna and model Nikki Scorsese in the 1980s. [2] He married former Wilhelmina model and restaurateur Carolyn Effer in 1991. [13] [10] They have two daughters, Layla Benitez and Reya Benitez. [14] They lived in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. [15]
| Year | Album | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Record label | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [16] | UK [17] | ||||
| 1984 | Wotupski!?! | ― | ― | EMI America | |
| 1987 | Just Visiting This Planet | 101 | 15 | Chrysalis | |
| 1988 | Jellybean Rocks the House | ― | 16 |
| |
| 1991 | Spillin' the Beans | ― | ― | Atlantic | |
| 2010 | A Celebration in Sound | ― | ― | Jellybean Soul | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released in that territory. | |||||
| Year | Single | Peak positions | Album | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [20] | US R&B [21] | US Dance [22] | NZ | NED | BEL (FLA) | GER [23] | SWI | IRE | UK [17] | |||||
| 1984 | "The Mexican" | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Wotupski!?! | ||
| "Sidewalk Talk" | 18 | 51 | 1 | 34 | 31 | — | — | — | — | 47 | ||||
| 1987 | "Who Found Who" (featuring Elisa Fiorillo) | 16 | — | 3 | 46 | 95 | — | — | — | 21 | 10 | Just Visiting This Planet | ||
| "The Real Thing" (featuring Steven Dante) | 82 | 49 | 1 | — | 22 | 33 | — | — | 21 | 13 | ||||
| "Jingo" | — | — | 2 | — | 16 | 16 | 44 | 18 | 19 | 12 | ||||
| 1988 | "Just a Mirage" (featuring Adele Bertei) | — | — | 4 | — | 87 | — | — | — | 27 | 13 | |||
| "Coming Back for More" (featuring Richard Darbyshire) | — | — | 9 | 50 | — | — | — | — | — | 41 | Jellybean Rocks the House! | |||
| 1991 | "What's It Gonna Be" (featuring Niki Haris) | 90 | — | 2 | — | — | — | — | — | — | 98 | Spillin' the Beans | ||
| "Spillin' the Beans" | — | — | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||||
| 2006 | "New York House" (featuring Marlon D.) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Singles only | ||
| 2008 | "Secrets & Lies" (featuring Carla Prather)(promo only) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| 2009 | "You Bring Me Joy" (featuring Su Su Bobien)(promo only) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | A Celebration in Sound (as "3 Amigos" with Marlon D. & Mena Keys) | ||
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released. | ||||||||||||||
Benitez composed the theme song to Ricki Lake (1993 talk show) and The Charles Perez Show. He produced motion pictures and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy for his role as an Executive Producer for HBO's For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story starring Andy Garcia. He served as music supervisor and created and mixed tunes for many soundtracks.
Among the motion pictures for which he served as Music Supervisor are:
Among the motion picture soundtracks for which he created and mixed tunes are:
Among the television show soundtracks for which he created and mixed tunes are:
Niki Haris is an American singer and dancer of pop, R&B, dance music and jazz. She was one of Madonna's backing vocalists from 1987 to 2001, and the guest lead vocalist on various Snap! singles in the early 1990s.
You Can Dance is the first remix album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on November 17, 1987, by Sire Records. The album contains remixes of tracks from her first three studio albums—Madonna (1983), Like a Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986)—and a new track, "Spotlight". In the 1980s, remixing was still a new concept and technology, by which a particular vocal phrase could be endlessly copied, repeated, chopped up, transposed up and down in pitch and give them more echo, reverberation, treble or bass. Madonna became interested in the concept, noting that she hated when others remixed her songs and wanted to do it by herself.
Alisha Ann Itkin is an American freestyle and dance-pop singer who had several club hits in the 1980s and 1990s.
Will to Power is an American dance-pop group that originated in South Florida in the mid-1980s founded by Miami producer Bob Rosenberg. The group recorded a number of hit singles on the Billboard dance and pop charts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most notably "Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley", a medley of 1970s hits by Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd that reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1988.
"So Emotional" is a song by American singer Whitney Houston. It was released as the third single from her second studio album Whitney (1987) on October 12, 1987 by Arista Records. The song was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and produced by Narada Michael Walden.
"Love Will Save the Day" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston from her second multi-platinum studio album Whitney (1987). The song was released on July 5, 1988 by Arista Records as the album's fifth single. The song did not have a music video but still was successful, climbing into the US Top Ten. "Love Will Save the Day" is the fastest-tempoed song on the album Whitney. Written by Toni C, produced by John "Jellybean" Benitez, it is one of the uptempo singles on the album that also included "I Wanna Dance with Somebody " and "So Emotional."
"Holiday" is a song by American singer Madonna from her self-titled debut album (1983). It was written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder for their own musical act Pure Energy, and produced by John "Jellybean" Benitez. Hudson came up with the lyrics of the song while watching negative news on television, and together with Stevens-Crowder worked on the music. They recorded a demo, which was turned down by their label Prism Records. Afterwards, Benitez pitched the track and offered it to several artists, including former The Supremes singer Mary Wilson, but it was rejected. Around the same time, Benitez was working with Madonna on her album; after realizing they needed a song for the project, Benitez thought of "Holiday" and approached Hudson and Stevens-Crowder.
"Crazy for You" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for the film Vision Quest (1985). It was released on March 2, 1985 by Geffen Records as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album. Film producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber, along with music director Phil Ramone, decided to use Madonna after listening to her previous recordings, employing John Bettis and Jon Lind to write the song. After reading the script of the film, Bettis and Lind wrote the song about the situation in which the lead characters meet at a nightclub. Initial recording sessions did not impress Bettis and Lind, and they felt that "Crazy for You" would be dropped from the soundtrack. However, a new version was recorded to their liking.
"In Love with Love" is a 1987 song recorded by the American singer Debbie Harry. It was taken from her second solo album Rockbird and released as the third single in 1987.
"I'm Every Woman" is a song by American singer Chaka Khan, released as her debut solo single from her first album, Chaka (1978). It was Khan's first hit outside her recordings with the funk band Rufus. "I'm Every Woman" was produced by Arif Mardin and written by the successful songwriting team Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. The single established Chaka's career outside the group Rufus, whom she would leave after their eighth studio album Masterjam was released in late 1979.
"Sidewalk Talk" is a song by American record producer John "Jellybean" Benitez from his first extended play, Wotupski!?! (1984). It was released on October 21, 1984, by EMI Records as the first single from the EP. The song was written by Madonna and produced by Benitez. They had initially met in 1983 and Benitez worked as a producer on Madonna's self-titled debut album. When he started work on his debut EP, Wotupski!?!, Madonna wrote "Sidewalk Talk" for him. The song features bass and electric guitars, synthesizers, piano as well drums. Lead vocals are sung by Catherine Buchanan, and additional chorus vocals by Madonna.
"Love Is a Battlefield" is a song by American singer Pat Benatar, recorded and released on September 12, 1983, as a single from Benatar's live album Live from Earth (1983), though the song itself was a studio recording. It was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. The song was ranked at number 30 in VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the 1980s. "Love Is a Battlefield" went on to sell over a million records.
"Anything Is Possible" is the first single from American singer-songwriter-actress Debbie Gibson's third album of the same title (1990). Written, arranged, and produced by Gibson and Lamont Dozier, LP version was used for the single release worldwide except the United Kingdom and Europe, where an edited version of a remix by Harding and Curnow of PWL Records was used. The single fared relatively well on the US charts, reaching No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1991.
"Say It Isn't So" is a song performed by American duo Daryl Hall & John Oates, and written by Daryl Hall. It was released by RCA Records in October 1983 as the first of two new singles from their compilation album Rock 'n Soul Part 1, released that same year. The song was remixed as a "special extended dance mix" by John "Jellybean" Benitez, which topped Billboard magazine's Hot Dance Club Play chart. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks, behind coincidentally "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.
"If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" is the first single by English musician Sting from his solo debut album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985). It is also the opening track of the album, and is featured on Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984–1994 as well as The Very Best of Sting & The Police.
"Planet Love" is a song by Taylor Dayne, which was the leading single from the MGM motion picture soundtrack for the 1999 film Flawless, starring Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was released on March 21, 2000.
"I Love Music" is a song by American R&B group The O'Jays. It was written by production team Gamble and Huff. The song appeared on The O'Jays 1975 album, Family Reunion. The single reached number five on the US US Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the soul singles chart. In the UK, the song peaked at number 13 in the Top 40 singles charts in March 1976. The single spent eight weeks at number one on the US Disco File Top 20 chart.
"Feel the Spin" is a 1985 song by the American vocalist Debbie Harry, featured on the soundtrack album for the film Krush Groove (1985). The song was co-written by Harry and producers John "Jellybean" Benitez and Toni C.. Both producers went on to work with Whitney Houston on her 1988 hit "Love Will Save the Day", from her album Whitney.
"Walking on Sunshine" is a song by Eddy Grant, and the title track of his third studio album. It was released as a single in 1979. Grant's original version was not a hit, but the song was remade three years later by Rockers Revenge, a studio project assembled by producer Arthur Baker, which became the hit version.
"Nobody Loves Me Like You Do" is a song written by James Dunne and Pamela Phillips-Oland, and originally performed on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns by Dunne himself with series regular Tonya Pinkins. It was later recorded by Jermaine Jackson with a then-unknown Whitney Houston, and also by Canadian country music artist Anne Murray with singer-songwriter Dave Loggins. Jackson and Houston actually premiered their version on As the World Turns as well, on the August 1, 1984 episode, while the Murray-Loggins version was released as a country single shortly thereafter, in September of '84. The former appeared on Houston's 1985 self-titled debut album and on the 2009 compilation album, The Collection. The latter was the first single from Murray's album Heart Over Mind, peaking at number one on December 15, 1984. It was Murray's ninth American number-one country hit, and it also hit the top ten on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The song was Loggins' only hit on the country chart. In live performances, Murray sang the duet with Billie Hughes. The song also appears on Murray's 2007 album Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends, performed as a duet with her daughter, Dawn Langstroth.
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