Oscar Benton enjoyed a lengthy career as a blues singer, but he was born with the very unlikely bluesman moniker Ferdinand van Eis on February 3, 1949 in Haarlem, Netherlands. Before he was 20, his first group, the Oscar Benton Blues Band, put out their debut album, 1968’s Feel So Good. Two more LPs were issued over the next three years, and then Benton enjoyed a pair of successful singles with Monica Verschoor, a Dutch singer who brought a poppier sound to his bluesy approach. He formed a new band, Blue Eyed Baby, who released a self-titled album in 1974. He finally began a proper solo career in 1981 with Bensonhurst Blues, and the Artie Kaplan/Artie Kornfeld written title track, first released by other artists nearly a decade before, became his signature song for the rest of his career. He attempted to capitalize on its success with new albums in 1983 and 1984, but then it was ten years before 1994’s Best Part of My Life. His last album, 2018’s I Am Back, came out two years before his death on November 8, 2020 in Ijmuiden, Netherlands.
