BENin10D
A. Joseph Benintende III, aka artist name "BENin10D" born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans, LA, has been playing music since the age of 7 when next door neighbor, now legendary Johnny Rivers, would sit out on his front porch at his Mom's home and play his acoustic guitar for hours and amongst the many youngsters sitting there every day was Joseph "BENin10D". He recalls the very first time he heard the sound of the music coming from that guitar he was hooked. His Mother soon found a salvage sale "Harmony" acoustic guitar, which was warped and the strings were about 1/2 inch off of the neck and that was what "BENin10D" learned to play on beginning at age 7. Every record he could get his hands on or artist he could listen to in the French Quarter, BENin10D would learn within days on his old Harmony guitar, not knowing that guitars just were not that hard to play. BENin10D remembers playing to Allman Brothers Albums, Eric Clapton, Beatles and on and on, trying his very best to sound exactly like it sounded on the record. Obviously as he got older, he finally got a "real" guitar and was so amazed how easy it was to lay and actually the "Harmony" had increased his ability to play, since he had to use a lot more strength and agility just to make a chord sound period. BENin10D played in Rock Bands his entire life and in college was introduced to concert promotions when he joined the college entertainment committee at LSU. The committee was responsible for promoting all of the school shows and BENin10D really, really enjoyed all of it. After he graduated from his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Psychology, he helped a friend open a very large chain of Alcohol Treatment Centers, and promoted music on the side. His life long friend Gregg Allman called him and asked him to come join him on his solo tour work and BENin10D, resigned as Director of the hospital where he was and flew to San Fransico and began touring with Gregg. For all the West coast gigs they stayed at Gregg's house in San Fran and for the East Coast Gigs,m they often stayed at BENin10D's home or went to Macon and spent the night at the legendary "Big House". BENin10D recalls remembering as a kid listening to those Allman Brothers Records and now he and Gregg would sit and Jam on acoustic guitars in the living room, BENin10D, thought it was a dream. After, several years of doing that another long time friend Tony Ruffino, one of the legendary Concert Promoters from the 60's originally from Long Island, then relocated to Alabama because n one was promoting good Rock & Roll shows in the area and Tony knew he would be the one who would be the promoter who brought all the big shows down south for the first time and he was ! Tony and his partner Gary Weinberger offered BENin10D a position in their company in Birmingham. They owned the amphitheatre there and they wanted him to be Director of Production and to be the Promoter Representative for all the shows they were doing in the Southeast and BENin10D took the job. After many years and many, many concerts, SFX came in and bought their company and then the name changed to Clear Channel and then later the name changed again to Live Nation and BENin10D's responsibilities grew as now he was working for an international company and he once again began to out on entire top concert tours to over see them from the Live Nation side and he LOVED it. He shares it some of the most fun, I have ever had in my life ! Then on 12/31/2009 someone rear ended him at a red light and since then, he has not been able to feel anything from the waist down and he is now enrolled in world famous "Spain Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Center", as part of the UAB Hospital system.
BENin10D, however, does not want ANYONE to feel sorry for him ! ! He believes he has now been given the chance to do what he truly loves and that is writing music, he never had time before (he told himself) Now in between Doctors and Rehab visits he is super busy at his Lap top and little studio, writing as much as possible. His goals are to write songs for Hit Artist. Not to be Hit Artist himself. BENin10D, is always learning, always improving and always pitching and his faith tells him when the time is right God will open the right f=door and his songs will find the exact right person and BENin10Ds dreams of having hit songs with a hit artist will be achieved many times over. Until then, BENin10D works hard, hard trying to walk again, writing songs, improving songs and of course pitching songs every chance he gets. BENin10D also believes in using his talents to help those who need help. Since BENin10D shares that he does not have extra money laying around, he writes songs for Non profit groups like Healing Heroes and the (11 National Memorial fund and the World Hunger Organization and he is now working on a song for Magic Moments, a group that fulfills wishes for children with life threatening illnesses. BENin10D loves people, loves life, loves GOD and loves writing music and his goals have a very sharp crosshair placed upon them, he is dead set on on achieving them and since he has achieved everything else in his life he has set out to achieve, he believes that with God's direction he will be able to achieve selling some hit songs also. BENin10d wishes to THANK all of his friend and supporters both here on Ubetoo and everywhere for their unmeasured love and support, with out them, there would be no ME.