Ben "Smokey" Hewitt (September 11, 1935 - December 8, 1996) was an American rockabilly musician. Pop music history tends to revolve around chart placings, which means that Ben Hewitt doesn't exist. Not a footnote. Not even bubbling under. But that's selling Ben Hewitt short. His story is not only interesting in its own right, but it tells us a lot about the second generation of rock 'n' rollers. Ben wasn't one of the creators who helped put the music together; he was among the first kids who heard rock 'n' roll and decided that it was for them, and decided that it spoke to them in a way that no other music could.
Hewitt was born in a log cabin in an Indian reservation in Niagara County, New York. He belonged to the tribe of the Tuscarora, who are counted among the Iroquois-speaking Indian tribes of North America. At the age of twelve he was given a ukulele and a year later his first guitar. Clayton Green taught Hewitt the basics of guitar playing.
He was influenced by country music and also Rhythm & Blues music, which was becoming increasingly popular at the time. Later, he also heard the records of the Sun Records label and Elvis Presley. Hewitt had a band and regularly played their own songs and songs by Little Richard in various bars. He frequented DeFazios with his combo, a small bar in Niagara Falls.
There, songwriter Julian Langford became aware of Hewitt and persuaded him to do demo recordings of his songs. As the songs written by Langford were very similar to each other, Hewitt began to rewrite them. The only song that Hewitt left in the original was the song Whirlwind Blues.
There were also some numbers from Hewitt's pen, such as Queen in the Kingdom of My Heart and Bundle of Love, which were later credited as Julian Langford songs. Langford paid the studio and drinks and they recorded a demo with the band. In 1958, a record deal with Mercury Records and a management contract with Langford was signed. Two days later, the first recordings started in New York City. Producer was Clyde Otis, who also worked with artists such as Brook Benton, Roy Hamilton and The Five Satins.
Otis brought in a song of his own that he put together written with Brook Benton, I Ain't Givin 'Up Nothin' (If I Can't Have Something From You). The recording sessions took place mostly in the Bell Tone Studio, where Hewitt also cut various demos for Elvis Presley. Hewitt's records did not sell very well, but he still had numerous appearances and tours, all booked through the Shaw Agency. At this concert agency he was at that time the only white artist.
The highlight was a so-called package tour as part of the Alan Freed show, which also allowed him to perform at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. In 1961, Hewitt separated from Mercury Records and lost that Interest in further recordings and record contracts until the release of a live album of a Far East tour on B-A-B Records, and in 1975, the country single Border City Call Girl on the Canadian label Broadland Records, which also appeared in the US on Plantation Records, a label of Shelby Singleton from Nashville.
Although Ben Hewitt's recordings did not reach any chart quotations, he never turned his back on his music. He performed for decades at DeFazios and was known by his nickname "Smokey". Hewitt said in an interview that he was "Smokey, the most famous stranger". He was recognized on a tour even in Okinawa as "Smokey", and also the radio station CBC in Toronto wanted to do a show with him - as "Smokey", not as Ben Hewitt.
When the rockabilly revival in Europe began in the late 1970s, people remembered the US stars of the first hour as well as the great unknowns of the genre. This happened with Ben Hewitt. After Hewitt's Mercury recordings had been rediscovered in the archives, Bear Family Records released his records again. This was followed by concerts on major European rock'n'roll and Rockabilly Festivals, for which he was booked as a headliner, celebrated as one of the pioneers of the genre.
He recorded in England with the help of musicians from the British rockabilly band Breathless and the producers Paul Barrett and Robert Llewellyn new material for a record that also appeared on Bear Family. In 1985, Hewitt recorded another LP titled Ben Hewitt - Tore Up! between concert dates in southern Germany. in a studio in Munich. The backing band was the Munich group Marty & The Catlegs, and the album was released on the German label Hydra Records. In the course of the Bear Family Festival 1990 in Bremen, Hewitt had the opportunity to make further recordings with the accompanying band Rumble on the Beach, which were posthumously released. Ben Hewitt died on December 8, 1996 at the age of 61 in Maryland.
(Edited from Bear Family, Rockabop & Wikipedia)