At Blues Music Fan Radio, we are dedicated to providing the Best in Blues, to the Listeners.
The articles that I will aspire to write are of the amazing DJs who volunteer their time to spin on the Online Radio Station each week.
This article will focus on DJ Ben Vee, who we all look up to and admire. I hope you enjoy learning more about him, as you read this Interview.
Sookie Jade: How did it all start for you?
Ben Vee: I started out DJing in college at West Point. We were given a small amount of free time on weekends, so on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons I spun records on the 10 watt reservation FM station.
After I left West Point, I ended up in band and concert promotions and eventually took a job working at a small AM/FM station in Hammond, Louisiana.
Because it didn’t pay much, I also was a DJ on the weekend at a local club. That lasted for 3 years or so and then I got married and needed to find a “real” job that could support a family.
After an almost 35 year hiatus, I returned to DJing and streaming on the internet in 2011 and then started writing about the blues in 2014
Sookie Jade: Who do you have a lot of respect for?
Ben Vee: In terms of music, and the blues in particular, it would have to be Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and BB King.
For me, the modern blues began when Muddy plugged his guitar into an amp in Chicago in the late 1940’s. He popularized the electric blues.
And the tandem of Muddy and Willie Dixon created what are still some of my favorite blues songs.
Willie started out as a boxer, worked as a bouncer, and told folks he wanted to write songs. They laugh and he just kept writing and became the most prolific writer of hit blues songs that we have ever known.
Together Muddy and Willie rode the blues wave in the fifties, persevered in the bleak days from 1965 to 1980 and both lived long enough to see a resurgence of interest in the music they loved.
BB King was not only the most well known blues artist of my generation, he was one of the most kind hearted. BB toured incessantly and promoted the blues on radio, TV, and in print wherever he went.
Most importantly, he shared his stage with young up and coming artists such as an 11 year old from New York by the name of Joe Bonamassa.
Like Muddy and Willie, BB persevered through the years of “the blues is dead” with a cheery disposition and a solid conviction that a new generation of artists would take the blues and mold it to their life experiences.
And with the explosion of new contemporary blues artists over the last decade, I believe he was right.
Sookie Jade: In your playlists, what do you try to communicate to the listening audience?
Ben Vee: Hmmm! I guess overall, I try to get across to the listening audience that the blues isn’t dead. It is vibrant, contemporary and populated by some very gifted artists.
A lot of people think of the blues as either acoustic or slow music. They are often amazed at the upbeat nature of a lot of the contemporary blues that I love to spin.
Sookie Jade: What’s one track that never gets old for you, no matter how many times you hear it?
Ben Vee: That is a tough one. I think it would have to be Hoochie Coochie Man (with Roadhouse Blues by the Doors a close second).
I have spun the original by Muddy Waters (written by Wilie Dixon) hundreds of times and there are some great modern renditions of it that find their way onto my playlists.
Versions by the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Jeff Healy and Albert Cummings are my favorites.
Sookie Jade: Do you have a single set that has been most memorable to you?
Ben Vee: There was a lady, Kim, that regularly attended my shows. She was loved and respected by everyone. She just had a great personality. She was diagnosed with leukemia and asked that I start doing a Tuesday night show because it was a “free” night before her chemo treatments. I did but within a month, she passed away. I couldn’t do my show that next week. I thought with a week off, I could handle it the following week, I couldn’t.
I was an emotional wreck but I made it through to honor her memory. That was a tough but memorable night.
Sookie Jade: What’s one mistake you see a lot of upcoming DJs make?
Ben Vee: DJs spin because they love the music. Some new DJs try to impart knowledge about the blues but it comes across as a history lesson full of scratchy tunes and long winded explanations of the song or artists.
Most people listen to a blues show as entertainment, not a history class. You can still impart knowledge about the artist or song but I recommend keeping it to 15 second snippets…30 seconds at most.
Sookie Jade: What advice would you give a DJ, just starting out?
Ben Vee: Love the music. And I mean love listening to the music. After all these years, I am still listening to 40 hours or more of blues music each week.
Some new DJs don’t and they become beholden to “Top 40” lists or other people’s opinions to keep them abreast of what is going on.
And then spin the music you love. You can’t please everyone so spin music you like to hear. Remember you will often be alone in a studio or in a home/apartment computer room streaming. Enjoy yourself!!
Listeners love DJs that are excited about and into sharing the music….it fires them up!
Sookie Jade: If you could be stuck in one year’s music scene, which would you pick and why?
Ben Vee: Interesting question. Studies show that men gravitate to music they loved when they were aged 15 to 30 and stick to it for the rest of their lives, for women that extends to 40.
So my first impulse would be 1969 when I was 16..,Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, the Allman Brothers. But the truth is I am grateful to be alive TODAY. I have watched the number of new contemporary blues artists grow exponentially over the last 13 years of DJing. And I love spinning and writing about all this great music.
Sookie Jade: Did you DJ with vinyl? What is your opinion regarding the old school DJing (with vinyl) vs the modern DJing, where most tracks are never put out on any physical medium before or after release?
Ben Vee: Yes I started out with vinyl in the 1970s as a DJ. But I don’t miss it at all. People wax poetic about vinyl but nothing beats digital as a DJ.
There has been a resurgence of vinyl sales but they are still miniscule compared to digital streaming in particular.
What there has not been is a corresponding surge in analog record player sales which means most vinyl sales are for collections or display pieces.
BUT I do miss liner notes that I could actually read and getting to hold the physical album in my hand and admire some of that great cover art.
In Closing – I asked DJ Ben Vee what set him apart from other DJs, and he said that nothing really sets him apart, that there are a lot of great DJs at BMFR and we all love the blues.
I agree with him, that we all love the blues, but his knowledge and guidance are things that set him apart.
Sharing his parting thoughts, those which give you, the reader, an example of his guidance, I will conclude the Interview, and hope to speak to him again, in the future.
“Love the music, know the music, respect the artists, prepare for your shows, be on time, end on time, never talk down to the audience, and be genuine.
I believe that your love of the music can be conveyed directly over all those wires, cables, towers and satellites, right into the ears and minds of your listeners.”
~ Ben Vee as shared on 07/30/2024
Listen to DJ Ben Vee’s Roadhouse Blues:
Tuesday from 12 noon – 2 pm est & Thursday from 1pm – 3pm est
