Stephen George "Steve" Benbow (29 November 1931 – 17 November 2006), was a British folk guitar player, singer and music director, who was influential in the English folk music revival of the 1960s. His obituary in The Times described him as "a seminal influence on a whole generation of guitarists".

He was born in Tooting

Tooting

Tooting is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated south south-west of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...

, Surrey and educated at Reigate Grammar School

Reigate Grammar School

Reigate Grammar School is an independent co-educational day school located in the town of Reigate, Surrey, United Kingdom. Intake is from 11 to 18, with the majority of its pupils entering at the age of 11, and others entering at 13 and 16.- History :...

. On leaving school, despite an aptitude for languages, he took a job on a farm in Axminster

Axminster

Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of Devon in England. The town is built on a hill overlooking the River Axe which heads towards the English Channel at Axmouth, and is in the East Devon local government district. It has a population of 5,626. The market is still...

, Devon. He did his National Service

National service

National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...

 in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps

Royal Army Veterinary Corps

The Royal Army Veterinary Corps is an administrative and operational branch of the British Army responsible for the provision, training and care of animals. It is a small but technically competent corps forming part of the Army Medical Services...

, and was stationed in the Middle East. There, he learnt the guitar and quickly gained popularity entertaining the troops, including appearances on forces radio where he reputedly sang songs in eight languages.

After completing his stint in the army, he returned to farming but also began working as a part-time musician. He played trad jazz

Trad jazz

Trad jazz - short for "traditional jazz" - refers to the Dixieland and Ragtime jazz styles of the early 20th century in contrast to any more modern style....

 with Dave Kier's jazz band and began accompanying some of the emerging British folk singers such as Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl

Ewan MacColl was an English folk singer, songwriter, socialist, actor, poet, playwright, and record producer. He was married to theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later to American folksinger Peggy Seeger. He collaborated with Littlewood in the theatre and with Seeger in folk music...

 and A. L. Lloyd

A. L. Lloyd

Albert Lancaster Lloyd , usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English folk singer and collector of folk songs, and as such was a key figure in the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s....

.

His solo recording began in 1957 when he recorded two albums: Steve Benbow Sings English Folk Songs and Steve Benbow sings American Folk Songs. He went on to record over 20 albums. The last, Don't Monkey with My Gun was recorded in 2003.

He was a successful broadcaster, especially during the 1950s, appearing on "Guitar Club", "Saturday Skiffle Club" and "Easy Beat

Easy Beat (BBC radio)

Easy Beat was a BBC radio programme broadcast nationally in the UK on the Light Programme on Sunday mornings, between 1960 and 1967. It was one of the earliest BBC programmes to broadcast pop music...

". He also hosted a show on Radio Luxembourg

Radio Luxembourg (English)

Radio Luxembourg is a commercial broadcaster in many languages from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is nowadays known in most non-English languages as RTL ....

 in the 1960s.

He collaborated with Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan

Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...

 on a West End stage show and a television series Muses with Milligan.

He worked as a producer with Dominic Behan

Dominic Behan

Dominic Behan was an Irish songwriter, short story writer, novelist and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also a committed socialist and Irish Republican...

 and Christy Moore

Christy Moore

Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore is a popular Irish folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is well known as one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts...

: he was, for example, credited as arranger and musical director of Moore's 1969 album Paddy on the Road. Throughout his career he worked with a wide range of musicians, including Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...

, Robin Hall

Robin Hall

Robin Hall was a Scottish folksinger.He was born in Edinburgh but spent his childhood years in Glasgow. After studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, he briefly became an actor....

 and Jimmie MacGregor

Jimmie MacGregor

Jimmie Macgregor is a Scottish folksinger and broadcaster.He was born in Glasgow and studied at Glasgow School of Art, becoming a potter and teacher....

, Pete

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

 and Peggy Seeger

Peggy Seeger

Margaret "Peggy" Seeger is an American folksinger. She is also well known in Britain, where she lived for more than 30 years with her husband, singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl.- The first American period :...

, Denny Wright

Denny Wright

Denny Wright was a jazz and skiffle guitarist, who performed with Stephane Grappelli, Lonnie Donegan, Johnny Duncan , Digby Fairweather, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Eckstine, Fapy Lafertin and many other musicians, including young rising stars such as Bireli Lagrene and Nigel Kennedy...

, Alex Campbell

Alex Campbell (singer)

Alex Campbell was a Scottish folk singer. Described by Colin Harper as a "melancholic, hard-travelling Glaswegian", he was influential in the British folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s and was one of the first folk singers to tour the UK and Europe...

, Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...

, Cy Grant

Cy Grant

Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television...

, Michael Holliday

Michael Holliday

Norman Alexander Milne, known professionally as Michael Holliday was a British crooner popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s....

, Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

, Long John Baldry

Long John Baldry

John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...

 and Don Partridge

Don Partridge

Donald Eric Partridge was an English singer and songwriter, known as the "king of the buskers". He performed from the early 1960s as a busker and one-man band, and achieved unexpected commercial success in the UK in the late 1960s with the songs "Rosie" and "Blue Eyes".-Life and musical career:Don...

. He is credited with being an early influence on Davey Graham

Davey Graham

David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...

.

In later years, he worked as a London cabbie

Hackney carriage

A hackney or hackney carriage is a carriage or automobile for hire...

, but continued to appear at folk clubs. He also retained his affinity with domestic animals, keeping goats and a donkey at his home in Hanwell

Hanwell

Hanwell is a town situated in the London Borough of Ealing in west London, between Ealing and Southall. The motto of Hanwell Urban District Council was Nec Aspera Terrent...

. He maintained a traditional London trolley

Trolley (horse-drawn)

Among horse-drawn vehicles, a trolley was a goods vehicle with a platform body with four small wheels of equal size, mounted underneath it, the front two on a turntable undercarriage. The wheels were rather larger and the deck proportionately higher than those of a lorry...

 and was often seen navigating suburban streets in this donkey-drawn cart.
Steve Benbow was still playing in pubs around Brentford

Brentford

Brentford is a suburban town in west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Brent, west-southwest of Charing Cross. Its former ceremonial county was Middlesex.-Toponymy:...

, Isleworth

Isleworth

Isleworth is a small town of Saxon origin sited within the London Borough of Hounslow in west London, England. It lies immediately east of the town of Hounslow and west of the River Thames and its tributary the River Crane. Isleworth's original area of settlement, alongside the Thames, is known as...

 and Hounslow

Hounslow

Hounslow is the principal town in the London Borough of Hounslow. It is a suburban development situated 10.6 miles west south-west of Charing Cross. It forms a post town in the TW postcode area.-Etymology:...

 until the Friday before his death.

He was married twice, having a son and a daughter by his first marriage.

Discography

• 1957 Steve Benbow Sings English Folk Songs
• 1957 Steve Benbow Sings American Folk Songs
• 1958 Sinful Songs
• 1959 Steve Benbow's Folk Four
• 1959 Mixed Bag
• 1960 A Jug Of Punch
• 1960 Rocket Along
• 1960 A Pinch of Salt
• 1960 The Hermit & The Mole Catcher And Other Songs
• 1961 Ballad Of Little Musgrave
• 1962 Steve Benbow Sings Admiral Benbow
• 1963 I Travel The World
• 1964 Steve Benbow Tells About This That And The Other
• 1965 Irish Songs
• 1965 Journey Into The Sun
• 1966 Songs Of Ireland (with The Strawberry Hill Boys) (Monitor Records
  Monitor Records
  Monitor Records is a Hong Kong-based music shop selling various rare and alternative CDs and music items. Monitor Records is also a distributor of Hong Kong indie bands and independent musicians such as the Pancake, Elf Fatima and Alok...
  
  )
• 1967 Of Situations And Predicaments
• 1970 Little Drummer Boy
• 1970 Next Time Round
• 1970 Little Red Donkey
• 1971 Steve Benbow Sings Irish Songs
• 1971 Steve Benbow With Denny Wright
• 1977 Steve Benbow Sings Irish And Other Songs
• 2003 Don't Monkey With My Gun

External links

• Steve Benbow's website
• Songs of Ireland Album Details at Smithsonian Folkways
  Smithsonian Folkways
  Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...