Music
Brendan Benson
born 1970 · singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer
Power-pop songwriter born in Royal Oak whose Detroit attic was where he and Jack White wrote the first song of the Raconteurs in 2005.
- Born
Royal Oak, Michigan
age 55- Detroit years
- 1970s; 2000s
- Field
- Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Benson was born in Royal Oak, a suburb just north of Detroit, and plays guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. He released his debut album, One Mississippi, on Virgin Records in 1996, and followed it with Lapalco (2002) and The Alternative to Love (2005), records admired for their tuneful power pop. By the mid-2000s he was living in Detroit and had become friends with Jack White of the White Stripes. In the summer of 2005 the two wrote a song together in the attic of Benson's Detroit home, the seed of a new band; with Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler of the Greenhornes they formed the Raconteurs in Detroit that year and recorded Broken Boy Soldiers (2006), led by the single "Steady, As She Goes." The band later made Nashville its base, and Benson has since recorded and produced there, but the Raconteurs' origin story is a Detroit one.
Highlights
- Co-founder of the Raconteurs with Jack White (2005)
- Debut album One Mississippi (1996) on Virgin
- Co-wrote "Steady, As She Goes" (2006)
- Eight solo albums