Dance pioneer John 'Jellybean' Benitez recalls Madonna's 'Holiday', mixing Paul McCartney and Breaking New Genres in the 80s

Four decades ago, an effervescent dance-pop single called “Holiday” hit the airwaves and the clubs. Not only did it earn Madonna her first top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and mark the rise of her world-conquering career, it marked the commercial breakthrough of a DJ/producer who would help define the sound of mid-decade dance music of the 80's. : John “Jellybean” Benitez.

“I can be in a restaurant and someone is singing the lyrics,” says Benitez Bulletin board about what happens when it's public and “Holiday” comes around these days. “I look at them like, 'They have no idea.'”

Not only was Madonna's first Dance Club Songs “Holiday” No. 1 (as part of a double A-side with “Lucky Star”), but marked a historic first: “the only record produced by a current club DJ to become a hit bulletin boards Hot 100,” as of November 26, 1983; Bulletin board. Just a week earlier, the Hot 100 (dated November 19, 1983) included not only “Holiday” but a whopping 12 entries aided by Jellybean remixes.

At the time, the music industry was just beginning to realize the audience-boosting power of an officially sanctioned remix, and Benitez – a Bronx-born DJ who hosted 14-hour sets at Manhattan's Fun House nightclub on Saturdays – possessed an instinctive understanding of what it worked. “I knew what people would dance to, what would get them moving,” he says of those sweaty, marathon DJ sets.

Although his sets no longer go from sunset to sunrise, Benitez still DJs, playing 100-some shows around the world each year. On Tuesday (November 12), the dance music pioneer returns to Manhattan for a different kind of party, one in celebration of his 15th anniversary Cristian Rivera Foundation. Hosted by SNL cast member Kenan Thompson and featuring actor Luis Guzmán, MLB player Gleyber Torres, actor Malik Yoba and others, the gala will raise money to help find a cure for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, a type of malignant brain tumor, and will support the families affected by it. .

“Their overhead is very small, it's significantly less than most foundations,” Benitez says of the nonprofit, which was started by his friend John Rivera after the loss of his six-year-old son Cristian in 2009. “You have to deal with a disease where there is no cure. And most of these children who get it are between five and nine and they don't even know what's going on. Most of them die within nine months,” he adds quietly. “It was really hard to watch, even up to that point [gala]I had a lot of feelings about it.”

Like Benitez, John Rivera was born in the Bronx and became an integral part of the New York music scene in the 80s, working as a nightclub and nightlife promoter when freestyle and hip-hop were rapidly changing the city's music landscape. .

“At that moment, I thought [hip-hop] it could be big,” Benitez recalled. As with his expert remixing, Benitez was ahead of the curve, spinning records by Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, despite many industry insiders dismissing rap music as a fad. “I broke a lot of new music [at Fun House]different hybrids of species that eventually became species in their own right,” he says casually, as if talking about his Thanksgiving plans. “I got to play a lot of music that wasn't being played in clubs at the time.”

Feet on the dance floor weren't the only thing Benitez was able to influence – radio programmers from three local New York stations were regulars at Fun House's Saturday night sets. “By that Monday, those songs ended up on rotation. But I only played things I believed in – music I loved or songs that made the party happen.”

A year after placing 12 remixes simultaneously on the Hot 100, Benitez was hailed as a “remix master” by Bulletin board (October 27, 1984) and promoting his own EP, Wotupski!?!which touched on electronica, hip-hop, Latin freestyle, synth-pop and featured the first two of the three final songs on Dance Club No. 1, “The Mexican” and “Sidewalk Talk” (the latter, written by Madonna, also entered the top 20 of the Hot 100).

By 1984, it was clear that radio had done a 180 from '70s hit music – and many rock artists felt left in the cold. As word spread throughout the music biz about his keen ear for sounds that connected with young listeners, Benitez became a popular remixer, working with everyone from David Bowie to ZZ Top to Sting and Fleetwood Mac.

“Billy Joel called me after hearing the remix [of “Tell Her About It”] and she said, “I don't really get it, but it makes me want to dance.” Not everyone was always happy with his work, however. Benitez smiles that “Stig hated” his “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” 12-inch repeat — at least until the remix came out and “flew the charts.”

Benitez says he empathized with the artists who objected to his work. “Someone named Jellybean comes along and changes everything? That can be a little scary,” he says. “[David] But Bowie was very open to it, and David Byrne was very involved, coming to the session and turning the knobs and having fun.”

While most artists insisted that Benitez remix using only music from the original recording, Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson gave him complete freedom, allowing him to add new percussion to their “Say Say Say” duet.

“They were really excited about what I was doing and it was incredible to go to Abbey Road and meet George Martin and Paul McCartney,” he says, sounding vaguely impressed for the only time in an interview that touches on some of music's biggest names. history. “They were like, 'Do whatever you want, have fun with it. Make us a dance hit.' Other artists were like, 'Do what you want — but don't change a thing,'” he shares with a laugh.

The list of songs Benitez has remixed is long – his Wikipedia discography includes more than 100 titles and says it's not even close to his career total. If the Wiki is incomplete, at least its own collection is not. Benitez has three copies of every song he's remixed: “One for me and one for each of my daughters. My youngest daughter is also a DJ.”

These records are a small fraction of his entire vinyl collection, however, which he estimates at between 70-80 thousand. “Here's the good thing: Everything is alphabetized and cataloged,” he assures me. “I love the sound of vinyl as opposed to the sound of a CD or listening to something on those little speakers in my ear. I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to sound.”

That love of vinyl has led to one of his latest ventures, Jellybean's Funhouse Record Shop, a soon-to-open record shop in Fort Lauderdale that sells new and used vinyl in addition to listening rooms with high-tech sound systems and a small stage . – store shows. Beyond that, Benitez still tours the world, including residencies in Miami, New York and Ibiza (“CAA has done a great job with me,” he says), and helps mentor up-and-coming, unsigned artists. He is also on the advisory board for the Contemporary Music ARCHIVEa non-profit archive containing approximately 90 million songs.

He says he's been offered “crazy money” to write an autobiography, and while he's not writing it off completely, he doesn't seem all that interested in the effort. “I'm just… not sure. I don't know if it's something I want to do,” he says. “My first love is playing records and collecting records. I'm very happy to DJ all over the world and open my record label.''

If it ever does, though, you can bet it will be worth the price. In the line notes to Wotupski!?!thanks Madonna with the following message: “Madonna, for your compassion and love. All I can say is, “Goo goo gaa gaa.” When I ask what that means, he rocks me for the first time. “Look at it Like Panagia album and see what he wrote,” he says. [The Like a Virgin liners aren’t terribly revelatory – Madonna also says “Goo goo ga ga” when thanking Benitez.] “Though whenever I write a book, I'll reveal it.”