Richard Hyatt: Jo Jo Benson, a treasure for Columbus to remember

Jo Jo Benson attacked a song like a ferocious hungry lion. He devoured lyrics and spit them out with a style honed on the chitlin’ circuit and preserved at a Mississippi studio called Grits and Gravy.

Forty years ago, when he was sharing the stage with pint-sized Peggy Scott, he heard his name called at the Grammy Awards, nailed Gold Records on the wall and figured the hits would keep on coming.

Two days before Christmas, he died and people who knew him were not surprised to learn that at the age of 73, with his health failing, he was throwing together one last show for New Year's Eve.

Jo Jo died alone, too proud to move in with a family that cared for him and too stubborn to follow a friend's advice to go to the emergency room. When the music ended, there was nothing left in the till to bury him.

That's when Ricky Steele appeared. He hadn't seen Jo Jo in 35 years but Ricky remembered his music and the oversized Cadillac that he washed and waxed every Saturday. He jump-started a campaign to raise money for a proper burial.

They lived in separate universes in the late 1960s. Jo Jo was an R&B star and Richard Everett Steele Jr. was a teenager working for his daddy, a successful Columbus businessman.

Before he was old enough to work, Steele spent his allowance at Dr. Jive's, a record store in Cross Country Plaza. Like many youth of that era he had discovered black artists and black music. When he was 12 or 13, his father arranged for him to be sneaked into concerts at the Municipal Auditorium.

"I saw James Brown there and his first song was 'Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.' At that moment I was not sure I had made a great decision but everyone was cool," says Steele, who now lives in Atlanta.

So as he worked on Jo Jo's car, they talked about music and the singer invited him to Lover's Holiday, a nightclub he named after one of his No. 1 records.

"We were treated nicely and we bought a lot of beer and wine. I'm certain his liquor license would have been pulled if the police had known a bunch of 17-year-olds were getting served every Saturday night."

It ended one night when the white couples started getting bumped around on the dance floor. Out of nowhere came four or five large black men who told them it was time to go. "We were herded out the back door where Jo Jo met us. He apologized and said that earlier that day a black teenager had been shot and that tension was high in the neighborhood. I don't think we ever went back," Steele said.

Years later, at a club in Buckhead, Steele was the first to identify "Lover's Holiday" in a trivia contest. "I was there within the first five bars, before the lyrics began. Jo Jo won me a round of drinks that night."

Steele calls Jo Jo a Columbus treasure. He believes people who followed his music or saw him on stage should feel good about getting involved. To join the effort, visit gofundme.com/jo-jo-benson.

"He helped create the music that is the sound track of my life, and I'm grateful."

Richard Hyatt, is an independent correspondent. Reach him at hyatt31906@knology.net.

This story was originally published December 30, 2014 at 10:48 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Jo Jo Benson, a treasure for Columbus to remember."