Benny Fields

Who was Benny Fields?

Benny Fields was a popular singer of the early 20th century, best known as one-half of the Blossom Seeley-Benny Fields vaudeville team.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Fields began his career in Chicago, as a singer in Al Tierney's cafe on 22nd Street. The tall young man had a gentle, easygoing way with a song, and held the listeners' rapt attention with tunes like "Melancholy Baby." Singer Blossom Seeley, touring in vaudeville, found Fields in 1921 and hired him to sing—offstage—in accompaniment to her solo numbers, Fields's voice gradually got more attention until he became a partner in the act. The couple was married in 1922-a year after he was hired by Seeley. Fields's laid-back stylings complemented Seeley's vivacious beltings beautifully, and Seeley and Fields became very successful on stage and in recordings. In the late 1920s Warner Bros. filmed their songs and comic patter for Vitaphone short subjects. On radio, Fields was heard on The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air and other shows.

Fields and Seeley were well-paid, saving and investing wisely. The couple believed they had no financial worries until the stock market crash of 1929 wiped out everything they had worked for. Vaudeville went into a steep and rapid decline at about the same time as the stock market. Fields and Seeley struggled until he launched a solo career in New York in 1933. Times were hard enough for the couple to file for bankruptcy in New York State in 1936.