Jellybean Benitez On His Decades-Long Career As DJ, Producer And Remixer

John “Jellybean” Benitez can still remember meeting an up-and-coming singer named Madonna in the early 1980s at the Funhouse, the popular New York City nightclub where Benitez deejayed. At the time, Madonna had recently signed with Sire Records and was introduced to Benitez by her record company’s promotions man.

“It was quite common for record companies to bring artists to the Funhouse in hopes that I would play their song or get a photo op for them for the trades,” Benitez says. “I had been playing “Everybody” [Madonna’s single] and the audience at the Funhouse was already chanting the hook, dance and sing over other records. So it blew my mind. Like, ‘How is this possible? It’s not really out yet.’ I’ve been playing it off a tape that [producer] Mark Kamins gave me. And they loved it.”

The collaboration with Madonna on her early hit records became an important chapter in Benitez’s 50-year career as deejay, producer and remixer who played a pivotal part in New York City club culture during the 1980s.

“I don’t spend much time looking at the history,” he recently says. “I’m always like present, in the moment, aware and looking ahead at things that I want to do and try. But I went to dinner this week with [producer/remixer] Arthur Baker and we realized we have known each other for 45 years. We were just laughing. Like we grew up together. And I have a camaraderie with DJs all over the world.”

Raised in New York City’s South Bronx, Benitez was first introduced to club culture in his early teens. Someone at the time once told him about a DJ who would play a song, and then, before that track ended, the DJ started playing another song with no break in between so that the music never stopped.

“My response was, ‘That’s a terrible idea,’” Benitez recalls, “until I was actually able to witness it when I was 15. I was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’ I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood…the older kids were the ones who worked at the club, and I wanted to go and begged my mom to let me go. And she finally let me go. It transformed me because it was like, ‘This is an amazing job. You play music, People dance. They forget all their troubles, all their worries. They get lost in the music. They sing the songs.’ So that’s what I decided to do.”

From his experiences of watching people dance and determining what type of music made them go to and leave the dance floor, Benitez knew that he could probably make better records than the ones he was spinning. “All I knew was what made the party happen and why people stayed on the dance floor. Coming from the South Bronx, I had a little game and convinced people to let me experiment. And it just evolved into what it’s become now.”

From the mid-’70s to the early ‘80s, Benitez deejayed at such popular New York City nightclubs as Hurrah and Studio 54. But his biggest break came as the main deejay at the Funhouse, where he played music from 10 p.m. to noon the next day.

“We had 3,500 people in that room, and you try keeping 16-17-year-olds focused for that long,” he remembers. “It would be really challenging. But they all love to dance. I just connected with that audience.”

According to Tim Lawrence’s 2016 book, Life and Death on the New York City Dance Floor, Benitez’s playlist at the Funhouse between 1982 and 1983 consisted of tracks by such diverse artists as Afrika Bambaataa, Pat Benatar, New Order, Talking Heads and Shannon. Benitez says that deejaying “gave me a blank canvas to really experiment and try lots of new music, which was like the perfect time that new music was coming out, like New Wave and hip-hop.”

His important philosophy as a deejay was making the party happen. “Most clubs are only open till 2:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. And when you have 14 hours, you can have a lot of fun and go a lot of places and take people on a journey to let them really — my intention was to make them forget about everything and just have a great time.”

Benitez’s career further progressed when he produced and remixed Madonna’s hits following their initial meeting. “Madonna and I connected — she was very familiar with the stuff I had been working on and asked if I’d be interested in mixing what would be her second single that was “Burning Up”/“Physical Attraction” [from her 1983 self-titled debut album]; they brought me into remix and co-produced “Borderline.”

He adds: “I mixed a bunch of other songs on the album. And then the first single came out, which was “Lucky Star” and the B-side was “Holiday.” But I had already been playing “Holiday” at the Funhouse for months. People just flipped it over because they were familiar with the song, and it took off. It was like overnight what happened. It was so quick that they didn’t even have time to make a music video. There’s no 12-inch remix. It was just the album version that was pressed on 12-inch. Every boombox and car radio, you heard the song. It was an anthem in New York, and then that transferred everywhere.”

Benitez’s career as a musician kicked off when he signed with EMI America, leading to his debut EP Wotupski!?! It contained the song “Sidewalk Talk”, featuring Madonna on backing vocals, which reached the Billboard Top 20.

“Gary Gersh, who was the head of A&R, came to me and said, ‘I want you to make an album that represents a night at the Funhouse,’” Benitez recalls “When you listen to the album, it’s a little bit of everything. He really thought that it could work. And Madonna had written a song called “Sidewalk Talk.” I thought, ‘This is kind of rap and it’s pop, but it’s not rap and it’s not really pop. If I work on this, I could make it a club record’ — never thinking it would be a radio hit.”

Benitez also became an in-demand remixer for many of the hottest acts during that time, including Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Cyndi Lauper. “I already had done “Tell Her About It” by Billy Joel, [Irene Cara’s] “Flashdance” [and Michael Sembello’s] “Maniac.” Those were more pop-friendly because I was also a mix show deejeay on WKTU New York, which was the number one station at the time. So they played pop records. I really enjoyed taking songs that you would not think would be a club record and remixing them so they could, but in keeping the integrity of the song, the lyric, the melody, and what they were trying to create.”

In 1985, Benitez became part of the relaunch of the Palladium as a nightclub by Studio 54 operators Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, which coincided with a special career milestone for him.

“It was funny,” Benitez says, “because the day that they called me and said, ‘We want you to come to New York and play, and we want to show you the club’ — it was the same day I found out a song that I had produced for Madonna called “Crazy for You” was going to be number one the following week.

“People were like, ‘Oh, congratulations,’” he continues. “And I’m thinking they’re talking about me playing in New York. Like I couldn’t see past that. I was in Bel Air. I wasn’t going to clubs in L.A. And you know I had to come back to New York. I got together with [deejay] Larry Levan. And he gave me like 50 records, ‘Listen to these and put it together.’ And that’s what I did. I had an amazing opening night.”

Benitez took a break from for most of the 1990s to raise his family. Then an invite from deejay David Mancuso in the early 2000s to host one of his Loft parties brought Benitez back to working behind the turntables.

“He had never had a guest [deejay], but he was adamant about me making the connection between him and the deejay culture into what was coming,” Benitez says of Mancuso. “I had no idea what was coming. At that point, my daughters were like 10-11 years old. And so I said, ‘Okay. I’ll do a party.’

“As it got closer and closer to the date, I was petrified because the Loft crowd was a crowd that knew music. When I was on the come-up, I would go hear [David] and was blown away. He played records that were African. He played jazz. He played everything. I thought I had a broad palette, but his was beyond that. It wasn’t until about five records in, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. David’s right. I can do this.’”

In addition to deejaying that has taken him to different parts of the country and the world, Benitez has been involved in charitable causes, including the Cristian Rivera Foundation, whose mission is to raise funding for a cure for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) — a rare malignant brain tumor that affects children. The organization was founded by John “Gunkie” Rivera in memory of his young son Cristian, who died in 2009 after being diagnosed with DIPG. Benitez says the work of the foundation, which recently held a gala in New York City to mark its 15th anniversary, is close to his heart.

“I thought it would be a great cause to get behind and support,” Benitez says. “When John first told me that he was going to create a foundation, I was not surprised knowing him as well as I do. The number of obstacles and hurdles he came across along the way and just to see someone that just didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer or that it’s not possible and there’s not enough research—he was like, ‘I’m changing that.’ He was already acting and talking like it happened. It was just a matter of time for everyone to catch up.

“It’s a very emotional trigger for me only because I was with [John] at the hospital while he was spending like 22 hours a day just nonstop,” he continues. “He never gave up hope and then decided, ‘This is my life’s mission. I’m going to do this.’ To see where it started to where it is now, where they’ve given $3.6 million already [for] research…I donate to charities, but I see how much he gives and how much it takes from him. And he never stops.”

Meanwhile, Benitez is currently launching his latest venture: a record store in Fort Lauderdale called Jellybean’s Funhouse, whose space is acoustically designed, he says.

“I’m having isolated small rooms where you can go in and listen to vinyl,” he says. “You could choose the speakers based on what you like to hear. We’ve been buying collections, and we’re going to sell recently reissued stuff and the original vinyl. We’re going to have a speakeasy in the space, which will open to a cappuccino, espresso, coffee, and gelato space. And we have 1,800 square feet outside so people could sit out there. And we’ll have live performances by DJs and artists.”

“When I first started deejaying, I always wanted to have a record store,” Benitez adds. “I’m learning now how challenging it is to have a record store — vinyl, even — when most people are digitally downloading. But I’m finding there are a lot of teenagers and 20-somethings who are mesmerized by holding the album and turning it over, reading the credits and pulling out the inner sleeve. It’s like a whole new thing.”