Benny Mardones

Hailing from Maryland, singer and songwriter Benny Mardones burst onto the scene during the 1980s with his memorable track “Into the Night.” The single reached the Top Ten on two separate occasions, a milestone no other solo artist had accomplished before. First appearing on the 1980 album Never Run, Never Hide, the song later resurfaced on his self-titled release from 1989. A dance remix brought fresh attention in 2019, climbing to number 35 on the Dance Club Songs chart. Although later projects such as the 1996 collection Most Requested Songs and the 1999 album Angel fell short of matching that initial commercial peak, Mardones cultivated a loyal audience drawn to his raspy delivery and straightforward songcraft.

He returned that loyalty by regularly visiting and performing for fans facing terminal illness. One such connection inspired the song “Bless a Brand New Angel,” written for a young supporter who lost a battle with cancer; this reflective and spiritual dimension gave added depth to subsequent recordings, including Angel. In 2002 he issued Journey Through Time, a set of freshly recorded originals and covers that had shaped his career and were conceived as the musical backdrop for a film about his life. Following a nearly seven-year hiatus from new material, Let’s Hear It for Love arrived in 2006 on Warrior Records. By then Mardones had received a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, yet he kept performing while managing his condition. He declared his retirement from the stage during a 2017 concert in New York City and passed away on June 29, 2020, at age 73.