"Benny Plays the Hits" ain't your grandma’s greatest hits record- it’s a barstool confessional, a jukebox jam session where the songs are half-remembered but the feeling cuts deep. Benny pounds the Hammond like it owes him money, pouring sweat, smoke, and stories into every note. These ain't chart-toppers, but they’ve been howled into the night by drunks and dreamers for decades.  

The grooves are loose, the whiskey neat, and the past-due bar tab ain’t getting paid anytime soon. No frills, no pretense- just Benny, his B3, with Frankie and Jimmy holding down the rhythm while the room spins slow.  

No guitars. No gimmicks. Just the sound of a man playing like there’s nothing left to lose.  

Drums: Frankie "Thumper" Morello  
Bass: Jimmy "Two Hands" DelVecchio  
Organ: Benny

Produced by Lou Mercer.
Engineered and Mixed by Len Tillerson.

©1992, 2025 Press Your Luck Records, Inc. All rights reserved.

03 Last Call For Dignity

THE LOST DEMOS VOL. 1
BARSTOOL BENNY JAZZ TRIO

PRESS YOUR LUCK RECORDS & TAPES PRESENTS

For immediate release:
PRESS YOUR LUCK RECORDS & TAPES UNEARTHS THE HOLY GRAIL OF DIVE BAR JAZZ

Some nights ain't meant for the daylight crowd. Some music's too raw for the sunrise.

After thirty-two years gathering dust in a locked cabinet behind Mama Lou's bar, these seven sonic confessions from The Barstool Benny Jazz Trio have finally escaped captivity. Recorded live at Mama Lou's Orchid Lounge in one whiskey-soaked night in 1992, these tracks were immediately confiscated by Mama Lou herself, who declared them "too goddamn honest for public consumption."
"Benny was bleeding that night," recalls Mama Lou. "Not from any wound you could bandage. The kinda bleeding that happens when a man's soul springs a leak. I locked those tapes away 'cause some pain ain't meant for entertainment."

The Hammond B3 groans under Benny's fingers like a sinner at confession, while Frankie "Thumper" Morello's drums sound like he's building a staircase to redemption one broken step at a time. Jimmy "Two Hands" 
DelVecchio plays that upright bass like he's digging his own grave, and Lou Mercer's guitar cuts through it all like a stiletto in a street fight.

These aren't songs. They're evidence. Evidence that beauty can grow in the cracks of the concrete, that salvation sometimes smells like cigarettes and cheap cologne, that some of the best music ever made never made a dime.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Pawnshop Communion
2. The Devil's Training Wheels
3. Mama Lou's Medicine
4. Lester The Nightfly
5. Three-Legged Dog Blues
6. Drinking on Credit with God
7. Yesterday's Saints (Tomorrow's Sinners)

Available now as a digital download. 

As Lou Mercer says in the newly discovered session notes: "We weren't making a record that night. We were just trying to make it through the night. Turns out they were the same damn thing."

Some treasures need three decades of darkness before they're ready for light. The Lost Demos Vol. 1 is finally ready to be found.

"The most beautiful sounds in the world are the ones that almost got away." - Barstool Benny

Press Contact: Sarah Wilkes, Press Your Luck Records & Tapes

The Lost Demos Vol. 1

6. Drinking on Credit with God

New Orleans Sessions - The Alligator That Never Bit

Ah, the Big Easy sessions. That was '89, maybe '90. We met this cat at some joint on Bourbon Street, three sheets to the wind and talking big about Alligator Records. Said he loved what we were laying down, didn't matter we weren't blues - "good music is good music," he kept saying while buying rounds we couldn't afford to refuse.

So we followed him to some studio that smelled like cigarettes and broken dreams. Cut a whole album in three days, living off po' boys and whatever that guy was pouring from his flask. The music was fire - Lou's guitar had that Louisiana humidity baked right into it, and my B3 was singing gospel in a language even the devil would understand.

"Rolling Highballs" was the opener, the song that made that A&R guy's eyes light up like Christmas morning. We thought we'd made it. Had visions of tour buses and royalty checks.

Turns out he was A&R for his nephew's garage band, not Alligator Records. The album sat in his closet until Lou tracked him down, pulled out his steel and flew home with the tape box on his lap.

Sometimes the best music comes from the biggest lies, and the best friends are the ones who'll travel cross-country to steal back your dreams at gunpoint.

Allegedly.
-Benny

Rolling Highballs

Lucy Cooter

LOUIS, THE VERY LOUDLY CRACKLING LADYBUG

PRESS YOUR LUCK RECORDS
OFFICIAL SESSION PERSONNEL – FILE #PYL-2227-A

Artist: Barstool Benny Quartet
Track: Midnight On A Tuesday
Location: The Yellow Canary (East Hollywood, CA)
Date: Circa 1988 (night session, undocumented)

Personnel:
Benny – Hammond Organ  
Lou Mercer – Electric Guitar  
Jimmy “Two Hands” DelVecchio – Upright Bass  
Frankie “Thumper” Morello – Drums  

Len Tillerson – Mix & Mastering  
Recorded at The Yellow Canary (East Hollywood) – circa 1988

Midnight On A Tuesday

Alt Take 3 – Rolling Highballs (Excerpt)
The version we thought we lost.
Lou and Benny trading feels like it’s 2 AM and nobody's going home.
This one's got weight — pocket so deep it clinks.

🎧 Full version available now on Ko-fi:
https://ko-fi.com/barstoolbennys/shop

Press Your Luck

Rolling Highballs (Alt Take Excerpt)

Jazz that smells like cigarettes, spilled whiskey, and church on a Sunday you never made it to.

03 Last Call For Dignity

The Barstool Benny Quartet

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