No guitars. No distractions. Just Benny's fingers finding the gospel in the gutter, playing 11 hymns for the heartbroken between cigarette drags.

Organ: Barstool Benny
Bass Guitar: Sonny "The Slug" Harris
Drums: Carl "Boom-Boom" Granger

Produced by Lou Mercer.

©1987 Press Your Luck Records, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cheap Beer Lullaby

"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’s 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.
Special thanks to Bert "Cat" Thompson. What would we do without you?

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

08 Three AM Philosophy

The New Indie Release from Barstool Benny

Dusted off, re-recorded, and dripping with that late-night, backroom soul—The Days Run Wild crawls out of another shoebox full of forgotten demos, polished just enough to keep the grit where it belongs. Every track bleeds straight from the heart of The Barstool Benny Trio, with Benny grinding out smoky organ grooves, Thumper Morello and Boom-Boom Granger holding down the pocket on drums like a man with a grudge, Jimmy “Two Hands” on bass, and special guest Mr. Lou Mercer handling guitar duties with the kind of effortless cool that only comes from knowing better days and worse nights.

Remember, Folks: The notes that matter most are the ones you play between last call and sunrise. Everything else is just filling time.

Produced by Lou Mercer.



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

02 Odie The Alley Cat

Benny and Thumper take "Yesterdays" down to half-speed—like watching regret in slow motion. Their notes hang like old suits in abandoned closets while Lou Mercer's production wraps it all in amber, preserving what everyone else is trying to forget.


Produced by Lou Mercer.
©2025 Press Your Luck Records, Inc. All rights reserved.

Yesterdays

Rainbirds finds the Barstool Benny Jazz Trio at their smokiest-four moody tracks full of swagger, sorrow, and late-night charm. Every drink has a story. Every regret has a groove.

Personnel:
Drums: Thumper Morello
Bass: Jimmy Two Hands
Organ: Barstool Benny

Recorded live after hours at The Yellow Canary.
Produced by: Lou Mercer.
Engineered by: Wires Morales.

© 2025 Press Your Luck Records & Tapes

04 I'll Never Go Drinking Again

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

4. Lester The Nightfly

Music for midnight philosophers and 3AM saints. 

Slide a few bucks into the tip jar and take home some organ grooves that'll make your speakers sweat- cheaper than therapy, lasts longer than whiskey.

4. Lester The Nightfly

Barstool Benny - Jazz & Booze

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