WITF Music: Benjamin Vo Blues Band

Catching the blues, classical influences and building guitars.

• Joe Ulrich
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Joe has been interested in audio and music since he was a kid. What started as a fascination with his parents’ vinyl records and cassette tapes turned into a love of both performing and recording. He grew up in Elizabethtown, Pa. and moved to Pittsburgh in 1999 where he majored in Photography at the University of Pittsburgh.
  
  In 2004, he attended the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe, AZ. He returned to Pittsburgh to work at a recording studio.
  
  In 2008, Joe arrived at WITF, where his skills have found a good home as an on-air host, audio engineer and producer of WITF Music. In 2016, Joe earned a National Edward R. Murrow award for Best Use of Sound.

 Jeremy Long / WITF

Benjamin Vo sings and plays guitar as the Benjamin Vo Blues Band performs for WITF Music on April 27, 2023 (Jeremy Long - WITF)

Lancaster-based guitarist, singer and songwriter Benjamin Vo got the blues back in college when a friend introduced him to some of the blues greats. He formed his own blues band in 2016 and he’s been gigging every since. He was joined in our studio by keyboardist Francois Byers, bassist Jeff Pickel and drummer Joel Stoltzfus.

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How did you get into the blues?
My parents got me a guitar when I was five, but I was five, so I couldn’t focus. I was into video games and stuff.

I started playing at 10 seriously. Playing guitar I was always pretty aware of the blues, because it’s very guitar-centric music. But I never really loved it or got into it until college when I was 19. I had an older friend in college. We would hang out and he had just a huge record and CD collection of all the old blues guys and all the old 1920s guys like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Skip James. And for some reason that made me love it.

I do definitely fall into the B.B. King school of style. I love Peter Green. Those two guys are probably my top favorites. Lonnie Johnson is another recent favorite of mine.

Are there any musicians that you’re really paying attention to right now, even outside of blues?
Francois and I both are lovers of Debussy, the composer. I just love his piano compositions and the dreaminess in them. A lot of classical is pretty set in stone, very strict and very stiff. All that said, still very beautifully-made and impressive. But the Debussy stuff just was like a breath of fresh air for the classical music world. He didn’t follow any of the norms or what was the right thing.

Jeremy Long / WITF

Benjamin Vo sings and plays guitar as the Benjamin Vo Blues Band performs for WITF Music on April 27, 2023 (Jeremy Long – WITF)

Is classical something that you listened to or studied earlier in life?
I wouldn’t say, oh, I love classical … My mom was big on classical, she always had a Mozart or Chopin playing or something.

I think Debussy, all his stuff, the way he approached music and his attitude and the feeling; it’s universal. I can try to take some of his feeling and put it in a blues song. I’m all about the mood and the feeling in a lot of our songs. It’s more about that than even the notes sometimes. The feel and even all the space in between, that’s really important.

Speaking of space in between, the one you did, “Looking For My Baby”, there’s so much space in there and it’s so slow.
When I put that song together that’s just naturally how it sounded to me in my head. And that was basically the main reason for that song, for those big pockets of spaces … I like the idea of, if you play not enough, it makes the person want more.

What other things occupy your time?
I’ve been spending a lot of time putting together guitars. I would buy the body unfinished. It’s already cut and everything. I just needed something to do over lockdown and the pandemic. I put together some Telecasters and a few Strats and I sold a bunch to some friends and family.

It’s more about [the feel] than the notes sometimes. The feel and all the space in between, that’s really important.

Normally when we have bands in here, everyone listens through headphones, but it seemed like it was important to you to be in the room, in the same space sonically as everyone else.
It could be a psychological thing, but I just feel disconnected with the headphones on … When I play or practice at home, the amp’s in the corner of the room or pointing at the wall or something. You hear the sound interacting with the room and vibrating with the walls and the floor. It’s a very different feeling than just having the sound right in your ear. When you play a loud note or you play a more aggressive phrase, it’s nice to hear everything reacting, like the room vibrating a little bit more as you do that.

You mentioned you played video games earlier. Are you still into video games at all?
It’s more of a winter thing for me. I stick to the stuff I grew up with, like Super Nintendo. I’m big on Final Fantasy. I also love Mario and Zelda and Kirby. I love Ninja Gaiden.

Do you have a favorite pizza place in the area?
Venice Pizza, in my experience. It’s been really good. It’s on Columbia Avenue. How about you?

I love Pizza Hut. Did you do Book It too when you were a kid?
We did. Yeah. I never really read the books. [laughs] I just said, “I read ’em. I earned my personal pan pizza.”

This is a scandal. We definitely need to report on this.
I didn’t really enjoy reading until probably late teens, early twenties.

What were you into?
I was big on fantasy and science fiction. One of my favorite authors is Brian Jaques. He’s a British author. He wrote a series called Redwall.

What is the one album you’d take if you were stranded on a desert island?
I really love Fleetwood Mac Live at Boston Tea Party. It came out around the same time as like the Allman Brothers At Fillmore East and Band of Gypsies. I think music was just on a roll with live albums during that year.

But I would even go as far as to say maybe a Beatles album. Also a Lonnie Johnson record. There’s another bluesman I really love, his name is J.B. Lenoir. Alabama Blues. I could listen to that every day.

A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.

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