Hey, thanks for the shout out to Jon Bon Jovi! Another true Angel on earth. After hearing of Benny's passing I asked my parents to find him in heaven. My Mom discovered Bon Jovi in the early 1990's when she was in her mid 60's. Bed of Rose's was her favorite song and she told everyone she wanted that song played at her funeral. When she passed away at 81 we honored her with that request. My Dad then passed away a year later. He was retired military so I knew my Dad would have alot of respect for Benny as he was a Navy veteran in the Vietnam War. And my brother was also a Vietnam Vet Warrant Officer and he flew a helicopter. Due to Agent Orange my brother was also a casualty of that war and he joined our parents in heaven in 2010. I figured my Mom would be hanging out up there with Elvis so I told Benny where he could find them. I like to think they are all together along with all the pets that went to the Rainbow Bridge. ❤🐾❤🐾❤

@@fuzzyarmadillo1320 This is so lovely...thank you! I could just picture this, and it brought me alot of peace.

Actually, Benny and Bon Jovi went WAY back. When Bon Jovi was starting out, Benny was one of his coaches. After Bon Jovi broke big, there was discussion of him producing an album for Benny, but it didn't happen for some reason. Benny had a photo of himself with Bon Jovi hanging prominently on his living room wall that was taken circa 1990.

... but based on how you worded your comment, I think you knew all that.

I couldn't make it to the final performance as I had a speaking engagement that weekend, but a friend of mine who was there called as he was warming up to sing the song the last time and I listened to it live that way. There is a video of it on here filmed by an attendee, but the people around her were singing along and drowning him out. I only have the memory of hearing his voice without all the clatter around it.

You are absolutely right.....what a beautiful comment u wrote about Benny Mardones....is amazig!!!!!... think you are a really good person with such a heart like him...god bless you.

@@rosamariaenomoto2279 oh thank you!!! I try to be a good person....God bless you too and for your nice words too!!!

He he took that crock of bull shit to his grave with him.

@jaymestratton62355 as you heard in the video clip, it was actually Robert Tepper who blurted out about how hot Heidi looked, and it was Benny who said "she's just 16 years, leave her alone". That's the supreme irony that I enjoy throwing in people's faces when they make stupid, uninformed comments about the song - when Benny adds "they said" to the statement in the first line of the song, HE (Benny) is the "they" he is referring to.

+9sunskungfu to this day, Heidi sends him Christmas cars every year saying "Thank you for saving my life!"

I would have to say I was 18 in 81 if I new him I would have loved him because it sounds he was a great person

@@margarettenarron9690 From everything thing I've read or heard about Benny Mardones that was very true. I hope he knows now how much he was loved. RIP Benny Mardones! ❤❤❤

Benny kept all the Christmas cards Heidi sent him over the years. He showed them to me. At the time of his passing, he was still enough in touch that Heidi traveled up from Puerto Rico to attend the east coast edition of his Celebration of Life held in Syracuse in 2021.

Parkinson's is a hell of a thing. He was diagnosed in 2000 and at the time told he MIGHT have 3-4 years left as a performer. Despite that, he managed to hang in there until 2017, when he was forced to retire because he could no longer stand without assistance. Even after that, he released a single, which is called "Where Angels Fly". It's posted on KZfaq. I cannot comment on the rumors of whether Benny was using the song to predict an event similar to the pandemic. He refused to discuss the songfacts on that one, and to me he only said to listen to the lyrics carefully and decide what they meant to me.

Almost all of his catalog is on Spotify. The only album you won't find is "Too Much To Lose" due to some weird thing with the heirs to Polydor that led to the LP-to-DVD rip distributed by Warrior Records getting pulled also, but all eight songs from the album can be found on KZfaq and they were taken from that same rip so they sound good. He also had an unreleased song from about 1999 called "Someone to Love" that was supposed to be on the "Angel" album but got held back, according to one story it was because they were working on a deal to have it added to a movie soundtrack (which didn't go through). I have a copy of the original Someone to Love that Benny gave me on the condition that I only enjoy it privately and never share it. Due to some stuff I am vaguely aware of regarding ongoing efforts to monetize his catalog, I specifically cannot/will not share that song, though I think there is a video on here of him performing it in concert in Hawaii.

Oh, thank you. I'm glad the link and the full interview are still up/working. Thank you again.

I never got around to doing this and never will, but if you follow the link in the description for this video, it goes to where I posted the entire interview as a podcast episode.

SOMEWHERE I have a couple videos of him performing songs at a concert in 2010 that were not part of his signature "set". If I find where I stashed them, I'll post them.

Benny was affected by the plight of the set designer's kids because his own father had walked out when he was a toddler, and his subsequent stepfather abused him.

That was a joke. He wasn't even alive during World War II.

Benny and Angie were friends and he made that video for her as a joke on her birthday. Benny was born in 1946 and he was not British. Some people who are familiar with how he sounded when he spoke got the idea he had a British accent, but he didn't. His speech patterns are peculiar to the part of Maryland where he grew up.

Fantastic singer! He will be missed!

This interview, which is now posted as an episode on my podcast, was originally a training session he did for my coaching clients. It was the first module in the program we launched in July 2012.

Take your hate somewhere else. Loser.