Little Benny Death

Anthony Harley, better known as “Little Benny,” has died at the age of 46 on Sunday. Little Benny’s death is a huge shock to his family and the music lovers who loved his funk music style.

The death was confirmed by longtime friend and former business partner Keith Galloway. He did not know the cause of death but said Mr. Harley apparently died in his sleep.
Mr. Harley was a student at Ballou Senior High School in Southeast when go-go was born in Washington. R&B artist Chuck Brown started playing percussion between songs to keep his audience from sitting down between numbers. The result was an incessant beat — a genre of funk featuring conga drums, cow bells and call-and-response chants brought to life by an engaging bandleader — that gained widespread attention in the late 1970s with Brown’s “Bustin’ Loose,” the first go-go hit.

D.C Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said, “Little Benny helped putting the District’s own musical genre on the map and will be remembered for his lifelong contribution to go-go.” Little Benny performed many times on the stage and rocked the crowd through his own music style. His style and passion for music was acknowledged and appreciated by his fans a lot. It was because of his passion for music that he was known as “the Helicopter” because he was often seen at several venues in on evening.

Go-go music is a “subgenre of funk” music that originated in the D.C. are, and it’s not familiar to outsiders. It’s a combination of drums, conga drums, percussion, timbale and cowbell. Little Benny is considered one of the founders and developers of this genre of music.

In go-go, the beat never stops, and Anthony Harley was known for having the energy it took to continue making music from the beginning of the performance to the end. The Go-Go Hall of Fame inductee was a man of slight build with a powerful voice who led the band’s vocals on fast-paced songs and could even play two trumpets at the same time.