Dave Benton

Dave Benton
Dave Benton in 2009
Background information
Birth name	Efrén Eugene Benita
Born	31 January 1951
Origin	Aruba
Genres	Pop

Dave Benton (born 31 January 1951, real name Efrén Eugene Benita) is a pop musician and 2001 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest. Since 2011, he has been a guitarist and songwriter for Brooklyn-based lo-fi indie rock band LVL UP, as well as releasing solo music under the moniker Trace Mountains.

Biography

Benton was born in 1951 on the Caribbean island of Aruba and in his 20s moved to the United States. As a drummer and a backing vocalist, he worked with The Drifters, Tom Jones, Billy Ocean, José Feliciano and the Platters.

While living in the Netherlands in the 1980s, he met his future Estonian wife Maris on a cruise ship, then settled in Estonia in 1997. He has had a varied musical career in Northern European countries. He now lives in Estonia with his wife and two daughters, Sissi and Lisa. He performed in the German production of the musical 'City Lights' after which he was asked to replace Engelbert Humperdinck on his Australian tour.

Though he has released and produced quite a few albums already, one of which in his native tongue, Papiamento, his career to date shows him to be more of a performing artist rather than a recording one.

Benton is octolingual, speaking English, Spanish, Papiamento, Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, and Estonian.

In 2001 he performed with budding Estonian rock singer Tanel Padar and boyband 2XL to win the Eurovision Song Contest 2001 with their song "Everybody".

Other information

• Benton contested at the 1981 OTI Festival (Ibero-American equivalent of the Eurovision contest) held in Mexico City; he represented the Netherlands Antilles with the song "Vaya un amigo" as Efrén Benita and he finished in 20th place at this contest.
• Benton won the Eurovision Song Contest for Estonia, but at the time he did not speak Estonian.
• In 2010, Benton participated as a celebrity contestant on the fourth season of Tantsud tähtedega, an Estonian version of Dancing with the Stars. His professional dancing partner was Valeria Fetissova.
• He is also a grandfather. His oldest daughter from his first marriage, Nathaly, gave birth to a girl called Tanisia.

External links

• Dave Benton at Yahoo! Music
• Dave Benton at Estonian Bands Database
• Dave Benton at the Internet Movie Database
• Aruba-born Dave Benton Joins with Tanel Padar for Top 2001 Eurovision Honors
• Dave Benton: 'I was asked in Estonia and Finland'
• Estonians record previews, Dave Benton is back!