Ben Harrison: A Local Legend

BY MAGGIE OLIVE KLEIN
KONKLIFE STAFF WRITER AND EDITOR 

Ben Harrison is an extensively talented individual in our community, with creations ranging from songs to books to musicals. He has a distinctive and unique voice, and excellent story telling abilities. Although he dabbles in many different creative outlets, Harrison says that music has always been the one consistent thing throughout his life, and the core of everything for him. In fact, his main inspiration as a young guitar player was Elvis. (Harrison must be counting down the seconds until Elvis the movie comes out!)

Harrison has written five books thus far, each one being very different from the next. He’s written a guide to college and professional baseball recruiting, an autobiography detailing an adventurous journey via house boat with his wife, a lyrical children’s book, and others. One of his books, Undying Love, was even made into a Key West Musical! 

Harrison has also written plays, and is actually working on one right now, called Jungletown, 1921. In Harrison’s words, “Jungletown is a very provocative story, and a true one at that, which takes place in 1921. It explores things like the KKK, and the hanging of a Hispanic person living openly with a mixed race woman.” He goes on to explain how the 20s were also the golden age of jazz, and a time when the music was really coming together for the first time in an organized, semi-sophisticated way. Harrison has a passion for all things history and music, and Jungletown 1921 is the perfect marriage of both.  

He continues with, “This was a very exciting time musically. Prohibition had just hit, all bars were underground, and speakeasies were the big deal. Playing jazz music in them in the 1920s was as cool as it got!” Prior to the 20s, music was so local, and traveling musicians were the only ones who really carried it around for decades. The music was mostly being spread by the railroad, as the railroad had predominantly African American porters, and this was the way they were able to communicate with their counterparts in other states. The railroad permitted these porters to spread news, as well as music, to others. 

There is a reading for Jungletown 1921 on July 25th, and the crew had a reading about a week ago that went well, according to Harrison. He says that the script is being positively received, and he is hopeful, at this stage, about its future! We are excited to see how the show will turn out, but have to be patient, as it will probably be in it’s final stages in about a year from now. 

Oh, and, remember that book that was mentioned above, the autobiography? As if his work isn’t impressive enough, you should know that Ben and his wife, Helen, built the boat that the book takes place on! Imagine that! When asked about it, Harrison says, “We lived on it for 11 years, it was great. We just had our little house and could go wherever we wanted to. We went to the east coast a couple times, went to the Bahamas, sailed through Panama Canal, and some more. We had a whole lot of fun.” Talk about impressive!

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