Moraine Music Group Unearths 1972 Album, Gets HBO Placement

A lost 1972 album by Benny Hester, who went on to become a CCM artist and television producer, was released Friday (Feb. 19) by Nashville’s Moraine Music Group, ahead of a synch placement in HBO’s Girls.

Simply titled Benny…, the psych-pop album is being released more than four decades after a fire at the label/recording studio destroyed the master recordings and most of the stock in advance of the intended street date. Promotional copies had been sent out before the fire and later became collector’s items.

One of the tracks, “No The End Is Not Near,” will be featured in the season debut of Girls on Sunday (Feb. 21).

Hester stated, “I recorded my album in 1972 with hope, looking ahead to the future. A fire destroyed those dreams then, but now in 2016, I’m releasing the album, Benny…, for the first time. Miracles can happen… never give up.”

Brent Pacheco, an audiophile and fan of Hester’s, transferred the album to digital from Hester’s original vinyl promotional copy.

It was the first project ever produced by Brent Maher, who co-wrote and produced many of The Judds’ biggest hits in the 1980s. Maher and Hester met in Las Vegas in the early 1970s and recorded the project with three members of Elvis Presley’s TCB band—Ron Tutt, James Burton, and Glen Hardin—as well as Jerry Scheff, Larry Muhoberac, and Joe Osborn.

Maher says, “Having the first album I ever produced coming out 44 years later and being used in an HBO show is a wonderful surprise. It has been a joy to relive the making of the album and have new fans enjoy the project!”

Hester went on to record CCM hits like “Run” and to produce the Nickelodeon television show Roundhouse. His best-known CCM songs are “When God Ran” and “Secret Thoughts.”