American songwriter Claude A. "Bennie" Benjamin was born in the Virgin Islands. Due to limited family means he trained as a tailor and cabinet maker before moving to New York in 1927.

He studied banjo and guitar at Hy Smith's School of Music, developing a distinctive playing style, and began performing in dance bands. He played guitar and banjo with various orchestras at the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club and wrote songs, but had little success until forming a songwriting partnership in the mid-1930s with New York-born composer Sol Marcus. With Marcus and two others he wrote “ I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” a recording of which rose to number 1 and a second number 1 hit which won Billboard’s Top Songwriter’s Award for 1941.

Benjamin enlisted in the US Army in 1942, and performed in and produced entertainment shows. After returning to civilian life, he joined with lyricist George David Weiss, and established a second successful songwriting partnership with him. The pair wrote some twenty hit songs over the next decade.

He established a publishing company with Perry Como in 1950. He became more active as a music publisher in the 1960s, and set up Benjamin Publishing in 1965 and Bennie Benjamin Music in 1968. He was actively involved in ASCAP, winning an award for "I'll Never Be Free" in 1979, and was on the Council of the American Guild of Authors and Composers. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

James Bennet was born on January 17, 1817, in Boardmills, Down County, Northern Ireland.

He was a Presbyterian clergyman, editor, and author. He received his undergraduate degree at the classical school of the Belfast Academical Institution. He pursued studies in theology in Belfast, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, received into the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1840, and ordained at Tassagh in 1843. In 1854, he moved to Canada and took up the post of minister in the Saint John Presbyterian Church located in Saint John, New Brunswick where he stayed until his retirement in 1882. He also worked as an editor and author at the Colonial Presbyterian and Protestant Journal and the Saint John Daily Telegraph. Bennet played a pivotal role in the development of the Free Church Synod, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of New Brunswick, and his most enduring legacy was his contribution to the development of church union. He received a D.D. degree from Davidson College, North Carolina, in 1877.

He died on June 29, 1901, in Saint John, New Brunswick.

John Bennet was a composer of the English madrigal school. There are very few documents about his life but it is clear his work had considerable impact. He was born into a prosperous family, trained as a choirboy and educated at what is now Abingdon School. He was advanced in music by his early twenties when he published his first collection of madrigals. The influence of Thomas Morley’s work can be seen in Bennet’s compositions but current trends of English madrigals are also present. Many of his madrigals were written for festive occasions held at Court or in private residences of wealthy patrons in London which suggests connections in high places in society. "Eliza, her Name Gives Honour" was one of several madrigals written for Queen Elizabeth. Aside from madrigals his work includes religious songs for church choral performances.