Benji Hughes (Photo courtesy Frisbee)

Benji Hughes, who has licensed volumes of songs for commercials, has been described as “the best songwriter you’ve never heard of.” Hughes just announced that he has signed with Durham-base Merge Records after years of shepherding his own material to market  a one-man Brill Building, in December alone he released three albums).

He’s worked with T Bone Burnett and Meshell Ndegeocello, and Jeff Bridges has publicly declared himself a fan (featuring Hughes in a pirouetting cameo in the video for “What a Little Bit of Love Can Do”).  Having amassed quite an extensive catalog, the StarNewsOnline.com helpfully offers an “Essential Benji Hughes” for novice fans.

He’s contributed music to campaigns for Acura, Verizon, and GE. It’s not uncommon for him to be called in as a “fixer.” In a lengthy profile in New York Magazine, writer Jody Rosen describes how “he helped rewrite the lyrics of ‘Ride Wit Me,’ the 2001 hit by the ­rapper Nelly, for a Honey Nut Cheerios spot” and goes into scintillating detail as to how he cleaned-up a lewd tune turned in by a rapper on assignment for Captain Morgan Rum, turning it into one of his biggest successes (“Hughes himself can be heard bellowing the jingle’s catchphrase over pumped-up power chords: ‘Got a little Captain in you!'”)

Own a little piece of Benji at his BigCartel.com shop.