Benny Goodman was entitled to spend two weeks at a summer camp near Chicago. It was the only time he could get away from his bleak neighborhood. He also received two years of instruction from classically trained clarinetist Franz Schoepp. When he was 17, his father was killed by a passing car after stepping off a streetcar. His father's death was "the saddest thing that ever happened in our family", Goodman said. He attended Lewis Institute (Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1924 as a high-school sophomore and played clarinet in a dance hall band. His early influences were New Orleans jazz clarinetists
Benny Sims military, Benny played with The Morris Brothers, Wiley and Zeke, through which he met Earl Scruggs, a previous band mate of the brothers. Scruggs had recently formed a band with Lester Flatt, and when they found themselves in need of a fiddler in 1949, they invited Sims to join the group. After joining Flatt and Scruggs, Sims played on over 25 recordings in 1949 and 1950, including "Little Girl in Tennessee", "It's Too Late Now", "Salty Dog Blues", "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", "Pike County Breakdown" and "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms." Sims sung lead vocals on "Old Salty Dog Blues,"