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 elsewhere, and toured with Olsen and Johnson. Although he wrote songs and attempted to sell them, he had little success until starting work at a music publishing firm, and forming a songwriting partnership in the mid-1930s with New York-born composer Sol Marcus (1912–1976). With Marcus, Eddie Durham and Eddie Seiler (1911–1952), he wrote "I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire", which was first recorded in 1941 by Harlan Leonard and his Kansas City Rockers, and then more successfully by The Ink Spots, whose version reached number 4 on the pop chart, and Horace Heidt, whose recording rose to number 1. The song won "Billboard"'s "Top Songwriter's Award" for 1941. Benjamin, Marcus and Seiler then wrote a second number 1 hit, "When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)", recorded by Vaughn Monroe and associated in Britain with Vera Lynn.