South Jersey rocker and radio host Ben Vaughn is playing a hometown show at World Cafe Live on Saturday
The record producer and Camden County renaissance man plays a hometown show in support of his album “The World of Ben Vaughn.”
Music historian and tastemaker Ben Vaughn can be heard on the Philadelphia airwaves every Saturday when his syndicated radio show, The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn, airs on WXPN-FM (88.5 ). The hour-long show comes on at 5 p.m., right before archived episodes of The Geator’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Rhythm & Blues Express, hosted by Vaughn’s mentor and friend, the late Jerry Blavat, with whom he recorded the special The Lost Dedications in 2021.
This Saturday, fans of the rocker and record producer can listen to him on the radio and then see and hear him in the flesh, a few hours later. The Mount Ephraim native, who broadcasts his radio show from “parts unknown” in the Mojave Desert, will play a hometown gig at the World Cafe Live with his longtime backup band, the Ben Vaughn Quintet.
Vaughn’s dry, droll sense of humor and wide-ranging songwriting chops are on display on his 2022 album, The World of Ben Vaughn. It includes such understated heartache songs as “You’re Gonna Wish Love Was Never Invented” and “Asking for a Friend.” He pines for home on “New Jersey Rock and Roll” and declares “Wayne Fontana Was Wrong,” in a typically Vaughnian reference to Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders 1965 song “Game of Love.”
The Saturday show pairs Vaughn with another South Jersey rocker who has gone on to radio glory. The opening act is Palmyra Delran & the Doppel Gang, fronted by the singer-guitarist and former front woman of the Friggs who was born Lisa Cortes and took her nom de rock from two towns in Burlington County. She’s a host on Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel on Sirius XM radio.
Ben Vaughn Quintet with Palmyra Delran & the Doppel Gang. $20, 8 p.m., April 15, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., worldcafelive.com.