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Walnut Hills senior plays boogie woogie music for a new generation

173 views · Published 25 May 2018 · 3:08 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: LOCAL 12 · 2018 · News & Politics

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CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Boogie woogie is a style of music that gained popularity in the 1920s and tends to attract an older crowd. An 18-year-old Tri-State high school student is trying to change that.

It started as piano lessons for Ben Levin at 8-years-old. That turned into a part time job playing boogie woogie in Tri-State bars before he can even drink.

Levin will graduate next week from high school and will attend U.C. in the fall.

But before that, he has a few more stages to hit. "I have the opportunity to play in Europe, France last summer. I'm heading back this summer to play in the Netherlands and the U.K. I'm very lucky."

Levin isn't your typical teenager. "People always call me an old soul. I sort of gravitated towards it. It's the feeling in the music that I love."

One of his many goals with his part-time job is to bring a different type of crowd to the 1920s inspired music. "It would be nice to draw a younger crowd to keep it going."

Levin is still working on his long term music goals. "I don't think that far ahead. I sort of take it once step at a time. The next step is keep writing music playing and releasing another CD."

"There is no stopping him." Aron Levin says he's more of a best friend to his son.

He's also a marketing professor at Northern Kentucky University who handles his sons part time career. "Teaching him you've got to be on social media, timing things just right, have specific audience you target. So, I'm trying to teach him those things so I'll hand that stuff off to him."

Levin says the fame and fortune isn't all that important, he just wants him to be happy doing what he loves.

When asked what he wants to be doing in ten years, Ben said, "I have no idea. Still playing, no matter what."

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