Benjamin L. Shook
{{Short description|Musician}}
Benjamin Lothair Shook was a bandleader, singer, and composer. He and his band along with the bands of Theodore Finney and Fred S. Stone "monopolized" Detroit's "entertainment and social world to the almost complete exclusion of white performers.. up into the 1920s."{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038852/|title=Benjamin Shook|website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}
He was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Benjamin M. Shook was his father. His family moved to Cleveland and he was part of the Young Star Quartette there.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kPJZTJtz1IwC&dq=benjamin+l.+shook&pg=PA265|title=Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895|first1=Lynn|last1=Abbott|first2=Doug|last2=Seroff|date=September 18, 2009|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|isbn=978-1-60473-039-5 |via=Google Books}}
He attended Fisk University. The school's catalogue listed him as from Cleveland.{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bK5GAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22benjamin+lothair+shook%22&pg=RA3-PA20|title=Catalogue of the ...|first=Fisk|last=University|date=March 3, 1893|publisher=The University|via=Google Books}}
He was a bandleader in Detroit. He succeeded Thomas J. Finney as bandleader of the Finney Quartette. Later in his career he managed and performed with touring bands and owned a theater.
A song he wrote was in In Dahomey.