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LET'S GO: A BIOGRAPHY OF THE CARS' BENJAMIN ORR·TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2018

Co-founder, co-lead singer, and bassist of the popular rock band The Cars, Ben Orr possessed an incredible voice and rare stage presence, balanced by a magnetic yet enigmatic personality and striking good looks. He passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2000, yet to this day remains adored by legions of Cars and rock/pop/new wave music fans around the world.

There is an interesting aspect about Ben Orr’s early life that many Cars and music fans do not realize. Prior to becoming a world-famous rock star with The Cars, Orr was, from the age of sixteen, a local star in Cleveland as a house-band musician for the nationally syndicated television music show Upbeat. A few years later, and after having been drafted during Vietnam, Ben met his musical partner and future Cars' bandleader, Richard Otcasek (aka Ric Ocasek), and the duo began their long journey to fame, logging many miles and locations in search of success.

Ultimately landing in Boston, Ben and Ric's quest for the perfect blend of songs, bandmates, and musical landscape finally materialized in 1976 as The Cars. Within a year after coming together they landed a record deal, and over the next decade-plus, released six consecutive platinum-selling albums, which produced fifteen “Top 40” singles. To date, The Cars have sold over 30 million albums worldwide.

Orr passed away much too young at 53, but he enjoyed a cool rock-and-roll life, full of loyal friends, adoring fans, and many music adventures. This is not a backstage, kiss-and-tell book of a deceased rock star. It is the story of a musician with a sense of adventure, a vision, and unwavering perseverance. Orr achieved stardom through hard work and determination, a long road that began in his hometown of Cleveland and will now culminate with The Cars being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in April 2018.

The research, interviewing, and writing of this book spans a decade. It contains interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, bandmates, and music associates who were present throughout Orr's entire life, as well as many images that were previously unpublished and never-before-seen by the general public.
Joe Milliken is a freelance writer, music journalist, editor, and website publisher with more than 20 years of experience. He started out as a reporter in southern Vermont and New Hampshire before becoming a Sports/Arts & Entertainment Editor, and then moved into writing for newspapers and magazines on a variety of subjects. In 2014, he launched Standing Room Only, a website dedicated to promoting music, the arts, and specialty food on both a local (Boston and New England) and national level. The Benjamin Orr biography is his first book.

Ben Orr author says late Cars bassist 'never forgot' his NE Ohio roots

Updated 7:08 AM; Posted 7:01 AM

By Marc Bona

CLEVELAND, Ohio - At the root of his success, his tours, recordings, travels and time living out East, Ben Orr was a guy who never, ever forgot where he came from: Cleveland.

He knew his roots, and they were what made him who he is, said Joe Milliken, whose biography on The Cars' late bassist is due this fall.

"Ben loved his heritage and never forgot where he came from," Milliken said from his Vermont home. "He was a very private man and it was hard to get close to him, but once you did he was a friend for life and he would do anything for you."

Milliken will be in town for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony Saturday, April 14, when The Cars will be enshrined along with Bon Jovi, Dire Straits, The Moody Blues, Nina Simone and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

When The Cars were playing Cleveland, Orr would "call up his buddies and get them backstage passes and limo rides. He would fly his friends to Boston (where he lived) and wouldn't let them spend a dime. He was incredibly generous to his friends."

Milliken added: "I think he would have loved the fact I talk so much about Cleveland" in the book.

Orr was born Ben Orzechowski in Lakewood and went to Valley Forge High School in Parma. Milliken interviewed Orr's school mates, everyone in The Grasshoppers and almost everyone in The Mixed Emotions, his early bands. He also talked with Don Webster, host of the WEWS "Upbeat" show in Cleveland.

The idea for the book isn't rooted in lifelong obsession. Years ago a Cars and Orr fan approached Milliken, who publishes a music and arts blog called Standing Room Only.

The fan saw Milliken's profile online and noticed parallels to the bassist. Milliken was from Boston, Orr lived there and it was where the Cars were launched. Milliken, 52, was a fan of the band, the group's debut album coming out when he was in his teens. And he lived less than an hour from Orr's home in the later years of the musician's life.

"She saw all these things and thought I would be a candidate (to write a biography). 'Hey you love The Cars, you're a writer, I'm not a writer'," she told him.

He let the idea ferment, but the more he learned about Orr, about Cleveland, and how he was a childhood star with The Grasshoppers, the more the idea took root for what would become Milliken's first book. In late March, Milliken signed the book deal with Maryland-based Rowman & Littlefield. The title has not been finalized.

"It's not a Cars book," he said. "Obviously they are prominent throughout the thing, but it's a bio of Ben Orr's life."

With Orr being gone for almost 20 years - he died at age 53 on Oct. 3, 2000, from pancreatic cancer - Milliken conducted more than 100 interviews.

"I had to rely on interviewing everyone else, people who knew him, and have them be his voice," he said.

"Everybody I talked to gave me someone else I could talk to," Milliken said. "It went on and on. I could have done interviews until I die, and I still wouldn't have talked to everyone. I could have talked to people forever."

Frontman Ric Ocasek and Orr "had a complicated relationship. But by the end of the band, it had become a dictatorship. He (Ocasek) kind of took over everything in the band. Although Ric sent out the press release announcing the breakup, Ben had had enough."

They didn't talk for 10 years, the author said, but reconciled right before Orr's death.

But it was Orr's roots to Northeast Ohio that drew in Milliken.

"I really wanted to talk a lot about his Cleveland heritage," he said. "That was what hooked me. Not just in The Cars but all this stuff he did in his early life."

After years of research, what remains with Milliken was "how big he was (locally)," he said, "and how beloved he is now."