Jazz critic Will Friedwald considers Beneke to be one of the major blues singers who sang with the big bands of the early 1940s.

His first professional work was with bandleader Ben Young in 1935, but when he joined the Glenn Miller Orchestra three years later, his career hit its stride.

On the August 1, 1939, recording made of the Joe Garland composition "In the Mood", Beneke trades two-measure tenor solo exchanges with his fellow section-mate Al Klink.

[6] Miller's 1941 recording of "A String of Pearls" (composed by the band's arranger, Jerry Gray) also has Beneke and Klink trading two-measure tenor solo phrases.

Beneke appears with Miller and his band in the films Sun Valley Serenade (1941) and Orchestra Wives (1942), both of which helped propel the singer/saxophonist to the top of the Metronome polls.

[7][8] In 1942, Glenn Miller's orchestra won the first gold record ever awarded for "Chattanooga Choo Choo"; the song was written by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon as part of the score for the 1941 Twentieth Century Fox movie Sun Valley Serenade, which was primarily made for the purpose of putting the Miller band in a motion picture.

[11] Hoping to repeat the success of "Chattanooga" the following year, songwriters Warren and Gordon composed "I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo" for the "Orchestra Wives" score.

That arrangement also featured Beneke both singing and soloing on the sax, the Modernaires and band vocalist Marion Hutton in a not-too-dissimilar fashion.

[18] The movie short "Tex Beneke and the Glenn Miller Band" was released by RKO pictures in 1947 with Lillian Lane, Artie Malvin, and the Crew Chiefs vocal group performing.

Beneke joined a number of other leaders such as Larry Clinton and Glen Gray in making new high fidelity recordings of their earlier hits, often featuring many of the original musicians.

Among the best-known is Christmas Serenade in the Glenn Miller Style (1965) on Columbia Records, which has been excerpted on a number of holiday compilations.

In 1991, Tex Beneke received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with funds collected by co-leader Gary Tole.

He settled in Costa Mesa, California, and remained active toward the end of that decade, mostly touring the U.S. West Coast and still playing in something resembling the Miller style.

In 2000, Beneke died from respiratory failure at a nursing home in Costa Mesa, California, aged 86, and was buried in Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas.