Ben James Peters (born Greenville, Mississippi, June 20, 1933; died Nashville, Tennessee, May 25, 2005) was an American country music songwriter who wrote many #1 songs. Charley Pride recorded 68 of his songs and 6 of them went to #1 on the American country charts. Peters was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980. Peters was briefly a recording artist himself; his only charting hit was his own composition "San Francisco is a Lonely Town", which hit #46 on the country charts in 1969.