David Steele (musician)

David "Shuffle" Steele (born 8 September 1960,^[1] Cowes, Isle of Wight^[2]) is an English musician who was a member of The Beat and Fine Young Cannibals.

Career

From 1978 to 1983, Steele was the bass guitarist in the 2 Tone ska revival band, The Beat, (known in the United States as The English Beat). After Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling left The Beat to form General Public, Steele and guitarist Andy Cox recruited singer Roland Gift to form Fine Young Cannibals, whose career lasted into the early 1990s. In 1988, while FYC were on hiatus, Cox and Steele released the instrumental house music single, "Tired of Getting Pushed Around", under the name of Two Men,A Drum Machine And A Trumpet. It reached # 18 in the UK Singles Chart.

Steele's bass lines in The Beat, took the Jamaican style of ska and added a harder, punk rock-influenced style. The Beat song, "Mirror in the Bathroom", is largely built on top of the driving, eighth-note bass line that runs through the entire song. Fine Young Cannibals had a more soulful, and sometimes electronic sound, and Steele's bass lines were less prominent in the outfit.

After the end of his work with Fine Young Cannibals, Steele went on to play a variety of other roles in the music industry. He produced Gabrielle's album Find Your Way, which reached # 8 in the UK Albums Chart in 1993, as well as the soundtrack to the movie The Truth About Cats & Dogs in 1996. He has appeared on more than two dozen other albums, most commonly as a backing vocalist, but also as a guitarist, drummer and mixer.

In summer 2004, he released the album Fried, on which he collaborated with the New Orleans vocalist, Jonte Short. The album is a mix of soul, funk, and R&B. Fried signed to SonyBMG and their second album, Things Change, was released in 2007.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB), erroneously lists Steele as an actor in a number of 1990s and 2000s pornographic films. However, IMDB has undoubtedly confused the UK musician, who is white, with a black pornographic film actor of the same name !

Steele spent some time living in the French Quarter of New Orleans, but now resides in London.

See also

• List of bass guitarists

References

This article uses material from the article David Steele (musician) from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.