STEVE JACK - LEAD GUITAR & LEAD VOCALS
Steve was born in 1950 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which means he’s a Geordie. The family then moved to Tynemouth, by the sea, where Steve spent his childhood – mostly in the sea, which explains his gills and webbed feet! The piano was Steve’s first instrument, which he played between the ages of 7 and 11, but the attraction of Buddy Holly, The Shadows and The Beatles proved too much, so Steve ditched the piano for the Guitar. While at secondary school, Steve’s best mate Mike Leeson raved about all the soul music coming across from America, so together they formed their first soul band, “The Arts Council”. Steve left school to study art and design at Wolverhampton and later
discovered that Mike had become a successful song writer, (two no.1 hits, “Would I Lie To You” – Charles and Eddie; and “For Your Eyes Only” – Sheena Easton, the James Bond movie theme). Steve is still waiting for his big break!. The next band was “Gasoline”, formed at art college with fellow
student Paul Gooderham. “Gasoline” played R&B covers with original songs thrown in for good measure. The band toured the Midlands area and supported such names as Argent, Caravan, Climax Blues Band and more. They are featured in the recent book, “JB’s. The Story of Dudley’s Legendary Live Music Venue”.
While on the road, “Gasoline” were spotted by Rosie Hardman, a well known folk singer/song
writer who invited the band to provide the backing music for her next album, “Jerseyburger”. This is now a rare piece of vinyl, fetching around £200 on the internet market. After leaving art college, Steve couldn’t find the
“perfect job”, so he enrolled on a teaching course for a year, after which he gained a position at a local school. In 1976 the school band the “Danglers” were born. The band was made up of three members of staff (including Steve) and selected pupils. Each successive year saw the “Danglers” take on a new personality which reflected a particular musical era and the end of year school concert became bigger and bigger. In 1977 the band were “The Sex Danglers”, (“Sex Pistols” – punk era). 1978 saw “The Greasy Danglers”, featuring the girl trio “The Danglettes”, (“Grease” the movie – rock and roll); 1979, “The Dangling Parkers”, featuring “The Lambettas”, (the Mod era) and finally in 1980, “The Led Danglers”, (“Led Zeppelin” - heavy rock). In fact “The Sex Danglers were so convincing that they played a “proper” gig at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. The set included the band’s signature self-written song, “I’m different, he’s different, she’s different, we’re different, but you’re the same!”
Meanwhile, back in the real world, “Gasoline” were slowly falling apart, but during a gig at Birmingham’s Barrel House Blues Club, Steve was spotted by two song writers – Frank Skarth and Ian “Dee” Martin. Frank owned a modest, but busy 4 track recording studio called FSR and Dee played keyboards. They wanted to form a band to interpret their songs and so in 1979 Steve and bass guitarist Paul Haines left “Gasoline” to become “Media” along with Dee on keyboards and Mick Potrac on drums. The original intention of the band was to be a “song factory” and produce a hit single. Paul left after a year and was replaced by Baz Ketley (later to become a founder member of “The Charlatans”) and second guitarist Tim Clapham; and so in 1980, “Media” went on the road as a powerful five piece Brit pop band.
However, Frank had bigger plans. He wanted to build a 24 track studio in the heart of Birmingham and invited Steve and Dee to become partners. In March 1982, “FSR 24 Track Recording Studios” was opened by the Mayor of Birmingham. It was one of the largest purpose built studios outside London. Steve took care of advertising and publicity,
while Frank recorded with assistance from Dee. Unfortunately, the workload meant that “Media” eventually had to take a back seat. Such names as Ruby Turner, Edwin Starr,
Sugar Minott, GBH, The Cure and Musical Youth came through the doors and the studio received a gold disc for Musical Youth’s No1 hit, “Pass The Dutchie”.
In 1984, Steve was approached by Paul Haines, who had now joined a theatrical hard rock band called “Cut Throat Jake” and so Steve eventually joined them. The band modelled themselves on the “Sensational Alex Harvey Band” and performed mostly their own music along with some rock covers.
“Cut Throat Jake” soon gained a massive local following and played across the Midlands and into Wales. Steve appeared on the cover of the local music magazine and the band became regular favourites at JB’s in Dudley. Frank produced and
recorded several of the band’s songs at FSR in the hopes of gaining a hit and Heavy Metal Records also showed an interest, but fame was not to be and by 1988 the band had split up. Disaster also struck the studio – a break in, a fire and the death of Frank Skarth, so a quiet time followed for Steve. He
eventually returned to doing what he always does in-between bands – performing solo in the surrounding folk clubs. Then in the mid 1990’s he teamed up with an old friend Jools Woodcock, a classically trained keyboard
player and as “evenumbers”, the duo performed at clubs and hotels, playing music from the 40’s up to the 90’s. Sadly Jools developed M.S. and was unable to perform in public after a couple of years.
Steve again returned to performing solo and then in 2001 he approached his former band mates Paul Haines and Paul Gooderham and “Remnants” formed – an electro-acoustic folk rock rhythm and blues band. With several changes of band members along the way, but with Steve and Paul Gooderham always being the main driving force, “Remnants” lasted until 2012. In that time, the band produced two commercial CDs of original music, featuring Jimmy Lea from “Slade” playing violin on one track. They have had air play on BBC Radio 6 Music and The Molineux football ground, and made live performances and interviews on local radio and radio Leicester.
After 2012, Steve returned yet again to solo work, singing a selection of his own songs and arrangements of other artists’ music. In addition to the serious stuff, he has also performed a “tongue in cheek” Country and Western set under the name of “Dusty Slim line Lemon and Lime Lanky Lewis Coltrane” – or “Dusty Loo” for short!
Then one day in October 2014 the phone rang! It was Bernard (Ace of Bass) Beddard from SWW Elite, asking if Steve would stand in for their guitarist. “And the rest”, as they say, “is history!”
