Gene Steede’s 50-year career in show business earned him the nickname ‘Mr. Entertainment’ in Bermuda, while overseas he was dubbed ‘Bermuda’s Natural Resource’.
A superb all-round entertainer, Steede sang, danced, played guitar, told jokes, produced shows— and often performed all those tasks in one evening. His musical repertoire was varied—he could sing and play rock, gospel, pop, country and, of course, calypso.
Apart from vocal lessons with Bermudian teacher, Joseph Richards, Steede was largely self-taught. He picked up a guitar for the first time when he had difficulty finding a guitarist to support the show he did with his first wife, Pinky. He learned comedy by watching his comedy heroes—including Redd Foxx and Nipsey Russell—and learned to play congas after working with Bermuda’s Freeman “King” Trott.
Steede was born in Somerset to David, a trombone player with the Salvation Army band, and Wilhelmina, who sang in church choirs. The family were moved from their home to make way for the building of the United States Naval base, spending some time at Wreck Hill, Sandys before eventually moving to Pembroke. Steede attended Central School (now Victor Scott) and, living near the Band Room, he and his friends used to sit outside while the British military bands at Prospect practised.
“I really think I got my love of music listening to those people a couple of times a week,” said Steede, whose older brother, Dudley, was a cornet player who loved military music. “Mark Williams was the bandleader, and those bands were really popular at the time.”
Steede, who later sang with neighbourhood doo-wop groups The Starlites, The Glaciers and The Coraliers, recalled the era fondly. “We sang so we could meet girls, and everyone invited us to their parties and then asked us to sing,” he said. “It was all ‘50s stuff, a magnificent time of life.”
Steede’s five brothers and three sisters all sang—but it was older brother, Calvin, who inspired him to pursue a career in music. Calvin sang with The Charlettes before he and his wife launched an enormously popular nightclub act as ‘Cal and Mel’. “They had the most popular nightclub act in Bermuda, and they inspired me to team up with my wife, too,” Steede said.
Gene and Pinky Steede—they met while in the same class at The Berkeley Institute—got their first big break in the late-1950s when they successfully auditioned for Don Gibson’s legendary Gulf Stream Revue (later called the Holiday Island Revue), a showcase for young Bermudian entertainers held in the Island’s top hotels.
The duo developed an act that became one of the highlights of the renowned show—a favourite of tourists and local residents alike—and they soon developed a following. An article in Bermuda Pictorial in1961 praised the young entertainers: “Now the baby-faced couple are the whiz kids of the island’s music business and the biggest tourist-pleasers since The Talbot Brothers.”
In 1963, the couple recorded their first album entitled Step Thru a Moongate. The title song, known as the “Moongate Song”, which made Bermuda known the world over, was written for them by a Broadway composer.
A Canadian tourist saw their show and booked Gene and Pinky for a gig in Oshawa, Ontario. That performance was the start of an overseas career that saw them performing throughout Canada and the United States.
The couple moved to New York, where Bermudian radio personality, “Aunty” Nell Bassett, working in Manhattan, helped arrange an audition for them in a recording studio. “We walked in on Paul Anka, who wrote ‘My Way’,” Steede recalled.
They became regular performers in the vacation resorts of the Catskill Mountains in upper New York State, a legendary breeding ground for entertainers. Gene was offered work in New York, but not Pinky, and she returned to Bermuda. The couple eventually divorced but each went on to achieve success internationally as solo artists.
Steede attracted the attention of television talent bookers and went on to perform with Steve DePass, known as ‘America’s Singing Poet’, and also as a solo act. He appeared before millions of viewers on network television in the United States, including The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show with host Steve Allen, The Joey Bishop Show, The Today Show with host Hugh Downs, and on a charity fundraising show hosted by Melba Moore at the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York. It was there that an announcer referred to him as ‘Bermuda’s Natural Resource’.
Steede appeared with a variety of major show business stars, opening a show at Boston College for comedian Bob Hope, and touring the United States and Canada with flamboyant pianist Liberace. He also worked on cruise ships, traveling to Alaska, Portugal, Spain, Hong Kong, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean—and more. He also appeared in Las Vegas—where he met Elvis Presley—at New York’s Town Hall, and in Atlantic City.
Later in his career, he appeared at the Mellon Hall in Washington, D.C. for U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, and represented Bermuda at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. in 2001.
Having missed his children while performing overseas, Steede returned to Bermuda during the mid-1970s, and was soon headlining The Gene Steede Show at the Hamilton Princess Hotel. He became a fixture on the Island’s entertainment scene, playing and singing with Bermuda’s top musicians at the Island’s major hotels, and acting as a mentor to younger entertainers.
Although opportunities for local musicians waned with the decline of the tourism industry, Steede was one of the last men standing. As recently as the early 1990s, he put together the Tropical Heatwave Revue, a nightly two-hour show in the Gazebo Lounge of The Princess Hotel featuring an all Bermuda cast and crew. It was the first time in nearly 30 years that an entirely Bermudian show was featured in one of the Island’s major hotels. The showstopper was Steede’s performance of The Music of the Night, a love song from The Phantom of The Opera.
He was also a popular figure on local television, including the annual Christmas show that he produced with Jean Howes—The Jean and Gene Show, featuring an all-Bermudian cast—and created and sang commercials for a variety of Bermuda businesses.
Steede was a tireless promoter of Bermuda and supported many charitable causes on a pro bono basis.
Among his many honours and awards are the Humanitarian Service Award from the Physical Abuse Centre, 1994; Certificate of Excellence from the Visitor Industry Partnership, 1999; Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Tourism through Music, 1999; Award for The Performing Arts, 1999; Excellence in Entertainment Award at Adlev Entertainment Awards, 2001; and a ‘Certificate of Achievement’ for outstanding achievement and contributions to the performing arts in Bermuda in 2006 from the Government of Bermuda, given at the Premier’s Command Performance. He was also named a Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation, an award named after the international service organisation’s founder.
He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bermuda Arts Council in 2005 and was inducted into Bermuda’s Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
Steede has a lifetime of wonderful memories from his career in music, but it’s simply being recognised as a top performer that he cherishes most. “I was in a club once—I think it was The Playboy Club in New York City—and I was sitting at a table with Steve DePass and the late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, who was a huge star,” he said.
“The MC of the show had just come back from Bermuda, where he had seen me perform, and he announced that I was in the club, and asked me to come up and sing a song. I got a standing ovation. It was just nice to feel appreciated by people, to have people make a fuss. So many nice things happened to me over the years.”
Steede, who has four children, lives with second wife, Barbara—they celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in 2011.
