Singer and entertainer Pinky Steede is convinced she loved singing from the
moment she was born in Bermuda. All through her childhood she sang in church
and by the time she was twelve, sang with a group called The Five Wonders. In
1959 she came to the notice of Don and Elspeth Gibson who hired her to star with
her then husband, Gene Steede, in their The Holiday Island Revue. “The Gibsons
were a class act,” Pinky says, “and I was happy to sit at their feet and start
learning what was to become my future career.”
Throughout the 1960s Pinky and Gene performed in all of Bermuda’s hotels but
the Revue also took them to New York where they performed on the Hugh
Downs’ TV Show and in a major commercial filmed at the Rockefeller Centre’s ice
rink. One memorable moment was singing with Sammy Khan. As Gene and Pinky
Steede, they performed in the Bahamas, the US and Canada and also recorded
several albums, including “Step Through A Moongate with Gene and Pinky” and
“You’re Gonna Hear from Us”. The couple separated and Pinky went to New York
for voice training before joining the cast of Bubbling Brown Sugar, a hit musical in
London’s West End. The show had an important effect on her development as a
singer because of the strict discipline imposed on the cast. Memorable moments
in London include her meeting her current husband, Mike Wall, who was in the
audience while she was performing, and entertaining Prince Charles in a Royal
Command performance. In 1980 she took the lead role in the touring production
of Guys and Dolls in Hong Kong. Hong Kong became her base for the next 16
years. She sang in nightclubs, including the Pink Giraffe Night Club on the top
floor of the Sheraton Hotel. Originally hired for two weeks, she stayed for months.
Ned Kelly’s Last Stand night club was one of her favourites since as she says, “it
always reminded me of a speakeasy joint, including the straw on the floor.” One
favourite memory is singing with the Hong Kong Philharmonic at the opening of
the six‐star Regent Hotel.
But while living in Hong Kong, her powerful voice and bubbling personality
enabled her to tour most of the world as a cabaret singer and entertainer. “I like
to think I’m a poor man’s Ella Fitzgerald,” she says. Part of her travels involved
the challenge of conducting a three month tour of Holiday Inns in South Africa
during its era of apartheid. It was an offer of three months’ work entertaining in
large casinos that took her to Portugal. “It was wonderful,” she remembers. “I fell
in love with the country. When I got back to Hong Kong, I told Mike that one day
we should think about making Portugal our home.”
They did more than think about it. Today, they live in a small village called
Paderne, nestling in the hills 14k north of Albufeira on the Algarve. When they
first moved to Portugual, Pinky wanted to continue working and so did seasons at
the casinos in Vilamoura, Monte Gordo, Figueira da Foz and also Espinho. Over
the years she has sung at many more hotels, including the Montechoro Hotel,
Meridien, Hotel Porto, Holiday Inn and Hotel Oura Praia.
She was also invited by the Chinese Government, to be a part of a company
touring their major cities, an experience she says she will never forget.
A Bermudian, Pinky has regularly returned to the island to perform. For example,
in 2000 she was a headline artist in the Millennium Celebration Show in Dockyard.
She was invited to perform in her first Bermuda Jazz Festival, since which she has
performed with such great performers as Aretha Franklin, Patty La Belle, Seal and
Joss Stone, with whom she shared the Bill. In 2008 she was invited to Strasbourg
by the Bermuda Government to perform for the Bermuda Board of Tourism.
Just last year she sang at the Fairmont Southampton at a fundraiser for P.A.L.S.
Tonight’s award is not her first: In 2009 she was happy to receive official
recognition from her own country when she was inducted into Bermuda’s Music
Hall of Fame.
These days Pinky continues to sing, mostly undertaking gigs for charity, which she
greatly enjoys. She has also completed her memoirs, Hi, My Name is Pinky, which
is due to be published in the New Year.
A favourite song, she feels, sums up her life and career:
I’ve been so many places in my life and time
I’ve sung a lot of songs, I’ve done some bad rhymes,
I’ve acted out my life on stages
With ten thousand people watching,
But we are all alone now
And I’m singing this song for you.
