SHAKATAK
Vocals / Keyboards / Bass / Drums / Guitar / Saxophone
Founded in 1980 by Jill Saward (lead vocs), Bill Sharpe (keys), Keith Winter (guitar), George Anderson (bass) and Roger Odell (drums), the UK Pop-, Jazz- and Funkband Shakatak have enjoyed a level of success and career longevity rarely paralleled in contemporary music. After a number of successful top-twenty singles in the UK, the band went on to score unprecedented international success with the release of “Nightbirds”. The title track has now become a standard in the popular music repertoire. This success was repeated with the top-ten hit “Down on the Street”. Along with their recording career, Shakatak had firmly established themselves as a vibrant live act, combining astute musicianship with a sense of fun that communicated strongly with world-wide audiences. Their performance in Japan’s Budoken Hall won them a Silver Award at the Tokyo International Song Festival. Other live concerts of note have been the East meets the West Border Concert at the time of German re-unificationin 1989 and the open air concert in Cape Town for the Millennium Celebrations 2000 where they played in front of 250,000 people. The long run of continuous success was brought to a halt when guitarist Keith Winter became seriously ill and was forced to stop playing. Eventually the band re-organised and the remaining four members now augment their live shows with Jacqui Hicks (backing vocs, sax & flute) or Debby Bracknell (backing vocs & flute) and Alan Wormald (guitar & backing vocs).
Listen to Shakatak on YouTube.de: