MichaelO'Hara
Pianist, singer, and hit songwriter Michael O'Hara — The Sheik — fronted a New Orleans rock band in the '80s, wrote #1 hits for Anita Baker, and came out of retirement to play the city again.
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Pianist, singer, and hit songwriter Michael O'Hara — The Sheik — fronted a New Orleans rock band in the '80s, wrote #1 hits for Anita Baker, and came out of retirement to play the city again.
Biography
Michael O'Hara — The Sheik, after a Rudolph Valentino-inspired look — moved to New Orleans in 1979 fronting the rock band The Sheiks, who played Jimmy's on Willow, Ole Man Rivers, the Riverboat President, the Saenger opening for The Kinks, and the 1984 World's Fair. A son of a Baptist minister from St. Louis, he'd started playing music at six in his father's church.
As a staff writer for Warner Bros. and MCA he became a four-time Grammy nominee with two American Music Award nominations and two BMI Awards, writing for Anita Baker (two #1 hits), Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, and Donna Summer; his “Feels So Good” was used in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. After years away from show business as an ordained minister in Texas, he came out of retirement with a sold-out 2014 solo show at The Willow and now plays intimate piano-and-voice settings around New Orleans.
Sources
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