Art Steele’s very first guitar was a Montgomery Ward Jumbo Western flat Top Acoustic that came into his possession when he was 12 years old. “I decided that I wanted it to be an electric so I went to the music store and put a pick-up on layaway,” he remembered. “The pick-up cost $32.50 and it took me an entire summer to pay for it.”
That guitar was the first step in Art Steele’s musical evolution. For a quarter of a century, the blues
guitarist has been a staple on the New England scene. The Sunderland, Mass resident is truly a renaissance man splitting his time between working as a musician, and moonlighting as an author, designer, and businessman.
Along with an overloaded touring schedule with The Art Steele Blues Band, he owns and operates his own sound company, delves into speaker design, and tours as the sound engineer and technical director for the legendary Sweet Honey in the Rock. Steele has had a working relationship with the group sincel978 and last June embarked on an overseas tow to such exotic lands as China, Copenhagen, and Singapore. Steele has also contributed a chapter to the group’s just released biography ` We Who Believe In Freedom.”