Artist

Jeffrey Daniel

Born:

24th August 1955

Artist Bio

Jeffrey Daniel

Dancer, Song writer, Chorographer, Singer . Born 24th August in Los Angeles, California in 1955, he is a founding member of the group Shalamar.

During his career he has taught, worked and ranked alongside musicians and dancers such as Shabba Doo, Geron Casper Candidate, Derek Cooley Jackson/Jaxson, Popin' Pete and The Electric Boogaloos. He first performed "the backslide", a physically complicated dance technique (originally performed by the dance group "The Lockers"), now known as the "moonwalk", on British television during a performance of Shalamar's "A Night to Remember" on Top of the Pops. The song was a hit in 1982, almost a year before Michael Jackson moonwalked on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever TV show. Michael was a big fan of Soul Train on which Jeffrey had been a back-up dancer. According to La Toya Jackson Michael was a fan of Jeffrey's dancing and sought him out. He soon met, hired and learned from Jeffrey.

Jeffrey gives great credit to the man that inspired him, the original dance 'Locker' Don Campbell, one of the earliest Soul Train dancers. He also gives thanks to Cleveland Moses Jr. his partner on Soul Train and to Tyrone Proctor who was the premier 'Waack' dancer who taught Jeffrey the style of dance known as 'Waacking'. It was on Soul Train whilst doing a routine dressed in black that Jeffrey, Geron 'Caszper' Candidate and Derek 'Cooley' Jackson first performed the moonwalk on U.S. television.

Jeffrey and his Soul Train dance partner Jody Watley, (whom he had known since she was twelve years old along with Howard Hewett, became Shalamar in the late 70's and scored a number of hits. He had become something of a style icon with his ever-changing hair styles and unique dress sense and was often seen on the London club scene with the likes of Bananarama, Wham and Culture Club.

In 1984, after seven years as a group, Shalamar performed at London's Wembley Arena and then went their separate ways. Soon after, Jeffrey took on the role of 'Electra' in Andrew Lloyd Webber's new West End musical Starlight Express which involved wild costumes with complex choreography on roller skates. Also that year he appeared in the Paul McCartney movie Give My Regards to Broad Street displaying his signature robotic or marionette-like dancing style (with McCartney, his wife Linda and members of the band Toto made up as marionettes) to the Wings hit, "Silly Love Songs". In 1985, he hosted 620 Soul Train, a British version of Soul Train produced with the blessing of Don Cornelius.

By 1987, Jeffrey was working with Michael Jackson and was hired as co-choreographer on the "Bad" and "Smooth Criminal" videos with primary choreographer Vincent Paterson in which he also starred with his "dance brothers" Geron "Caszper" Candidate and Derek "Cooley" Jackson. He was later employed as a creative and choreography consultant on Michael's world tours and the video Ghosts. His music and dance expertise was then employed when he became a consultant at the MJJ Productions record label to whom Brownstone, 3T and Men of Vizion were signed. Michael flew Jeffrey back to live in the US from Japan where he had taken up residence since leaving the UK.

Today, Jeffrey works and lives in Lagos, Abuja, London and Osaka, Japan. He is a fluent speaker and writer of the Japanese language with a fair grasp of Cantonese. He continues to perform, choreograph, produce and compose with some of the biggest names in show business. He has worked with Babyface, LL Cool J, Sheena Easton, The Go-Go's and Vanessa Williams. He joined Nigerian Idol as a judge in 2010 for three seasons and has been performing live shows with a reformed Shalamar since 2002 including Howard Hewett and Carolyn Griffey. They continue performing as a group all around the world.

On a personal note Jeffrey had a tumultuous relationship with former band-mate and dance partner Jody Watley.

In 1980 he married Stephanie Mills but they divorced in late 1983.

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