Harvey Shield

Harvey Shield (born Harvey Schildkraut, 6 September 1946) is an English musician, songwriter and film actor. He was born in Twickenham, London, England, and grew up in Wembley.

He was a drummer in the Cadet Pipe Band at Harrow County School, where he met Roger Glover. They formed a beat group, the Madisons, in which Harvey played drums and sang. In 1963 the Madisons merged with another school group, the Lightnings, and in 1964 the group became known as Episode Six. Ian Gillan joined the group as lead singer following a residency at the Acadia Club in Frankfurt, Germany in April,1965. While with Episode Six, Shield recorded six singles for Pye Records, appeared on Ready Steady Go!, and toured with Alan Price and Dusty Springfield. In 1966, Episode Six performed at the Casino du Liban in Beirut, Lebanon where he met Greek dancer and singer, Natasha Koumianou. In September 1967, he left the band to pursue a career with her. Later, Glover and Gillan left the band to join Deep Purple.

Koumianou and Shield's cabaret career began in Paris where they recorded a single for Disques Vogue. They toured throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa until 1974 and performed aboard the ill-fated cruise ship, Achille Lauro.

In 1975, Shield moved to Los Angeles, California where he wrote and recorded the song "The Way I Feel Tonight". In 1976, he was signed as a recording artist by Atlantic Records and the song was released on the Atco Records label, credited to Shields, in 1977. Although the recording failed to make an impact commercially, the song went on to become a worldwide hit for the Scottish group, The Bay City Rollers in 1978.

In 1985, his musical Hamelin: A Musical Tale from Rats to Riches written with Richard Jarboe, was produced off-Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York following initial productions at the Olio, Los Angeles and Musical Theater Works, New York.

In 1986, he formed The Mighty Echoes, an a cappella doo wop quartet, which recorded five albums and continues to perform. They have been seen on stage, film and television in shows such as Who's The Boss?, Murphy Brown, Family Matters, 'The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

As a movie actor he serenaded Debra Winger in Wilder Napalm (1993), negotiated with Pamela Anderson in Barb Wire (1996), and played a coke-snorting Brit in Crazy Eyes (2012).

In 2015, he was cast as the rock drummer, Keith Edwards, in the Disney TV series I Didn't Do It.

Sources

• Frame, Pete (1979) Rock Family Trees. Music Sales Corporation, ISBN 0-8256-3950-6
• Warner, Jay (2006) American Singing Groups: A History from 1940 to Today. Hal Leonard Corporation, pp. 557–558. ISBN 0-634-09978-7.
• "The Mighty Echoes - Album Discography - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
• "Movies". Movies.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
• "Harvey Shield". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2 July 2018.
• Willis, John; Monush, Barry (2 July 1998). "Screen World 1997". Hal Leonard Corporation. Retrieved 2 July 2018 – via Google Books.