User:Goldframejr/sandbox

Topic: This article is about musician Dante Fire

Background Information

Birth Name: Patrick Donerson

Born: April 30, 1964 (age 53) Genres: Jazz, Jazz fusion, Smooth Jazz, Hip Hop, Funk, R&B, Gospel.

Occupations: Musician, Composer, Producer, Teacher, Manager, CEO

Instruments: Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Trumpet

Years active: 1982-Present

Associated Acts, Rick James, Cross-Effect, Bossolo, Andy Waddell, Sabina Vargas, Zane Musa.

Website; www.dantefire.com

Bio: Dante Fire (born Patrick Donerson April 30, 1964) is an American multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer best known as a bass guitarist and drummer. Throughout his career he has invested in projects as a vocalist or rapper as well as contributed to a wide range of musical styles as a bassist or drummer. Stylistically, these projects range from the funk of Rick James to the contemporary religious crooning of A Special Blend, which was the forerunner to Take 6 featuring founders Mervyn Warren and Mark Kibble.

Life and career:

Early Life

Dante Fire was born in Los Angeles, CA April 30, 1964 and raised in a semi musical family that always had a piano around the house. Because of this his father Aaron Donerson used their home to allow a local band he managed to rehearse. During this period Dante became fascinated with drums and found himself banging out rhythms on pots, pans or empty containers not owning any drums of his own. By the age of 9 Dante began to study trumpet seriously. Never feeling satisfied he was given a guitar when he was 12 but found himself playing percussive basslines on it because it sounded more like the drums. The guitar was an attempt by his mother Verdell to calm his cravings for drums for fear they would be too loud to tolerate. Dante formed his first band and began crafting original compositions by the age of 13. His first song was a reference to some of his early funk influences. During high school at Crenshaw High in Los Angeles, and later Jordan High in Long Beach he began to venture into work as a studio musician playing drums and bass on many demo projects that included Barry Chenault who later when on to work with George Clinton and Parliament. By the time he was 19 he began producing and doing studio work with fellow students at Oakwood College now Oakwood University. He was frequently used on recordings from the now defunct Sound Cell Studios in Huntsville, Ala. During this period Dante met Mervyn Warren and Mark Kibble of Take 6 and they worked on a project known as A Special Blend which was a version of Take 6 but with instruments.

Career After two years of college he decided to venture in the music world full-time at which time he began touring the Southern Unites States as the drummer for the Oakwood College based seventh-day Adventist gospel group His Own. After a 6 week tour he entered an exploratory period of the mid-to-late 80s. Experimenting with virtually all styles of music on a local or regional level in the Los Angeles and Inland empire areas. In 1992 he gained slight notoriety in the hip-hop world by co-founding the group Words of Mouth with rapper Bossolo. During this time He often toured or opened for rappers like Ice-T DJ Quick, High C, Chub Rock and similar artists of the time. The group’s most notable work is the song “Insane” which was a description lyrically of inner city life during the Rodney King era.