Name	Alexander Oneal
Height
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	November 14, 1953
Place of Birth	Natchez, Mississippi, United States
Famous for

With a smooth velvety, crystal clear enunciation, soul sound, his voice lends itself to any candlelit dinner or romantic venue as well as to the up tempo beat required for dance-pop and modern urban ballads, but although a citizen of the USA his fame has been primarily in the UK and Europe.

Born in Natchez, Mississippi on November 14th 1953 Alexander ONeal’s early musical years were influenced by his mother singing in a gospel choir along with other members of his family. Too shy to join the choir himself, ONeal sang around the house while listening to the radio but found his early introduction to music came mainly from Gospel.Coming from the Deep South his musical interests where later influenced by such greats as Nat King Cole, Otis Redding and James Brown.

Although ONeal was deeply interested in music his main love in his early years was football. After graduating from school ONeal moved to Chicago where he supported himself by working in a factory. In 1974 his cousin invited him to live with him in Minneapolis where he worked as a petrol pump attendant and this was when he began to take music seriously but joining local bands and practicing his craft. These early years saw Alexander moving around from city to city and singing with little know bands such as The Mystics, Black Market Band and Wynd Chymes, a band he left in 1977, just before they were singed with RCA records.

It was his decision to join the band “Flyte Tyme’, who later changed their name to The Time, that saw him gaining recognition when they became the backing band for Prince, who helped the group on their way to signing a contract with Warner Brothers. Almost instantly Alexander was dropped from the band amidst rumours of his drug abuse and disputes with Prince and at this point he established his own group called ‘Alexander’.

The years passed by and Alexander carried on moving around and signing with various record labels. For a while he was with Motown but they failed to release any of his music. With nothing resulting from his years of persistence in the music world Alexander disappeared from the music scene and concentrated on spending time with his six children.With his ceaseless ability and talent it wasn’t long before ONeal returned to the studio and took his chances once again by releasing his album simply called ‘Alexander ONeal’.

During the 1980’s Alexander, along with Luther Vandross, was the face of male soul putting together his own band and developing his distinctive vocal sound. His brand of music was frequently produced by Jimmy and Terry Lewis with whom had teamed up with in the early days of Time. Excepting the work they had done throughout the career of Janet Jackson, sister of Michael Jackson, Jam & Lewis' best production work has been with this man. However, the team of O'Neal with Jam and Lewis only made one more album together "All True Man", before the alliance fell apart, reportedly again due to Alexander's drug problem.

While signed to the label Tabu he generated his first UK top ten hit ‘Saturday Love’ followed by ‘A Broken Heart Can Mend’ and If You Were Here Tonight’ all three of which featured on his live album in 1984.In 1987 ONeal released his second studio album, ‘Hearsay’ which featured major club hits such as ‘Fake’ and ‘Criticize’. The album sold over 700,000 copies in the UK alone. This period saw Alexander embark on several sell out UK tours including six sell out nights at Wembly. These performances were highly memorable due to his on stage antics with an over sized bed and invited female members of the audience! It created scenes and reactions which were later employed by Madonna on her ‘Blonde Ambition’ tour.

With a continuing fan base in the UK ONeal went on to release his album ‘All True Men’ which lead to another gold album when it sold over 400,000 copies in Europe. This was followed in 1992 with his ‘Greatest Hits’ album which went platinum the UK.1996 was the year ONeal released his album, ‘Lovers Again’ which was his first without a signing to the Tabu label. After that release it was another five years before Alexander released another album, ‘Saga of a Married Man’, this time he was produced by Prince’s former drummer Bobby Z.
2004 saw a release of another greatest hits package and this one went Gold in the UK within three months of its release. "Live at the Hammersmith Apollo" was released in 2005 and is the first live album O'Neal himself has produced.

2007 also saw him embark on a UK tour in which he performed at over 20 venues from March till the end of April.

With summer dates and another album in 2007, another busy year was about to develop in the career of the soul master, Alexander O'Neal.Alexander shares his time between the USA and the UK accompanied by his third wife Cynthia.