Early Life and Education
Ferrone came from a musical family: "My grandmother played piano, my father was a dancer for the Sierra Leone folk dancing troupe, but my grandmother was really the one who encouraged me to do something in show business. She spotted my reaction to music early. She actually led me to start with the drums with girls. I saw some girls at a dance react to Manfred Mann’s band and decided that rock music was for me! I had figured out how to play the drums from appearing in a summer show…in England and watching the pit drummer every night. I took to the drums like a duck to water."
He opened for the not-yet-famous band The Who at Uncle Bunnie's Chinese Jazz Club, as part of a small local band in the early 1960s—Ferrone was just twelve years old at the time.
Ferrone was educated in France at the Conservatoire de musique de Nice and was heavily influenced by the Motown sound. He cites Jack DeJohnette as his favorite drummer, and also drew inspiration from Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts, Tony Meehan, Bernard Purdie, Grady Tate, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Art Blakey, John Bonham, Clyde Stubblefield, Al Jackson Jr., and Harvey Mason. He became very active in the music scene in Italy and France.
Read more about this topic: Steve Ferrone
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