A local piano-playing superstar may be the closest thing on the planet to an actual human jukebox.
Squeek Steele, an 87-year-old pianist and Virginia City resident, can play virtually song you’d like to hear. In 1988, she was cemented in the Guinness World Records for “Most Pieces of Music Performed From Memory,” and during her live shows, she mixes generations of music, going from classical to saloon standards, and country to contemporary.
She performs at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Virginia City nearly every summer weekend, and she’s set to perform on Wednesday, July 1, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral during Artown.
“This is my 23rd Artown, and probably my last,” Steele said during a recent phone interview.
Steele began developing her impeccable music memory as a child, and she’s been playing songs by ear throughout her whole career.
“I’m so old, when I went to college, you were not allowed to play anything but classical music or things leaning toward that,” Steele said. “But I play by ear as well as by notes, so a lot of things that I perform, I don’t use any music, because I can hear it in my head, and I just play it. … Say, I didn’t know ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ and you played it for me. It’s a very short song, so I’d be able to play it back in a minute. Mozart was able to apparently listen to something that would be two or three minutes long and play it back.”
This one-of-a-kind musical gift comes in “really handy” her during sets at the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
“Somebody will come up to me and say, ‘Do you know this?’ and give me a title, and I’ll say, ‘I probably haven’t played that for 35 years; can you sing some of it?’” she said. “And then they sing some of it, or they kind of hum, or maybe we look it up on the phone, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I can play that.’ … I do that a lot at the Bucket.”
Steele’s song memory ranges from pioneering piano pieces to relatively recent pop hits.
“I do old country-Western and old folk songs and old rock ’n’ roll, and probably ’80s, early ’90s would be the end of what I can do—but all the way back to Cristofori, the guy who invented the piano in the 1600s,” she said. “I know a lot of stuff that’s 200 years old, or the two Lady Gaga songs popular from A Star Is Born.”
Steele isn’t all about covers; she’s won awards for her original music, and has a long history of making up melodies.
“I did soundtracks for industrials and documentaries, and I actually got a National Park Service award for a score to a Grand Canyon hiking video—but the video itself didn’t survive the ’90s,” Steele said. “I improvised when I played for ballet, which I did for many years in Aspen (Colo.) for Ballet West out of Salt Lake, and then I played in Sun Valley (Idaho) for four years and New York City Ballet.”
One of the most entertaining things Steele does: Improvise a score to a silent film on the spot.
“I did that last year. ARTOWN was at Trinity (Episcopal Cathedral), and I did a silent movie as part of another program. I didn’t really want to do a formal program, so I did a 30-minute silent movie,” she said. “Usually, I try to do something in the style of the silent movies, in the era, but if there’s a fire, I’m likely to play the Doors ‘Light My Fire.’”
These days, Steele is generally able to perform however she pleases.
“I have pretty much free rein over most of the festivals I play in,” she said. “I’m a church organist, and I changed my major from piano to organ at Oberlin, and I played many years in various churches, but I just now do it as a sub. I love to play the organ, but I’m tired of all the other stuff that goes with it.”
While Steele expressed her affinity for old-school sounds, I was curious how she felt about synthesizers.
“Well, I’d rather not play them in the Bucket,” she said.
On the road, however, Steele appreciates the transportability and varied tones of synths and keyboards.
“I have a place in Álamos, Mexico, in the state of Sonora, and I often get gigs down there, and I just haul the keyboard,” Steele said. “A lot of the original soundtracks I wrote were a four-track or six-track, and I had to use synthesizers in it. I like synthesizers, because they provide a whole batch of sounds you haven’t heard. You hear pop music from the ’80s, and you can tell it’s the ’80s, because they’re using certain presets from synthesizers that are sort of out of vogue now. … You can often tell what era a piece is from by the synthesizer sounds they’re using. If I’m playing with a bass player and a drummer and a singer, they’re fine to use in the background—but I would not try to play Chopin on a synthesizer.”
Steele’s playing remains impressive at the age of 87.
“I have some exercises,” she said. “You play every day if you possibly can. Last week, I was in a place that had no pianos, but I can still do some exercises. I’m really lucky that I don’t have any arthritis in my hands. I’ve played my whole life; I’ve never not played. When I’m sitting at the Bucket, I’m often not even thinking what I am playing, and then I will think, ‘Oh, I think I’ll play blank next.’”
Steele continues to perform at a high level—but she said she’s likely given up her hobby of mountain-climbing.
“I climbed all 11 high points of the Lower 48 in my 60s,” she said. “I walked to the base camp of Everest before it was fashionable in 1980. There was no Lonely Planet; there was no guidebook of any kind for Nepal, but I had a friend I grew up with in Kentucky, and he was in the first American Peace Corps group to Nepal, so he was able to say, ‘Take your own cup; your own utensils.’ It was a 23-day trek to the base camp of Everest. At the time, Nepal had not opened that up for anybody. You had to be part of a group, or you had to be chosen, and you can’t really actually go into base camp. You climb another mountain next to it, or a big hill, and look down on it. It was 18 days to the base camp, and then five days back to an airstrip.”
Squeek Steele and guest vocalist Amanda Eddy will perform at 7 p.m., Wednesday, July 1, at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 200 Island Ave., in Reno. Tickets are $15, with discounts. For tickets and more information, visit artown.org. Learn more about Squeek Steele at goodoldsongs.com.