Bill Sharpe was born in Bishop's Stortford

Bishop's Stortford

Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the district of East Hertfordshire in the county of Hertfordshire in England. It is situated just west of the M11 motorway, on the county boundary with Essex and is the closest large town to London Stansted Airport and part of the...

 and educated at Bishop's Stortford College

Bishop's Stortford College

Bishop's Stortford College is a co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils from the ages of four to eighteen, with a campus located on the edge of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England...

. From there he studied music at Birmingham University where he gained an honours degree.

He worked for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 as a studio manager for six years and then in the early 1980s was a founding member of the group Shakatak

Shakatak

Shakatak are an English jazz-funk band, founded in 1980.-Career:Shakatak scored a number of chart entries, including two Top Ten hits in the UK Singles Chart, "Night Birds" and "Down on the Street" plus a further 12 entries in the Guinness book of British Hit Singles...

.
In the mid-1980s he recorded several hit records and albums with Gary Numan

Gary Numan

Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...

 under the name of Sharpe and Numan. His first solo album in 1985 included the hit song "Change your Mind".

In 1997 he recorded his second solo album State of the Heart in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 co-produced by Don Grusin

Don Grusin

Don Grusin , is an American songwriter, producer and keyboardist. He holds a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Colorado and for a period of his life taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico as well as at Foothill College, California before deciding to enter the music...

. This featured many artists including Jeffrey Osborne

Jeffrey Osborne

Jeffrey Linton Osborne is an American funk and R&B musician, songwriter, lyricist, and former lead singer of the band, L.T.D.-Early life and career:...

 and Gerald Albright

Gerald Albright

Gerald Albright is an American jazz saxophonist.Albright has sold over 1,000,000 albums in the U.S. alone. His self-produced music features him on bass guitar, keyboards, flutes, drum programming, and background vocals.- Biography :...

. He continued to work with Don Grusin on a joint project called Geography released in 2007. A second collaboration is under way and will be released in the near future. Sharpe continues to tour and record with Shakatak.