Bryan Adams

Bryan Guy Adams, OC ^{Order of Canada} , OBC ^{Order of British Columbia} (born November 5, 1959) is a Canadian ^Canada rock ^{Rock music} singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer ^{Record producer} , and photographer.

Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 18 Juno Awards among 56 nominations, including wins for Best Male Artist ^{Juno Award for Artist of the Year} in 2000 and Male Vocalist of the Year ^{Juno Award for Artist of the Year} in 1997 and every year from 1983 to 1987, as well as Junos for Producer ^{Juno Award for Producer of the Year} , Composer ^{Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year#Composer of the Year (1975 - 1990)} , and Songwriter of the Year ^{Juno Award for Songwriter of the Year} . He has also had 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television ^{Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media} for "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" in 1992. He has also won MTV ^{MTV Video Music Awards} , ASCAP ^{American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers#Annual Awards} , and American Music ^{American Music Awards} awards. In addition, he has won two Ivor Novello Awards and has been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards and three times for Academy Awards for songwriting. Adams is the best-selling Canadian male artist ever. Adams has sold 75 million albums and 30 million singles worldwide. Adams also holds the distinction of being the first Canadian to sell more than 1 million copies in Canada. He has achieved this twice.

Adams was awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for contributions to popular music and philanthropic work via his own foundation, which helps improve education for people around the world. He is a well known photographer.

Adams was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998, and in April 2006 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards. At the 2010 Juno Awards ^{Juno Awards of 2010} in Newfoundland, he will be on hand to receive a humanitarian award.

 
Early years

Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, to English ^{English people} parents. From his grandmother he also inherited a Maltese ^{Maltese people} ancestry. As Adams's father was a diplomat, he grew up travelling around the world with his parents. Subsequently, most of his youth was spent growing up in England, Israel, Portugal, and Austria, part of the time in Birre, Portugal, situated close to Lisbon; where he learned Portuguese ^{Portuguese language} . In 1973, Adams's family returned to Canada and settled down in North Vancouver, British Columbia ^{North Vancouver, British Columbia (district municipality)} . His musical goals began during his teenage years, and as he explained to Carlo D'Agostino from Rolling Stone magazine, "In high school, I was too far into my music to even pay attention to girls." He washed dishes, sold pet food, and worked in record stores, and at the age of 15, Adams quit school to play in nightclubs with bands like Shock and Sweeney Todd ^{Sweeney Todd (band)} , who released an album called If Wishes Were Horses ^{If Wishes Were Horses (album)} with the fifteen year old Adams as lead singer.

A serendipitous meeting with drummer Jim Vallance in a Vancouver music store led to a song-writing partnership that continues to this day. They wrote songs for many other artists notably Kiss ^{Kiss (band)} ,
In 1978, at the age of 18, Adams sent a few demo recordings to A&M Records in Toronto. Not long afterwards he signed with them for the sum of one dollar. Some of the first demos written in 1978 have surfaced over the years, most notably "I'm Ready" (recorded for both the album Cuts Like a Knife and later his release for MTV Unplugged) and "Remember", which was recorded on his first album. Both songs were covered by other artists even before his first album was released. Also recorded during this time was Adams's first single, "Let Me Take You Dancing," which made the Canadian RPM ^{RPM (magazine)} chart in March 1979.


1980s

His self-titled debut album ^{Bryan Adams (album)} was released in February 1980, and marked the beginning of what was to become a long songwriting partnership between Adams and co-writer Jim Vallance. With the exception of "Remember" and "Wastin' Time", most of the album was recorded from October 29 up until November 29, 1979 at Manta Studios in Toronto and co-produced by Adams and Vallance. The album was certified gold in Canada in 1986. After the release of the album, Adams was nominated for Best Male Rock Performance.

After the tour in the United States, Adams traveled to Ethiopia to aid famine relief in the country.. It was even more successful on the other side of the Atlantic, reaching number 1 on both big European markets, the UK and Germany. The album was released in September 1991 and featured the power ballad "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". This song was featured in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman. The single topped the charts in numerous countries around the world including big markets such as the US, the UK, France, Australia and Germany. "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" spent a record-breaking sixteen weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart. It also achieved record-breaking sales of four million copies in the US.
Canadian content regulations were revised in 1991 to allow radio stations to credit airplay of this album towards their legal requirements to play Canadian music.

Adams further supported the album with his tour, Waking Up the World which started on October 4, 1991, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. On December 18, 1991, Adams played two first-ever shows in Reykjavik, Iceland and then performed in the U.S. with a concert at the Ritz Theatre on the 10th of January.
The album has been certified platinum in the United States and is Adams last studio effort which has been certified by the RIAA.
In December 1997, Adams released MTV Unplugged with three new tracks: "Back to You ^{Back to You (song)} ", "A Little Love" and "When You Love Someone". "Back to You" was the first single, followed by "I'm Ready", an acoustic version of the Cut's Like A Knife track. The album was a top 10 success in Germany while both singles reached the top 20 in the UK.

On a Day Like Today ^{On a Day Like Today (album)} was released in 1998 and was the first studio album since Cuts Like a Knife which wasn't certified by the RIAA.

Adams released his eleventh album internationally on March 17, 2008. It was appropriately called 11. The album was released in the US exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club retail stores on May 13, 2008. The first single released from the album was "I Thought I'd Seen Everything ^{I Thought I'd Seen Everything (Bryan Adams song)} ". Adams did an 11-day, 11-country European acoustic promotional tour to kick off the release of the album. The album debuted at number one in Canada (making it his first album to reach that position since Waking Up the Neighbours in 1991) as well as reaching number 2 in Germany. In the United States the album charted at number eighty. The total estimated number of Bryan Adams stamps to be printed is one and one-half million.
In December 2009, Bryan Adams released the song "You've Been A Friend To Me" for the movie Old Dogs.

In February 2010 Adams released "One World, One Flame" - a track which will be used as a theme song by the major German TV station ARD for their Olympic TV Coverage of Olympic Games in Vancouver.

On February 12, Adams, wrote and performed "Bang The Drum" as a duet with Nelly Furtado, for the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics Games ^{2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony} in Vancouver, BC in front of 60,000 people. With Wayne Gretzky and Jaromir Jagr at the opening ceremonies, this brought all three together once again, following Gretzky's final game in 1999 at Madison Square Garden, when Gretzky then played for the New York Rangers and Jagr was with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Adams then sang the Canadian national anthem ^{O Canada} and altered the line to reflect Gretzky's departure, saying, "We'll miss you Wayne Gretzky."Adams is considered highly influential in the Canadian music industry. Adams is the best-selling Canadian male artist of all time. He is cited as an influence by many young Canadian artists such as Karl Wolf. He holds the distinction of being the first Canadian artist to sell one million copies of his album in his homeland, achieving this twice with Waking Up the Neighbours and Reckless.

Adams is also the owner of one the biggest hits of all time, "Everything I Do, I Do It For You". It is often known as the biggest hit of the 90's and holds the record for the longest running no. 1 in UK singles chart history. "Summer of 69" and "Run To You" have become rock radio staples. The album Reckless is considered by some to be a landmark recording of the 80's and for melodic rock.

On the other hand, Adams has been regularly criticized by critics and music magazines as a writer of "simple songs" and for releasing too many ballads as singles in the 90's.Adams is commonly associated with the arena rock genre and is sometimes labelled as a pop-rock musician. Adams performs rock songs, ballads and mid-tempo tracks. He has released 11 studio albums, the most recent being 11. 11 was his first acoustic-rock release.

The first single released by Adams was "Let Me Take You Dancin'", a disco record. It is the only one Adams has recorded to date.Most of Adams's philanthropic activity is dedicated to his foundation "The Bryan Adams Foundation", which aims to advance education and learning opportunities for children and young people worldwide, believing that an education is the best gift that a child can be given. The Foundation’s area of support is broad and far-reaching, enabling grants to be given for projects supporting the elderly, victims of war and natural disasters, and those suffering from mental or physical illness. The foundation is completely funded by his photographic activities.

Since the 1980s, Adams has participated in concerts and other activities to help raise money and awareness for a variety of causes. His first high profile charity appearance came in 1985 when he opened the US transmission of Live Aid from Philadelphia. In June of the next year, Adams participated in the two-week Amnesty International "A Conspiracy of Hope" tour alongside Sting ^{Sting (musician)} , U2 and Peter Gabriel. He performed the Pink Floyd songs What Shall We Do Now? and Young Lust ^{Young Lust (song)} during the performance of The Wall, and then joined Waters, Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Van Morrison, Paul Carrack and others to perform Waters' "The Tide Is Turning" to close the concert. His version of Young Lust, which was partially re-recorded for the album due to technical problems during the live concert, peaked at #7 at Mainstream Rock Tracks.

On January 29, 2005, Adams joined the CBC ^{Canadian Broadcasting Corporation} benefit concert in Toronto for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Twenty years after performing at Live Aid in the USA, Adams played at Canada's Live 8 show in Barrie, Ontario ^{Live 8 concert, Barrie} . Money raised also went to some of his own projects like rebuilding a school in Thailand and building a new sports center in Sri Lanka, both of which had been devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami ^{2004 Indian Ocean earthquake} .

On October 18, 2007, Adams was billed to perform in Tel Aviv and Jericho as part of the OneVoice Movement concerts, hoping to aid in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the mid 1990s, Adams successfully campaigned for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary with Greenpeace Chairman David McTaggart (the two distributed over 500,000 postcards at concerts around the world encouraging politicians to vote yes for the creation of the sanctuary).

Adams occasionally writes letters on behalf of the animal rights group PETA to support the ethical treatment of animals. He wrote to the CEO of the most KFC restaurants in Canada in November 2007, asking them to become leaders in using more modern and more humane methods of killing chickens. Adams has been a vegan for 17 years
On May 25, 2005, Adams raised £1.3M with cousin Johnny Armitage, from a concert and auction entitled Rock by the River for the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. On May 15 of the next year, Adams returned to London to attend the Hope Foundation's event (hosted by designer Bella Freud), helping to raise a portion of the £250,000 to support the Palestinian refugee children. The following June, he offered individuals from the public the chance to bid to sing with him live in concert at three different charity auctions in London. Over £50,000 was raised with money going to the NSPCC, Children in Need, and the University College Hospital.

To support the peace in Georgia ^{Georgia (country)} , Adams played a special outdoor concert in Tbilisi, on September 19, 2008.

Played at The Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Born Free Foundation at "Wild and Live" on November 14, 2009Adams has had his photographs published in British Vogue ^{Vogue (magazine)} , L'uomo Vogue ^{Vogue (magazine)} , Vanity Fair ^{Vanity Fair (magazine)} , Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, Interview ^{Interview (magazine)} magazine and i-D, among others. His other photographic efforts include publishing Zoo Magazine, the fashion/art magazine based in Berlin, Germany. On June 1, 2005, he published his first book of photos in the United States with Calvin Klein called American Women; proceeds from this book go to breast cancer research for programs at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. On November 27, 2000 Bryan played onstage with The Who at the Royal Albert Hall. A DVD of the concert was issued. Bryan photographed the band and his photos appear in the DVD booklet.

In 2002, Adams was invited, along with other photographers from the Commonwealth ^{Commonwealth of Nations} , to photograph Queen Elizabeth II ^{Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom} during her Golden Jubilee ^{Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II} ; one of the photographs from this session was used as a Canadian postage stamp in 2004 and again in 2005 (see Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamp (Canada)), another portrait of both Queen Elizabeth II ^{Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom} and Prince Philip is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Bryan Adams supports the Hear the World initiative as a photographer in its aim to raise global awareness for the topic of hearing and hearing loss. Adams has been shooting the covers for their magazine, a quarterly culture and lifestyle publication dedicated to the topic of hearing.

Photographic exhibitions include:

* Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 1999
* McCord Museum, Montreal 2000
* Saatchi Gallery, London 2000
* Photokina, Köln (Cologne), Germany 2001
* ICA, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London 2004
* Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 2004
* Calvin Klein, NYC, Dallas, Paris 2005
* Canada House, Trafalgar Square, London 2005/2006
* Il Tempio Di Adriano, Rome, Italy, July, 2006
* Photokina, Köln (Cologne), Germany, September, 2006
* Leica Gallery, Vienna, Austria, November, 2006
* Galerija Fotografija, Ljubljana, Slovenia, November, 2006
* H.Stern exhibition, São Paulo, Brazil, March, 2007
* PhotoEspana, Madrid, Spain, Fotografos Insospechados (Unsuspected Photographers) Mickey Rourke photographs, May to July 2007
* Nunnington Hall, North Yorkshire, England, May to June, 2007
* 401 Projects, NYC, NY September to November, 2007
* The Hospital, Covent Garden, London, England. November 2007 (Modern Muses)
* The National Portrait Gallery, London, England. Feb - May 2008 (Modern Muses)
* Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Germany. May 2008 (Photos of the German National Football Team)
* 14th Street Gallery, NYC, NY. May 2008. (Hear The World) (plus other exhibitions in Berlin and Zurich with the same show)
* Saatchi Gallery, London July, 2009 (Hear The World)
Studio Albums

*Bryan Adams ^{Bryan Adams (album)} (1980)
*You Want It You Got It (1981)
*Cuts Like a Knife (1983)
*Reckless ^{Reckless (album)} (1984)
*Into the Fire ^{Into the Fire (album)} (1987)
*Waking Up the Neighbours (1991)
*18 til I Die (1996)
*On a Day Like Today ^{On a Day Like Today (album)} (1998)
*Room Service ^{Room Service (Bryan Adams album)} (2004)
*11 ^{11 (Bryan Adams album)} (2008)


Live Albums

*Live! Live! Live! (1988)
*MTV Unplugged ^{MTV Unplugged (Bryan Adams album)} (1997)
*Live At The Budokan ^{Bryan Adams – Live at the Budokan} (2003)
*Live in Lisbon (2005)

Compilation Albums

*Hits On Fire (1988)
*So Far So Good ^{So Far So Good (Bryan Adams album)} (1993)
*The Best of Me ^{The Best of Me (Bryan Adams album)} (2002)
*Anthology ^{Anthology (Bryan Adams album)} (2005)

Other Albums

*Spirit: Stallion of the CimarronIn addition to his success at the Junos and Grammys and other music awards, Adams was also nominated for his fifth Golden Globe in 2007 for songwriting on the film Bobby ^{Bobby (2006 film)} which was sung by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, and has been nominated three times for Academy Awards for writing music in film.* Sorelle Saidman Bryan Adams Everything He Does, Random House, Toronto, 1993 ISBN 0-394-22300-X
* Bryan Adams, Bryan Adams (pictorial collection), Firefly Books, Willowdale Canada, 1995, ISBN 1-895565-83-9"Somebody ^{Somebody (song)} " was one of 24 songs in the first file-sharing copyright infringement lawsuit brought by major record labels in the United States to be tried by a jury.