Bryan Adams (b. 1959). Do you want to play (or sign) Bryan Adams’ music?

Born: Kingston, Ontario, 5 November 1959 Genre: Rock Best-selling album since 1990: Waking Up the Neighbours (1991) Hit songs since 1990: “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” “Please Forgive Me,” “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”

After entering the pop music scene in the early 1980s, Canadian singer/songwriter Bryan Adams quickly gained notoriety with a catchy, easily definable mainstream rock sound. However, that definition has gotten murky through the years, as his soft love ballads, some of which are movie soundtrack hits, have commercially triumphed. Early Years As far back as he can remember, Adams was interested in music, but this passion flew in the face of his dominating father’s wishes.

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The father was a military man, later a diplomat to the United Nations, and the family lived all over the world. When Bryan’s parents divorced, his mother, a schoolteacher, took him and his younger brother to settle in Vancouver, British Columbia. Adams quit high school at age sixteen and began performing and writing songs for a local rock group called Shock and another named Sweeney Todd, with which he cut two albums. Adams sought out the songwriter/producer Jim Vallance in 1980, and they began co-writing songs, some of which were recorded by the Canadian supergroups Bachman- Turner Overdrive and Loverboy as well as by Bonnie Tyler and KISS.

The Making of a Superstar In 1981 Adams decided on a solo career and signed a now-famous contract with A&M Records in Toronto for the sum of one dollar. His first release went nowhere, but his second, You Want It, You Got It (1981), sold well in Canada and made way for Cuts Like a Knife (1983). This album went platinum in the United States and introduced Adams’s husky-voiced, passionate rock with agreeable hits like “This Time,” “Straight from the Heart,” and the title track, “Cuts Like a Knife.” Adams followed with Reckless (1984), which soared to the top spot on the U.S. record charts. It features six major hit singles, including “Run to You,” “Summer of ’69,” and a red-hot duet with singing legend Tina Turner, “It’s Only Love.” The handsome Adams seemed to have found a perfect balance with his pliable foot-stomping rock.

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He became one of rock’s bona fide superstars. In 1991, after Adams and his band toured the world playing sold-out stadiums at every stop, he recorded a dulcet ballad by the veteran film composer Michael Kamen “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” for the soundtrack to the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner. The song was a megahit and went number one immediately in the United States, Canada, and England, where Adams now lives. It sold over 8 million copies as a single.

The song’s success paved the way for Waking Up the Neighbours (1991), which contains “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” in addition to the bouncy hit “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started.” Waking Up the Neighbours sold almost 6 million copies in its first two months of issue. Adams continued to succeed with ballads and movie soundtracks, adding the gorgeous “Please Forgive Me,” another chart topper, to a greatest hits album, So Far So Good (1993). The album sold 13 million copies worldwide.

Later that year he recorded the song “All for Love” with his fellow superstars Rod Stewart and Sting for the film The Three Musketeers. The film was a flop but the song went to number one, as did “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?,” which he recorded for the film Don Juan DeMarco (1995), starring Johnny Depp. In the meantime, Adams continued to tour worldwide, developing a massive following in Europe and Asia in addition to the United States. Rock music success and all of its trappings has claimed its fair share of casualties, but seems to have had few adverse effects on Adams. By all accounts down-to-earth, Adams has used his celebrity to promote and raise money for an impressive list of personally favored humanitarian causes, including Live Aid, Net Aid, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, cancer research, environmental causes, Ethiopian famine, and freedom for Nelson Mandela.

He is a devout vegetarian, an avid equestrian, and has never been married. Adams has a strong passion for photography and has snapped shots in privileged photo sessions with such luminaries as the queen of England and Paul McCartney. His work has appeared in galleries, books, and magazines worldwide. Placated by live and compilation albums, fans had to wait five years for Adams to follow-up the colossal Waking Up the Neighbours. In 1996 he released 18 ’til I Die (1996).

The album used the same formula as Neighbours by adding an already-released soundtrack hit. This time it was “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” Adams’s fans were beginning to split down the middle. One side longed for the raw rock of his earlier days, the other for Adams’s recent ballads; most of Adams’s later work is saddled with the challenge of satisfying both camps.

The following year he answered with a collection of songs, including some of his heaviest rockers, in a live acoustic set on MTV as part of its Unplugged series. Accolades and Staying Power Adams has sold more than 50 million albums throughout a career that shows no sign of slowing down. He has been showered with awards, including sixteen wins out of twenty-four Juno nominations (the Canadian version of a Grammy), and three Grammy Awards out of thirteen nominations.

He has also won two MTV Music Awards and had three Academy Award nominations for soundtrack songs. In 2002 he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the song “Here I Am” from the soundtrack to DreamWorks’s animated epic, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. He also released an album of the film’s music under the same title. The ballad-heavy recording features a duet with fellow Canadian Sarah McLachlan on “Don’t Let Go.” The album as a whole displays Adams’s songwriting growth and his innate ability to infuse his songs with satisfying hooks. “Get Off My Back,” from Spirit, was one return on the album to his rock sound.

He toured most of 2002 with the bare-bones trio of Keith Scott on guitar, Mickey Curry on drums, and Adams on bass guitar, a departure from his usual role as rhythm guitarist. The pride of Canada, Bryan Adams has earned a top spot in contemporary music with relentless touring and an ability to appeal consistently to a mainstream audience.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY: Bryan Adams (A&M Records, 1980); You Want It, You Got It (A&M Records, 1981); Cuts Like a Knife (A&M Records, 1983); Reckless (A&M Records, 1984); Into the Fire (A&M Records, 1987); Waking Up the Neighbours (A&M Records, 1991); So Far So Good (A&M Records, 1993); So Far So Live (Alex Records, 1994); 18 ’til I Die (A&M Records, 1996); MTV Unplugged (A&M Records, 1997); On a Day Like Today (A&M Records, 1998); Greatest Hits (A&M Records, 1999); The Best of Me (Polygram Records, 2001); Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (Universal Records, 2002). BIBLIOGRAPHY: B. Adams, Bryan Adams: The Official Biography (Toronto, 1995).

Bryan Adams – (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Recorded live at the @royalalberthall on 11 May, 2022, with Keith Scott on guitar, Pat Steward on drums, Sol Walker on bass and Gary Breit on keyboard.

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