All About BA

Newspaper Clippings - Early Years

2006-09-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

2006-08-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Step right up, folks. It's time to see the sole Canadian musician capable of writing a tear-jerking chart-topper, flirting with royalty and saving the whales -- all while sweatily thrashing around a stage like it's the summer of '69. Call him a man of many talents -- we'll just call him Bryan Adams. Juggling a multitude of roles is all in a day's work for the 46-year-old Vancouver-bred CanRock songster you've known and loved for decades. Want him to sing? He can sing. Want him to rock? He can rock. Want him to photograph the Queen for a postage stamp? He can do that, too. We know it's true -- everything Adams does, he does for you. And because he's a ...
HOPELESS ROMANTIC A Bryan Adams song without the words "love" and "baby" is almost as rare as a wedding reception void of his mushy ballads. And like a gentleman, Adams keeps his love life out of tabloids, with the exception of an alleged royal fling in 2003 (see Sugar Daddy). Until then, the balladeer serenaded long-term supermodel girlfriend/Bond girl Cecilie Thomsen, who also starred in videos for Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? and Let's Make a Night to Remember .
TELLING LYRIC: You know it's true, everything I do -- I do it for you.
ROCK 'N' ROLLER Lovey-dovey crap aside, Adams can rock. Not in that bat-decapitating Ozzy Osbourne way, but in that wholesome dude-next-door way. Superstar producer Robert John (Mutt) Lange (Def Leppard, Shania Twain) gave him a mid-career lesson in Stardom 101 and had a hand in the 1991 smash Waking Up the Neighbours. Party-hearty anthems like Summer of '69 and 18 Til I Die reveal Adams' rockin' side -- if the guitar permanently attached to his hip weren't enough.
TELLING LYRIC: I got my first real six string / Bought it at the five and dime / Played it 'till my fingers bled / It was the summer of '69.
HUMANITARIAN Adams passes on the Canadian bacon, but don't bug him for being unpatriotic. He's vegan -- and voted one of PETA's sexiest at that. Elephants and whales also top his list of animals to save. Adams co-wrote 1985 charity tune Tears Are Not Enough for Ethiopian famine relief, played at the Philadelphia Live Aid concert and at last July's Live 8 gig in Barrie, Ont. Since losing a close friend to breast cancer, the strummer's supported research for the disease with profits from his photography books, Made in Canada and American Women.
TELLING LYRIC: On a day like today the whole world could change / The sun's gonna shine shine through the rain.
MAN'S MAN Transportation of choice: motorcycle. Outfit of choice: Well-worn jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. No. of bike accidents: One known. No. of gunshot wounds: One, from an air rifle, received while riding a bike through London. 'Nuff said.
TELLING LYRIC: Yeah, we can get some beer / Yeah, let's get outta here.
SUGAR DADDY Adams sometimes crosses the line between romantic and erotic in his lyrics, and supposedly elsewhere. That is, if we are to believe rumours that he turned a boyish crush on Princess Diana into a full-blown affair shortly after her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996. And if we buy more rumours of a thing with Pamela Anderson and a drunken fling with Kate Moss. While Adams is a pro at keeping mum about his endeavors, he'll admit to having pictures of Cindy Crawford, Christie Brinkley and Scarlett Johansson -- but only because he took their photos for Made in America.
TELLING LYRIC: From your feet up to your hair, more than anything I swear / I wanna be your underwear.
POP SCENESTER Between the Hollywood soundtracks and radio-friendly tunes, Adams is a regular Britney Spears. OK, maybe that's pushing it. However, his first single was a'79 disco track called, Let Me Take You Dancing (which he has since denied exists). There's his nine No. 1 singles and trademark gushy flick hits. And the fact that he went to high school with Michael J. Fox and sang bubblegummy collaborations with Rod Stewart, Sting and Spice Girl Mel C. give him enough pop potential to host MTV's TRL
TELLING LYRIC: Baby when you're gone (when you're gone) / I realize I'm in love (so in love) / Days go on and on / And the nights just seem so long

Early Album Covers

2006-08-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

Rare Photos

2006-08-07T05:39:00.000-07:00

Ain't He Cute !

Sweeney Todd Days

Various Collaborations \ Duets

2006-08-07T05:22:00.000-07:00

At Spirit Premiere

2006-07-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

BRYAN ADAMS - Live in Mumbai, India. (4th Feb, 2006)

2006-05-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

BRYAN ADAMS - Live in Mumbai, India. (4th Feb, 2006)
The opening act - The Superfuzz Bigmuff from Delhi - came on stage at about 18:45. They were pretty good int their 30 minutes of fame and the crowd, unlike during international acts was quite sporting too. Enough said, Superfuzz thank you for coming but what everybody was really hungry for was THE GREAT ONE - BRYAN ADAMS.
The techies started flitting on and offstage checking the lights, bringing on the guitars n basses; teasing the crowd mercilessly (especially BA's technician). Then finally after an agonising 30 minutes, everybody vacated the stage, the lights dimmed, the crowd suddenly went silent and five dark figures appeared from backstage.
As I saw that one of them had the ROOM SERVICE strat strapped on, I had an instant cramp in my stomach due to sheer excitement while screaming my guts out for it was known that THE GOD was here. I couldn't believe it and as I write this review (*****) on the 5th Feb. at 1:30 am, I still can't.
The haunting opening riff of Room Service hit my ears leading into what would be a rollercoaster ride of 24 songs and 2 and 1/2 hours. After that rocker, the band cruised through Somebody and This Time (a joy to hear live). He paused to tell us we were the loudest He'd seen (heard) in India (Well, Mumbai does rock pretty damn hard). Also that we looked fantastic. Thanks Man!! As he introduced Open Road, the band settled into the standard setlist ripping through one song after the other to MASSIVE sing alongs. I mean BA didn't need to sing at all given that a (from what I hear) 35,000+ strong crowd was doing lead vocals on stuff like 18 Til I Die, Can't Stop, et al. The chants of the Summer Of '69 lead riff were on for a good couple of minutes even after the song had ended. After the ever so beautiful Everything I Do, He launched into Cuts Like A Knife sending the crowd into frenzy. Later, it was time for a girl to get lucky with the WYG routine. The Lucky girl turned out to be Amruta (BA only managed to catch Ruta leaving the Am out of it). Boy did was she a powerhouse or what!! When BA asked her if she knew the song she gave a firm, "You Bet". This girl doing her Masters in Pharmacy (impressive) sang her heart out. Go Girl!!!!
A little later He picked what was (I believe) the GEM of the evening - Hearts On Fire, which featured some wonderful guitars by the great K-man (but the best was yet to come). Next up was Kids Wanna Rock (a sight for sore eyes). The mid-song guitar battle was a total laugh riot with the 'crying' act that they put on (guitars doing sounds and faces doing expressions = HILARIOUS). Quarter of a century in music and on stage has made these guys not only Great musicians but also A-grade showmen. Heaven (and I'm Ready a little while earlier) was played to a sea of mobile phones giving the many love birds out there a few romantic moments. Everyone by now was deeply caught in the magic of BA's music. He decided to get down to some serious business, to unleash the man few would dare to challenge on the axe - KEITH SCOTT. Its Only Love had him doing an Oh-my-God-what-is-that kind of a thing only he can do with the guitar. That song truly rocks. They ended the set with The Only Thing and went off the stage after the usual band introduction (Bryan Adams - Guitar, Vocals; Keith Scott - Lead Guitar; Mickey Curry - Drums; Gary Breit - Keyboards, Piano; Norm Fisher - Bass). But everyone knew it was much too soon.
They came out for the encore consisting of Cloud Number Nine (featuring an ocean of swaying hands), Run To You (awesome) and The Best Of Me (which had BA actually coming down into the crowds). They once again took a bow and left.
BA again came back (this time He was alone) to bid a goodbye for the last time. He did it with Please Forgive Me (as beautiful as ever), All For Love (a Masterpiece) and Room Service. (I was a little disappointed not to find Straight From The Heart there). He walked across the stage, took his bows, gave his thanks and finally left the stage and this time for real. He came, He played and left us all satisfied to the core. And the people made sure BA had a night he will not forget for a long time.
Even though He has followed almost the same structure throughout his shows for nearly 8 years (I could predict almost every song in the show), its not just His music that makes him such a phenomenon, but the energy that He exudes on stage and His ability to do so much more with the music beyond the album recordings. Its not for nothing that He is one of the Top Live Acts in the world today. BOW TO THE MAN. A special thanks to Karan for cutting me through the line getting me as close as 10 feet to BA. Good to see you again.
Setlist :
01. Room Service.
02. Somebody.
03. This Time.
04. Open Road.
05. 18 'Til I Die.
06. Lets Make A Night To Remember.
07. Can't Stop This Thing We Started.
08. Back To You.
09. Summer Of '69.
10. Everything I Do (I Do It For You).
11. Cuts Like A Knife.
12. When You're Gone (with Amruta).
13. I'm Ready.
14. Hearts On Fire.
15. Kids Wanna Rock.
16. Heaven.
17. Its Only Love.
18. The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You.
19. Cloud Number Nine.
20. Run To You.
21. The Best Of Me.
22. Please Forgive Me.
23. All For Love.
24. Room Service (Accoustic).
- Varad Wategaonkar (Mumbai, India).

Live 8 Interview ( USA Today )

2006-05-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

Bryan Adams: From Live Aid to Live 8
When Bryan Adams takes the stage at Live 8 in Barrie, Ontario, the scene may feel a bit familiar.
That's because the event takes place almost 20 years to the day after Adams performed at Bob Geldof's first charity concert, Live Aid. Lately, the 45-year-old Canadian singer has been touring with Def Leppard and developing his second career as a photographer. (Proceeds from his new book of photographs, American Women, go to breast cancer research.)
A few days before the event, Adams spoke with USATODAY.com's Whitney Matheson about his current pursuits and fuzzy memories.

So, I was just watching some video of you at Live Aid ...
You know what? I've never even seen that.
You haven't? Well, it's out on DVD now.
I know. I've actually got the DVD — they sent one to me — but I've never watched.
What are your memories of that day almost 20 years ago?
My memories are quite vague. My main memories are of walking up to the stairs to the stage and someone saying to me, "OK, check out the guy across the stage there. When you see him coming out and start to mention your name, then you can walk onstage." And I looked over, and it was Jack Nicholson.
Were there any performances that blew you away?
I never saw it. I actually left right after my show. I had a show to do in Ohio that night, so I only came in for my segment and left right away.
Wow, so you really had minimal exposure to it.
Yeah, a lot of people were like that. ... I remember getting the call from (Bob) Geldof quite a long time before the show happened. I guess he had an A-to-Zed of who's who doing music, and he just called and said, "What do you think? Would you be up for doing something like this if I could put it together?" And I said yeah, of course I would. Then I didn't hear anything from him for a long time. And the next call came and he said, "Well, you know what? I've actually booked it. It's gonna happen this day. Can you work it out?"
Is that how it was for Live 8, too?
No, this time it came from the organizer of the show. I think Geldof's got his hands full with everybody else. They were kind hemming and hawing about how they were going to put it together, and then I said yes, I'd do it, and then I think a couple other people said they'd do it. And that sort of clenched it.
But I'm playing that night somewhere else as well, so this is just déjà vu for me. I'm playing in Lancaster, Pa., that night, so I have to fly in the morning to Toronto, go to Barrie, do the show, go back to Toronto, get on the plane and fly to Lancaster.
Will you pull out any of your old hits at Live 8 — any of the songs you played at Live Aid?
No. I won't be doing that.
What do you think of the cause this time around?
Well, I think this is a very different sort of movement, the principle this time being to activate things politically, as opposed to trying to literally put food in people's mouths. I guess, 20 years on, they've seen that the situation in Africa isn't so much about getting it to the grassroots. It has to be that sort of political level.
I think there's an enormous quagmire of things to sort out there that doesn't just stem from just relieving the debt. There's also the people that are running these countries and how they organize things. So I wonder how that's gonna be instigated, because, politically speaking, that's one of the biggest hurdles of all.
After Live 8, you resume your summer tour with Def Leppard. How's that coming?
It's been going fine. You know, I've only done 10 shows. I only work 10 days a month. I don't want to work more than that on tour, because I think I've done that already. ... I do 100 shows a year, but I do it in fits and starts, as opposed to going on a long run.
Do you hang out with those guys between shows?
Well, what happens is, I go on and get on the bus and drive off to the next show. And then, the next day, they go on and they get on the bus and drive off to the next show. So, really, the only time we say hello is in between. Sort of, "Hi, how you guys doin'? All right? Yeah, OK. Catch you later." You know.
Are you bringing your camera to all of these shows?
Oh, yeah.
At this point in your career, which is more fulfilling to you: music or photography?
Well, music's No. 1. You don't kick off those shoes very easily. I mean, photography has taken a place with me that has been very exciting and fascinating, because it started out really more as me documenting my work on tour and in the studio. And it's led to other things: doing portraits of friends and going on to do these books to raise money for charity. And the new one, American Women— the first edition's already sold out, so ...
That book is like a who's who of every famous woman in America.
Well, I'll tell you what: The list was a lot longer than what's in that book.
Who said no?
Oh, just name it. I would've liked to have had more of the old Hollywood guard, but it was very difficult. I think a lot of people want to be remembered the way they were, as opposed to the way they are now.
Since you're Canadian and all, are there any Canadian artists USA TODAY readers should be aware of?
No, but there's an American artist you should talk about — this guy called Ray LaMontagne. I think he's the best singer/songwriter to come out of America in a long time. He's got a new album out; it's fantastic.
What else are you listening to?
I'm working on a new album, so I've sort of been heads down into that. But I listen to a lot of folk music, whatever I can ... Actually, I'll be really boring and tell you exactly who I'm listening to: Jimi Hendrix live bootleg records, The O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and The Allman Brothers live. So if that gives you any indication of where my head's at …
Before we go, I asked some friends what they'd like to know about you, and a few of them brought up your videos. You were one of MTV's first stars — that Cuts Like a Knife video was played nonstop.
I think all my videos suck.
Are you serious?
Yeah, I hate them all.
Why?
I don't know. Probably because they're inconsistent, and I just think I'm really a crap video artist. I'm a better singer.
Do you still make them?
Yeah, I do.
So, they seem to be sort of popular ...
They're just garbage. Just flip through them.
I'll pass that on.
Don't even pay attention. Flip the channel, quick! Every time I see my video, I just want to dive behind the sofa. I just (expletive) hate it!
Hmm. You haven't seen Live Aid, and you hate your videos. Sounds like you could just have a problem seeing yourself onscreen.
There is something to that. I think I'm better behind the camera

Misc. Photos

2006-05-25T05:14:00.000-07:00

Site Intro

18 Till I Die !

Albums

Unplugged !

Life's A Roller Coaster

Interview

At Spirit Premiere

Seaside

Tour Photos

2006-05-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

Smiles During Concert
Despite a very real threat of electrocution , he carries on !
In Full Flow !
Share A Laugh
Sold Out
WOW !!!!
Right Before The Start
Amsterdam
2006 Bombay Concert
Mobbed!!!
Hand Claps With Audience

Do I Have To Say The Words ?

Charity

2006-05-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

With an overwhelming list of accomplishments it's impressive to hear Bryan is also active in several charitable causes.
In July of '85 Bryan co-wrote and helped perform Tears Are Not Enough as Canada's contribution to the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. In '87, Bryan was chosen to headline the Prince's Trust Fund charity pop concerts in London, England. There he performed three Beatles songs and was joined by the three remaining Beatles themselves, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. His ongoing work with Greenpeace played a big role in establishing a whale sanctuary in the Antarctic. In recognition of his outstanding achievements, the Canadian Government named Bryan Adams an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1990. In the late 90s Bryan also became involved in the fight against breast cancer.
For another campaign, Bryan stopped in Cranbrook, British Columbia as part of his western concert tour where he had a benefit concert for avalanche awareness. Margaret Trudeau, ex-wife of the late, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, accepted a cheque from the singer for $50,000, which was a donation to the Canadian Avalanche Foundation. Margaret has been working with the foundation to promote awareness of avalanche dangers since the death of her son, Michel (Micha) Trudeau, in an avalanche in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park in '98.

And of course , neither does he fear the volatile city of Karachi , Pakistan , as this report shows .

Bryan Adams also performed at a fundraising concert for quake victims in Karachi, becoming the first Western pop star to play in Pakistan since the start of the “war on terror,” organizers said . The giant earthquake which devastated Azad Kashmir and parts of northwestern regions killed nearly 74,000 people and made 3.5mn homeless . Organizers said the 46-year-old Adam’s performance in the southern port city would be the first in Pakistan by a Western pop star since the start of the US-led “war on terror” launched in the wake of September 11, 2001 attacks on the US . Some 20,000 people are expected to attend the concert planned at the huge Arabian City club on the outskirts of Karachi, Iqbal said . The co-host of program is Zindgi (life) Trust, a charity organization run by top Pakistani singer Shahzad Roy.“This is the first time that an artist of Bryan Adam’s caliber is coming to Pakistan,” Roy said.Adams, who is also popular among the educated Pakistani youth, had planned to visit Pakistan before the September 11 attacks but cancelled the trip after the attacks.“We came into contact with Adams before the 9/11 and he was willing to perform here but the terrorist attacks on US and the subsequent war in Afghanistan foiled our efforts,” organizer Ahmed Shah said.“This would definitely be a big show as we have not seen such a renowned Western artist performing here especially after the September 11 attacks,” Shah, who had previously organized several music and art events in the country, said.Organizers hope the pop star’s performance will help lift the country’s image in the West.“Adams’ show will prove that Karachi and Pakistan is as safer a city and country as any other place in the world,” said Roy, who founded the charity to help street children.“He is very popular with the Pakistani youth...,” Roy added.

Bryan Adams broke a Guinness World Record by auctioning off the most expensive guitar in history for 1.6 million dollars. After last year's tsunami in southeast Asia, the Canadian started getting musicians to sign the white Stratocaster in hopes of raising money for relief efforts. Just in the last year, it has been signed by nearly 20 legends, including Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Mark Knopfler, Ray Davies, Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Ronnie Wood, Tony Iommi, Angus and Malcolm Young of AC/DC, Paul McCartney, Sting, Ritchie Blackmore, Def Leppard and Adams himself. The guitar, which was donated by Fender, was auctioned off earlier this year for more than $150,000. It was re-auctioned this week and bought for more than $1.6 million. All proceeds will go towards the Reach Out To Asia Foundation. Adams was the guest of honor at the inaugural Reach Out To Asia charity fundraiser in the Qatari capital, Doha.

And when he isn't singing for charity , he writes for it ! All proceeds from his two books of photographs , " Made In Canada " , and " "American Women " , go to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation .

BA Biography ( Common )

2006-05-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

This is one of his most common biographies on the web available today . But it has been updated .

With his distinctive vocals and blue-collar songwriting skills, Canadian icon Bryan Adams’ take on rock ‘n’ roll basics found a niche that has lasted for over 20 years.
Adams solo career was launched with the release of his self-titled debut album Bryan Adams in February of 1980 on A&M Records. Adams had already been touring, recording demos and working as a studio musician paying his rent for a few years, but it was when Adams formed a song-writing partnership with drummer Jim Vallance that things started to happen.
The first album was not initially released in the U.S. (although “Hiding from Love” was issued as a single and reached No. 43 on the dance chart), so Adams assembled a backup band and embarked on his first Canadian tour as a solo act, spending four months playing clubs and colleges.
The tour was to be the foundation for his second album, You Want It, You Got It, which was recorded in NYC in two weeks and released in the spring of 1981. The original album title was Bryan Adams Hasn’t Heard Of You Either but that title was rejected by A&M as being too provocative. This 2nd album became Adams’ first ‘official’ release in the U.S.
He toured America for six months, opening for the Kinks and Foreigner and by January of 1982 the album broke into the Billboard charts peaking at No. 118 in 13 weeks. The single “Lonely Nights” became his first Hot 100 entry at No. 84 and peaked at No. 3 on the mainstream rock chart.
His third album, Cuts Like a Knife was released in January of 1983, with the single “Straight from the Heart”, leading the way. It broke his career open, peaking in the Top Ten of the Hot 100 and setting up the LP, which followed. The album also reached Top Ten, selling platinum and spawning further Top 40 hits with the title song and “This Time”.
The album’s success was stimulated by Adams’ extensive touring in support of it, which began in Canada and continued into the U.S., where he opened for Journey. From there he toured Europe followed by dates in Japan and then back to Canada.
Adams’ fourth album Reckless was released on his 25th birthday, November 5, 1984, and was preceded by the single “Run to You”, which reached the Top Ten. It was followed by no less than five Top 20 singles drawn from the album: “Somebody”, “Heaven” (which hit number one), “Summer of ‘69″ (Top Ten), “One Night Love Affair”, and a duet with Tina Turner, “It’s Only Love”.
Reckless reached No. 1 in the U.S. selling five million copies in America and a reported three million more in the rest of the world. Adams also earned his first two Grammy nominations, Best Male Rock Performance for the album as a whole, and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group for “It’s Only Love”. As per usual, Adams toured extensively in support of it. His “World Wide in ‘85″ tour began in December of 1984 finally wrapping in November 1985. One of the highlights that year included being the first artist to open the American side of the Live Aid concert from Philadelphia on July 13th.
Into the Fire, followed in March of 1987, prefaced by the single “Heat of the Night,” which became Adams’ fifth Top Ten hit in the U.S. The album reached the Top Ten in the U.S. and sold a million copies, with another million sold overseas. It also spawned the Top 40 hits “Hearts on Fire” and “Victim of Love”. Adams’ worldwide tour in support of the album went on for more than a year. One of the final shows, in Werchter, Belgium, was filmed for a television special, “Bryan Adams: Live in Belgium”, broadcast in Canada the following year.
Live! Live! Live! a concert album drawn from the 1988 Belgium show, was initially released only in Japan but later garnered a wider audience. In a departure from earlier years, Adams did not tour extensively but opted to spend his time in England with writer/producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, preparing for his next album.
In June of 1991, Adams went back on the road in Europe co-headlining with ZZ Top. This coincided with the release of the single “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” which topped the U.S. charts for seven weeks - the longest any song had remained at No. 1 in eight years. Its international success was even greater; spending 16 weeks at No. 1 in the U.K., making it the longest-running chart-topper in the history of the British charts.
Waking Up the Neighbours was released in September of 1991, and Adams once again hit the road - this time until July of 1993. The album featured two Top Ten hits “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” and of course, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”. Before it finished running its course there would be three more Top 40 hits, “There Will Never Be Another Tonight”, “Do I Have to Say the Words?” and “Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven”. Waking Up the Neighbours sold four million copies in the U.S. and another six million in the rest of the world. It also earned Adams a Grammy nomination and his first Academy Award nomination.
Adams began to look forward to his next studio album, but in the interim released a hits compilation, So Far So Good, in November 1993 featuring the single “Please Forgive Me,” a new Adams/Lange track. The song would also find its way into the Top Ten. Then came the Adams’ theme song for the movie The Three Musketeers, “All for Love”, recorded with Rod Stewart and Sting, which hit No. 1 in the U.S. in January of 1994. That same month, Adams embarked on an ambitious tour of the Far East, including countries like Vietnam that were rarely visited by Western pop artists.
Throughout the better part of 1994, Bryan kept a low profile with the exception of a song called “Rock Steady” written for Bonnie Raitt’s live album Road Tested. He performed the song as a duet with her, and the two soon shared a chart single.
At the beginning of 1996 Adams released a new album 18 ‘Til I Die. The album featured the flamenco-tinged “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” from the Johnny Depp/Marlon Brando film Don Juan DeMarco. Adams was rewarded with yet another No. 1 hit, as well as a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and his second Oscar nomination for Best Song.
An 18-month world tour followed and the album soon went platinum in the U.S. The singles “Lets Make A Night To Remember” charted briefly in the Top 40 and the provocatively titled “The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You” proved to do well outside of the US, but didn’t dent the US charts, perhaps due to the fact that his record company (A&M) transferred his contract in the middle of the release to independent rap label, Interscope Records.
Adams filmed an appearance for MTV’s popular Unplugged series in the fall of 1997, and it was released as an album in December. It was a modest success, and served as a stopgap until the appearance of his next studio album, On a Day Like Today, which was released in October 1998. Overseas, the disc featuring the Melanie C duet “When You’re Gone”, reached the UK No. 3 spot in December of 1998 and spent 10 weeks in the Top 10. This was followed by the Top 10 dance re-mix of “Cloud Number Nine”. The album also hit No. 3 in Canada.
In November 1999, Adams issued a second hits compilation, The Best of Me, but the American branch of A&M/Interscope declined to release it. The title track “The Best Of Me” charted all over Europe and in Canada.
Adams returned in the spring of 2002 collaborating with Hans Zimmer on his first full-length song score for a film, the animated DreamWorks feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. The soundtrack made it into the Top 40 and Adams and Zimmer earned a Golden Globe Nomination for their collaboration.
In September of 2004, Room Service was released in Canada and Europe where it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard European Top 100 albums Chart. This was shortly followed by its release in the US in the spring of 2005.
In the fall of 2005 Bryan Adams celebrated his 25th anniversary as a recording artist with his first two-CD collection Anthology, the biggest retrospective of his multi-platinum career. The 36 selection Anthology spans Adams’ entire career from 1980 through to present day, offering the very best of one of the most popular rock singer-songwriters to ever don jeans and a t-shirt.

Biography ( Wikipedia )

2006-05-24T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hey! I'm an honest guy , the following isn't my own creation , but whoever did create it , man , hats off !!!
Bryan Adams, OC, OBC (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian singer, guitarist and songwriter.
Some of his best-known songs include Summer of '69, Heaven, Everything I Do (I Do It for You), Cuts Like a Knife, and Run to You. His most popular albums are Reckless, Waking up the Neighbours and 18 Til I Die.
Adams is a Member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for his contribution to popular music. In 1998 he was promoted to an Officer of the Order of Canada for his philanthropic work. He was also inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards April 2006. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards.

Early life
Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario and traveled throughout Europe and the Middle East as a child with his diplomat parents, until they settled back in Canada in 1973. Adams started his musical career by dropping out of school at age 15.
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Musical career
At the age of seventeen, Adams sent a few demo recordings to A&M Records and was signed to them by age 18 for one dollar. He has released fourteen albums since then.
Some of the first demos written in 1978 have surfaced over the years; most notably is I'm Ready (recorded for both the Cuts Like a Knife LP and later on the MTV Unplugged album), and Remember which went on his first album. Both songs were covered by other artists before his first album even got released.
This time was also the start of a long songwriting partnership between Adams and co-writer Jim Vallance which led to the first solo album, Bryan Adams, released in 1980. His second album You Want It You Got It 1981, contained the FM radio hit Lonely Nights, but it wasn't until his third album Cuts Like a Knife that he broke through with four hits in 1983, most notably with the title track. He quickly followed up that album with Reckless at the end of 1984, which produced six Top 40 songs and has since been certified 5 times platinum. Next came Into the Fire in 1987 which was also certified platinum. This was the last album completely written by Adams and Vallance, but many of the fragments of their other songs ended up on the forthcoming block buster, Waking up the Neighbours .
Live!Live!Live! is the complete recording of the 3 July 1988 concert in Werchter, Belgium, which was broadcast by the CBC in Canada and on MTV around the world. One of his most successful albums is 1991's Waking up the Neighbours (see 1991 in music); was produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Adams, and featured the single "Everything I Do (I Do It for You)". This album and the song went to number one everywhere in the world in 1991 and 1992, with the song spending a record-breaking sixteen weeks at number one on the charts in the United Kingdom. The next album was the hits collection So Far So Good.
The next four years saw Adams releasing an album every year for four years, 18 til I Die in Summer 1996, Bryan Adams MTV Unplugged in Winter 1997, On a Day Like Today in Autumn 1998, and The Best of Me worldwide in 1999 and in the U.S. in early 2002. In May 2002 he released the Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron DreamWorks soundtrack which went gold in the US.
Room Service was released on September 20, 2004 in Canada and in Europe; "Open Road" was its first single. The CD was released in the U.S. on May 10, 2005 on Mercury Nashville. Anthology is a 2 CD set, released in 2005 as a retrospective collection of hits and some obscure tracks from the 25 years of recording.
[edit]
Social activist
In 1985, Adams co-wrote the Canadian benefit record for Ethiopia called Tears Are Not Enough. In that same year, he took part in the U.S side of the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. He was a featured member of Amnesty International's 1986 A Conspiracy of Hope Tour and was in London to play at the Nelson Mandela birthday party concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
In 1990 he joined many other guests (including Michael Kamen) for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin, Germany. In 1992 Adams protested against backward Canadian Content regulations, which got changed as a result. He successfully campaigned for the Southern Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in the mid-1990s with Greenpeace Chairman David McTaggert, the two distributed over 500,000 postcards at concerts around the world encouraging politicians to vote YES for the creation of the sanctuary. On his 1998 album On a Day Like Today he supports the Elephant Sanctuary, Hohenwald in Tennessee and Elefriends in England. Adams also supports breast cancer research through donations from his photography (see below).
On 29 January 2005, Adams joined the CBC benefit concert from Toronto for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
On 2 July 2005, Adams performed at Live 8's Canadian performance in Barrie, Ontario.
On 25 May 2005, Adams and cousin Johnny Armitage raise £1.3M from a concert and auction entitled Rock by the River for the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
On 15 November 2005 Adams played in Qatar and raised an astonishing £1.5M ($2,617,000) through a performance and auctioning off a guitar he had purposely signed by many of the worlds most prominent guitarists. The money went to Qatar's "Reach Out to Asia" campaign to help the underprivileged across the continent, and to his own projects of rebuilding a school in Thailand and building a new sports center in Sri Lanka, both of which had been devastated by the Tsunami.
On 29 January 2006 he was the first western artist to perform in Karachi, Pakistan in conjunction with a benefit concert to raise money for underprivileged children to go to school, some of the proceeds of that concert also went to victims of the 2005 earthquake.
[edit]
As a photographer
Adams has had his photographs published in Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, Jane and Interview Magazine among others. His other photographic efforts are 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 of America 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. He released a similar book of photos called Made in Canada in December 1999. Both were a tribute to his friend Donna, who died of breast cancer.
In 2004, Adams was invited, along with other photographers from the Commonwealth, to photograph Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee; one of his photographs was used as a Canadian postage stamp in 2004, and again in 2005. (See Queen Elizabeth II definitive stamp (Canada))
On the 15 March, 2006, Adams was presented with the gold award for his photo editorial on actor Mickey Rourke at the German Lead Awards in Hamburg, Germany.
Photographic Exhibitions include:
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto 1999
The McCord Museum, Montreal 2000
Satachi Gallery, London 2000
Photokina, Koln, 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
[edit]
Personal life
Adams speaks French, and has lived in France. He currently lives in England and supports Chelsea F.C. Adams is a vegetarian / vegan.
[edit]
Soundtrack works
His works for movie soundtracks include:
"Heaven" from the 1982 film A Night in Heaven.
"Drive All Night" from the 1989 Clint Eastwood film Pink Cadillac.
"Everything I Do (I Do It for You)" from the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
"Why Must We Wait Until Tonight" written for Tina Turner in the 1993 film "What's Love Got To Do With It".
"All for Love" from the 1993 film The Three Musketeers (sung with Rod Stewart and Sting).
"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" from the 1995 Johnny Depp film Don Juan DeMarco.
"Star" from the 1996 Robin Williams film Jack.
"I Finally Found Someone" from the 1996 Barbra Streisand film The Mirror Has Two Faces (the song is a duet).
"When You Love Someone" from the 1998 Sandra Bullock film Hope Floats
From the 2002 DreamWorks animated film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
"Here I Am"
"I Will Always Return"
"You Can't Take Me"
"Get off My Back"
"Brothers Under the Sun"
"Don't Let Go" (with Sarah McLachlan)
"This Is Where I Belong"
"Nothing I've Ever Known"
"It Ain't Over Yet" from the 2005 animated film Racing Stripes
"I'm Not The Man You Think I Am" and "It's All About Me" in the 2006 John Malkovich film Colour Me Kubrick
Adams has been nominated for three Academy Awards for his film compositions and has a song in the forthcoming independent Oscar nominated film Cashback called Mysterious Ways.
[edit]
Discography
[edit]
Albums
Bryan Adams (1980)
You Want It You Got It (1981) #118 US #78 UK
Cuts Like a Knife (1983) #8 US, #6 UK #21 UK
Reckless (1984) #1 US, #7 UK
Into the Fire (1987) #7 US, #10 UK
Live! Live! Live! (1988, released in U.S. 1994) #17 UK
Waking up the Neighbours (1991) #6 US, #1 UK
So Far So Good (1993) #6 US, #1 UK
18 til I Die (1996) #31 US, #1 UK
Unplugged (1997) #88 US #19 UK
On a Day Like Today (1998) #103 US, #11 UK
The Best of Me released worldwide (1999) released in the U.S. in (2002) #12 UK
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (film soundtrack) (2002) #40 US #8 UK
Room Service (2004) #1 Europe #4 UK
Anthology (2005) #65 US #30 UK
[edit]
Singles
From Bryan Adams (1980):
"Give Me Your Love" (1980)
"Remember" (1980)
"Hidin' from Love" (1980)
From You Want It You Got It (1981):
"Coming Home" (1981)
"Fits Ya Good" (1981)
"Lonely Nights" (1982) #84 US
From Cuts Like a Knife (1983):
"Straight from the Heart" (1983) #10 US, #51 UK (1986 release)
"Cuts Like a Knife" (1983) #15 US
"This Time" (1983) #24 US, #41 UK (1986 release)
From Reckless (1984):
"Run to You" (1984) #6 US, #11 UK
"Somebody" (1985) #11 US, #35 UK
"Heaven" (1985) #1 US - 2 weeks, #38 UK
"Summer of '69" (1985) #5 US, #42 UK
"One Night Love Affair" (1985) #13 US
"It's Only Love" (with Tina Turner) (1985) #15 US, #29 UK
From Into the Fire (1987):
"Heat of the Night" (1987) #6 US, #50 UK
"Hearts on Fire" (1987) #26 US, #57 UK
"Victim of Love" (1987) #32 US, #68 UK
From Waking up the Neighbours (1991):
"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" (1991) #1 US - 7 weeks, #1 UK - 16 weeks
"Can't Stop This Thing We Started" (1991) #2 US, #12 UK
"There Will Never Be Another Tonight" (1991) #31 US, #32 UK
"Thought I'd Died and Gone to Heaven" (1992) #13 US, #8 UK
"All I Want Is You" (1992) #22 UK
"Do I Have to Say the Words?" (1992) #11 US, #30 UK
From So Far So Good (1993):
"Please Forgive Me" (1993) #7 US, #2 UK, #1 Australia
From The Three Musketeers (soundtrack) (1993):
"All for Love" (with Rod Stewart and Sting) (1994) #1 US - 3 weeks, #2 UK
From Don Juan DeMarco (soundtrack) (1995):
"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" (1995) #1 US - 5 weeks, #4 UK
From Road Tested (Bonnie Raitt) (1995):
"Rock Steady" live with Bonnie Raitt (1995) #73 US, #50 UK
From 18 til I Die (1996):
"The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You" (1996) #52 US, #6 UK
"Let's Make a Night to Remember" (1996) #24 US, #10 UK
"Star" (1996) #13 UK
"18 til I Die" (1997) #22 UK
From The Mirror Has Two Faces (soundtrack) (1996):
"I Finally Found Someone" (with Barbra Streisand) (1996) #8 US, #10 UK, #2 Australia
From Unplugged (1997):
"Back to You" (1997) #18 UK
"I'm Ready" (1998) #20 UK
From On a Day Like Today (1998):
"On a Day Like Today" (1998) #13 UK
"When You're Gone" (with Melanie C) (1998) #3 UK, #2 Australia
"Cloud Number Nine" (1999) #6 UK
From The Best of Me (1999 & 2002):
"The Best of Me" (1999) #47 UK
"Inside Out" (1999)
From Behind the Sun (Chicane album) (2000):
"Don't Give Up" (Chicane with Bryan Adams) (2000) #1 UK, #8 Australia
From Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (soundtrack) (2002):
"Here I Am" (2002) #5 UK
From Room Service:
"Open Road" (2004) #21 UK
"Flying (2004) #39 UK
"This Side of Paradise" (US only) (2004)
"Room Service (Germany only) (2005)
"Why Do You Have To Be So Hard To Love" (US only) (2005)
From Anthology (2005):
"When You're Gone" (with Pamela Anderson) (US only) (2005)
"So Far So Good" (Canada only) (2006)
[edit]
Songs written for other artists
"Cover Girl" (Adams/MItchell), performed by Prism, All the Best From Prism, Capitol, 1980
"Never Get to Heaven" (Adams/Dal Bello), performed by Lisa Dal Bello, Drastic Measures, 1981
"Edge of a Dream" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Joe Cocker, Teachers soundtrack, Capitol, 1983. Also performed by Helen Hoffner in 1993.
"Straight From The Heart" (Adams/Kagna), performed by Bonnie Tyler, album Faster Than the Speed of Night 1983.
"Teacher Teacher" (Adams/Vallance), performed by .38 Special, Teachers soundtrack, Capitol, 1983.
"Draw The Line" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Ted Nugent, Penetrator, Atlantic, 1984.
"It Should Have Been Me" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Neil Diamond, Columbia Records, 1985.
"Let Me Down Easy" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Roger Daltrey, Under a Raging Moon, Atlantic Records, 1986.
"Rebel" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Roger Daltrey, Under a Raging Moon, Atlantic Records, 1986.
"Open Soul Surgery" (Adams/Vallance/Knight), performed by April Wine, Walking Through Fire, Aquarius (1986).
"No Way to Treat a Lady" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Bonnie Raitt, Capitol, and Bonnie Tyler album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire 1986.
"Another Heartache" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Rod Stewart, Warner Bros., 1986.
"Back Where You Started" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Tina Turner, Capitol, 1986.
"Can't Wait All Night" (Adams/Vallance/Kagna), performed by Elkie Brooks, We've Got Tonight, 1987.
"It Should Have Been Me" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Carly Simon, Arista Records, 1987.
"When the Night Comes" (Adams/Vallance/Warren), performed by Joe Cocker, Capitol, 1988.
"Drive All Night" (Adams/Vallance), performed by Dion, Arista, 1989.
"Why Must We Wait Until Tonight" (Adams/Lange), performed by Tina Turner, "What's Love Got to Do with It" soundtrack, Capitol, 1993.
"Nature of the Beast" (Adams/Vallance) performed by The Law, 'Laying Down the Law' (1991).
"Prove It" (Adams/Lange), performed by Stevie Vann, Stevie Vann, Silvertone Records, 1995.
"Rock Steady" (Adams/Peters), performed by Bonnie Raitt, Road Tested, Capitol, 1995.
"What Would It Take" (Adams/Peters), performed by Anne Murray, Capitol, 1996.
"Glitter" (Adams/Sixx/Humphrey), performed by Mötley Crüe, Generation Swine, Elektra, 1997.
"Let's Talk About Love" (Adams/Goldman/Kennedy), performed by Celine Dion, Sony, 1997.
"You Walked In" (Adams/Lange), performed by Lonestar, Crazy Nights, BNA Records, 1997.
"In A Perfect World" (Adams/Peters) performed by Gretchen Peters, Souvenirs, Curb Records 1998.
"She Believes In Me" (Adams/Kennedy), performed by Joe Cocker, No Ordinary World, Capitol, 1999.
"Another Year Has Gone By" (Adams/Kennedy), performed by Celine Dion, These Are Special Times, Columbia Records, 1998.
"The Way You Make Me Feel" (Adams/Thornalley), performed by Ronan Keating, Polydor, 2000.
"Hey Elvis" (Adams/Peters), performed by Billy Ray Cyrus, Southern Rain, Sony, 2000.
"Don't Give Up" (Adams/Bracegirdle/Hedges) performed by Chicane, Xtravaganza Records, 2002.
"Follow" (Adams/Steinberg), performed by Melanie C, "Reason", Virgin (Japan release only), 2003.
"Keep Talkin' I'm Listening", (Adams/Thornalley) performed by Lulu, "Back On Track", Universal/Mercury, 2004.
"If You Believe", (Adams/Remanda) performed by Andrea Remanda, "Ella Enchanted" soundtrack, Hollywood Records, 2004.
"Drive" (Adams/Thornalley), performed by Shannon Noll, That's What I'm Talking About, Mushroom Records, 2004.
"Blessing In Disguise" (Adams/Peters) performed by Gretchen Peters, Halcyon, Curb Records 2004.
"What Does It Do To Your Heart" (Adams/Kennedy), performed by Shannon Noll, Mushroom Records, 2005.
[edit]
B-sides and odd singles
"Let Me Take You Dancing" (Adams/Vallance) in 1978.
"Don't Turn Me Away" (Adams/Vallance) in 1978.
"Reggae Christmas" (Adams/Vallance) in 1984.
"Diana" (Adams/Jim Vallance) in 1985.
"Christmas Time" (Adams/Vallance) in 1985.
"'Lowlife" (Adams/Peters) in 1996.
"Hey Elvis" (Adams/Peters) in 1996.
"I Want It All" (Adams/Lange) in 1996.
"Hey Little Girl" (Adams/Lange) in 1996.
"I Love Ya Too Much" (Adams) in 1998.
"What Does It Do Your Heart" (Adams/Kennedy) in 1998.
"Hey Baby" (Adams/Peters) in 1998.
"Bin There Done That" in 1998.
"On Christmas Day" (Adams/Kennedy) song for Christmas From The Vatican (2004)
"Blessing In Disguise" (Adams/Peters) in 2004.
"Friday Night In London" (Adams/Kennedy/Thornalley) in 2004.
[edit]
Odd recordings
"The Wanderer" recorded with Dave Edmunds at the Prince's Trust Concert (1986).
"Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" recorded vocals with Glass Tiger, Thin Red Line, EMI (1986)
"I Shall Be Released" recorded with Bono and Sting at the Amnesty International Concert, San Francisco (1986).
"Run Rudolph Run" recorded at the Marquee Club, London for "A Very Special Christmas (1987).
"I Saw Her Standing There" recorded with McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Eric Clapton at the Prince's Trust Concert, London (1987)
"Smoke On The Water" recorded with Deep Purple, Paul Rogers, David Gilmore, Bruce Dickinson, Roger Taylor and Chris Squire for Rock Aid Armenia, for victims of the earthquake 1989.
"Young Lust" and "Empty Spaces" recorded with Roger Waters Live At the Berlin Wall (1989).
"Kickstart My Heart" and "Sticky Sweet" recorded background vocals with Steven Tyler on Motley Crue's album "Dr. Feelgood" (1989)
"River Of Love" recorded background vocals on "River Of Love" David Foster (1990)
"Nature of the Beast" performed by The Law {did harmonies to Paul Rogers vocal} "Laying Down the Law" (1991).
"Prove it" recorded with Stevie Vann (1995).
"Angel From Montgomery" recorded with Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Kim Wilson on Bonnie Raitt's "Road Tested" (1995).
"My Opening Farewell" recorded with Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt "Road Tested" (1995).
"O Sole Mio" recorded with Luciano Pavarotti (1995).
"Good Times" and "Bring It On Home To Me" recorded with Smokey Robinson "Live At The Apollo Theater" (1995).
"What Would It Take" recorded with Anne Murray {guitar and harmony} (1996).
"In A Perfect World" Sang background vocals with Gretchen Peters, "Souvenirs" Curb Records (1998)
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" recorded harmonies on Barry Mann's "Soul And Inspiration" (2000)
"Behind Blue Eyes" recorded with The Who "Live at the Royal Albert Hall" (2000).
"Raised On Robbery" recorded with Wynonna Judd "Tribute To Joni Mitchell" (2000).
"Sad Songs (Say So Much)" recorded with Elton John, "One Night Only (Live at Madison Square Garden)" (2000)
"Don't Give Up" recorded with Chicane, "Behind The Sun", Xtravaganza (2000).
"Like Lovers Do" recorded background vocals on Heather Nova's "South" (2001)
"Blessing In Disguise" recorded with Gretchen Peters, "Halcyon" Curb Records (2004)
[edit]
Filmography
"Pink Cadillac" (1989) film by Clint Eastwood: Adams played a gas station attendant.
"House of Fools" (2002), film in Russian by Andrei Konchalovsky: Adams plays a hallucination of himself.

Interview ( Decent )

2006-05-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

Bryan Adams Talks About Songwriting, His New 2-CD Anthology Set, And His Other Projects
By Dale Kawashima

Bryan Adams is renowned for being one of the top, hit-making artists in rock & pop over the past 25 years. Starting with his debut album Bryan Adams in 1980, on through to his last release , Room Service in 2004.

Bryan Adams
With the release of the comprehensive, new two-CD Anthology set (which contains 36 cuts), Adams took time from his busy touring schedule and other projects, to do this exclusive interview. He discussed how Anthology was compiled, and talked about how he collaborates with songwriting partners, such as Jim Vallance, Robert “Mutt” Lange and Gretchen Peters. Lastly, he gives good advice to young artists & songwriters who are trying to break into the music business.

Adams has been the recipient of three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song, a Grammy Award, two Golden Globe Awards for Best Original Song, an American Music Award, BMI and ASCAP songwriter awards, two Ivor Novello songwriting awards and many Juno Awards from his native Canada.

Here is the Q&A interview with Bryan Adams:

DK: I really like your new Anthology set. How did you compile and select all of the songs for this package?

Adams: The Anthology was the idea of Richie Gallo at the U.S. record company, Universal. I ended up changing the selection of songs a few times to get something that wasn't just a hits package. It was an interesting project as it pushed me to dig up photos and technical notes from the ‘80s and ‘90s of when songs were written, recorded and mixed and so on - something for the fans that know these songs and would like more detail. Basically, it was a trip down memory lane.

DK: Of your hit songs, which ones are your favorites and why?

Adams: I always get asked this question and I always say I like the songs everyone else likes, but honestly this package is way too small to put all my favorites on. I mean I'm into making my 14th record now, so there are quite a few that I like.

DK: Which of your lesser known songs (on this Anthology) are your
personal favorites?

Bryan Adams performing live.
Adams: I like the songs where vocals really matched the song - things like “Please Forgive Me” and “Why Do You Have To Be So Hard To Love” are good examples of that. A song like “Summer of '69” is of course one of my faves, but it was the most difficult song to record and the biggest example of a song that didn't go to number one, but is known around the world. It was recorded in its entirety three or four times including demos, but it wasn't until I recorded it with a drummer [from a] quasi-punk ska band that the song took on the naive innocence that was required to convey the sexual energy of the song. While we are on the topic, lets clear up a misconception about that song, and that is it has nothing to do with the year 1969 - it's about making love and looking back on growin' up.

DK: You've written with excellent collaborators such as Jim Vallance, Robert “Mutt” Lange and Gretchen Peters. Please describe each writer's strengths, and how you write with them.

Adams: With Jim (Vallance) we crawled from nothing, in a basement full of cat-piss, to write a collection of classic pop songs. It was the best ride of my life. We sat together for days and years until we had written a song. Jim is a fabulous musician, drummer, bass, guitar, keyboards...and an excellent songwriter on top of that. He basically taught me how to work out all the ideas I had collected and was writing, but the thing was we complemented each other somehow and it was like lighting a bonfire, because we wrote something practically every time we got together. Some of it was forgettable...but like mining, every now and then we'd find a gem, and what a gem it would be.

With Mutt (Lange), I always like to say working with him was like going to the university of rock. I learned as much working and becoming friends with Mutt as I did with Jim. He is an absolutely incredible musician and a very accomplished singer, with a sense of rhythm that I presume he got from growing up in South Africa, but more likely it's just him and his way. His songwriting with me was different in the sense that we would sometimes put two or three ideas from different songs together in one song, and then sometimes I would drop a title on him like "the only thing that looks good on me is you" and he'd be off on some sort of riff. Even today when we get together, it's a veritable kitchen sink of ideas until we hone it down to the right thing. I remember once we had written a song called “Not Guilty” and the verse wasn't working, so he put the multi-track recorder in record mode and simply erased the entire verse, guitars, vocals - everything but the drums and looked at me and said, ok, "let's write a new verse.” He taught me not to be precious about an idea, that it was changeable, and you had to be flexible if you want to be unique. He's a musical genius.

The CD cover of Bryan Adam's new Anthology 2-CD set, on A&M/Universal Records.
With Gretchen (Peters) she simply has a poetic gift and that is extremely inspiring. It forces me to think in a more lateral way lyrically - the latest songs are good examples of the power of the words, like "I'm Not The Man You Think I Am.” That was a title I was thinking about after hearing about a film about a con man who impersonates director Stanley Kubrick. I told Gretchen about it and the result is the dark reflective lyric; sometimes I'll go back to an idea we would have started years ago and dump the melody and track and re-write an entirely new song, (something Mutt would approve of) like “Cloud Number Nine” for example. That started out quite differently to how it ended up, and the song transformed again after it was released on the album On A Day Like Today. I remixed it with a dance engineer sometime after release and changed the structure.

I guess the biggest lesson you can ever learn about writing is to
learn to let go, be open to it changing.

DK: You've written and performed great songs for soundtracks. How did you co-write "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," and how did this project come about?

Adams: Writing “Everything I Do” with Mutt took about 45 minutes and it was a moment that I've only felt a few times - it's the moment when you know it's a good song, you don't know if it's a hit, you just know it's good. The track originally started from a long piece of orchestration written by film composer Michael Kamen (who I went on to write many more songs with) and we narrowed the theme down to the little piano intro at the beginning, and then we started writing a top line to it. Next time you check it out, notice the use of counter melodies, where the piano plays one thing and the vocal does another. I used that technique on many of Michael's future piano parts, like on the song "When You Love Someone" which was featured in the film Hope Floats and on my MTV Unplugged album. I've always found it extremely interesting to work with pianists, particularly film composers. They normally hear something in their head that ordinarily would be the melody; it's good to stir it up and drop something else on them. I've done it to loads of other scores, like the Marvin Hamlisch's Mirror Has Two Faces score for Barbara Streisand, which turned into "I Finally Found Someone," or Hans Zimmer's score for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron which turned into the majestic "I Will Always Return.”

Bryan Adams live.
DK: Speaking of Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron, did you enjoy writing & performing for a project which was more family/kids oriented, and would you like to do more projects like this?

Adams: I’d do another one in a second; I'm just waiting for (Dreamworks CEO) Jeffrey Katzenberg to ask me again. Working with him and Hans was extraordinary and exciting. I learned a ton from being around them - in fact I credit Jeffrey for making music exciting for me since the turn of the millennium. He's really an inspiration.

DK: You have a new single, "When You're Gone," with Pamela Anderson. How did you team up with Pamela for this song?

Adams: Well, the song was a huge hit all around the world with the exception of the U.S. back in the ‘90s, so when the idea of the Anthology came up, and with particularly this song, it didn't make sense to have it on the U.S. version unless it had a new angle. So I called Pam and she agreed to do a version, even though she had never sung before. I thought it would be fun as she is such an icon. She's a good sport and actually a good singer, too. I believe she could do an album of country songs or something like that, because her voice has a sort of melancholy to it.

DK:. Are you already writing and recording songs for your next studio album?

Adams: Yes, I was checking out the album on the plane today; it's coming along. I expect it will come out at the end of next year (2006)...God willing!

DK: You also have a new photography book called American Women (which is a collaboration with Calvin Klein). Have you always been into photography?

Bryan Adams
Adams: I suppose I've always been into it on some level. Some of the shots on the inside of the Anthology package are from my old Canon AE-1 camera. American Women is my second book and it was done, like the first one (which was titled Made In Canada), to support breast cancer awareness. Proceeds go to the Sloane Kettering Memorial Hospital in NYC. It came about as I had worked with the head of PR for Calvin Klein on a previous exhibition in London. He called me to NYC to do the project; it was an incredible project.

DK: Lastly, is there any advice you would give to young songwriters and artists who are trying to break into the business?

Adams: Yes there is! Don't sign anything and if you have to - get a good lawyer first. Don't sign anything over to any dodgy managers or production companies, because unless they manage the Rolling Stones you'll get ripped off for sure. If they are good people, they won't ask for your publishing. That's actually a great judge of if they are creeps or not. Remember the most important thing about any song deals: they need you a lot more than you need them.

DK: Bryan, thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview.

Adams: It was fun!

Early Life

2006-05-24T02:31:00.000-07:00

Aged around 15, Bryan had been in garageband Shock and was living in Vancouver. He was often driven by his mother to gigs and appointments. He frequently used to show up at other peoples gigs wanting to sing and jam with them! This must have been something that would get on some people's nerves. But his 'obnoxious' behaviour at the time is probably why he made it, though.

Sweeney Todd was a "glam" or "glitz" rock band on the Vancouver scene at the time. They had released one album. The band was founded by singer Nick Gilder and guitarist Jim MacCullough. In 1976 they both left for L.A. to work on a solo album for Gilder, and Bryan managed to become the replacement for Gilder.

At first, however, Sweeney Todd "signed" up a guy name Clark Perry for the job, but he didn't really fit in all that well with the other band members, and Sweeney Todd's new guitarist Skip Priest had his eyes on Bryan, whom he had noticed while doing some work together with another local band called Slan. Consequently Bryan started to hang around Sweeney Todd, eventually was tested and got the job at the expense of Perry (who actually was with ST for about nine months).

The single "Roxy Roller" sometime in '76 started to receive quite an amount of airplay in Canada. By this time, Sweeney Todd already was "broken up" or "almost broken-up" - meaning that Gilder and McCullough were leaving the group. "Roxy Roller" however ended up receiving a Juno Award for 'Single of the Year' in Canada. The single was, of course, in its original version sung by Gilder, but a version with Bryan as lead singer was also made (as well as one with Perry), being his very first record-release.

In the US, Bryan's version was released shortly after Gilder's version, confusing radio list programmers. They both hit the hot 100 shortly after another. Bryan's version spent one week at #99. Check discography for a little more info about "Roxy".

In 1977 a full-length album; "If Wishes Were Horses", which does not feature Bryan's version of "Roxy", was released. Sweeney Todd, however, never came close to such a huge hit again (Roxy was their only hit single), and after their manager suddenly died in a heart attack, they split up. Bryan has said that his career in Sweeney Todd made him realize he needed to do his own material. He had been out on the road with Sweeney Todd playing clubs, but now decided to stop playing gigs until he "had enough own material to put something more original together"

At age 17, he accidently met Jim Vallance in a Vancouver music -store called Long & McQuade. They both happened to be there at the same time, looking at guitars. Bryan and the classicaly trained Vallance, (who also was the drummer in the quite succesful Vancouver rock band "Prism", soon found they were compatible with each other, and started a long-lasting and very successful song-writing partnership. In fact they started to write music together the very day they met. The first song they wrote was Bryan's first solo single; "Let me Take You Dancing". Some of their other early songs were soon being covered by other artists.

Bryan of course needed assistance from someoone who knew the business, and it is told that Bryan just went to the prominent Vancouver-based manager Bruce Allen saying: "I'm your man". At first Bruce, who was managing Bachman-Turner-Overdrive and Loverboy didn't want anything at all to do with him! Bryan did manage to be signed to the record company A&M as a writer, after they'd heard some of his and Jim's material - but only for the nominal payment of one dollar. His first solo single - disco (!) song "Let Me Take You Dancing" acheived limited success in Canada, and became a hit record, especially in New York where it climbed the disco charts. I have information that it ended up selling 250.000 copies worldwide, most of which was in the US. However it did not enter the Billboard Hot 100. It peaked at #62 in the canadian magazine RPM, which had a combined airplay/sales chart. I have information that indicates that it's most succesful province in Canada was British Columbia. The success of "Dancing" also resulted that Bryan now (Dec. '79) could sign an agreement with Bruce Allen - who still is his manager. A "funny" thing about "Dancing" is that Bryan could never sing the song live in the same key as the studio recording, since A&M had speeded it up to make his voice sound less gravelly and deep. If you have heard the song, you now know why Bryan's voice is so 'light'. Guess he had to adjust, after all this was when disco was big...

The year after (1980), his self-titled debut album came out (with no disco songs included). Two singles were released from it; "Hidin' From Love" and "Give Me Your Love". Both singles did reach positions in the lower region of the RPM, but the album was not succesful, which is why Bryan originally wanted to call the next album "Bryan Adams Hasn't Heard Of You Either". That name was however abandonded for "You Want It You Got It", which was released in early 1981. Like "Bryan Adams" (or 'The Purple Album'), it was not succesful at first, but Bryan kept touring vigoursely hoping something would happen. Finally in late '81 or early '82 some "key guys from upstate New York" (radio stations), to use Bryan's own quote, saw a gig in Toronto, and liked what they saw. They started to play songs from "You Want It", which lead to the songs getting played on other stations, first in the rest of New York state, then across the country in the US, and finally in Canada. "Lonely Nights" spent two weeks in the hot 100 in March '82, peaking at #84, but went as high as to #3 on the genre chart Album Rock Tracks.
Still Bryan wasn't exactly a major star, but had made a name for him among programmers. Then the album; "Cuts Like A Knife" was released a year later the title track climbed the singles chart in Canada, peaking at #15 at the same time as "Straight From The Heart" paved it's way up to #10 in the US. The rest , as they say , is history.

Interview

2006-05-24T02:27:00.000-07:00

Cat Piss, Big Hits & Pamela Anderson
An Interview with Bryan Adams
By Jeb Wright, May 2006
Bryan Adams is a true hit maker – both for his own career and for dozens of other artists as diverse as Pat Benetar, Kiss, Joe Cocker and 38 Special. For years he toiled around in a basement that smelled of cat urine banging out songs with his writing partner Jim Vallance. Eventually, both artists began making records; Adams went on to have an amazing solo career and Vallance recorded with the band Prism. Adams turned out to be the most prolific and popular. His third US release, Cuts Like a Knife, put him on the road to success and he has never looked back. Now, after having a slew of Top 20 hits, # 1 singles, # 1 albums and trophy room filled with Grammy’s and other awards, Universal Music has released the most comprehensive collection of Adam’s career titled simply, Anthology.
Bryan has often been perceived as the ‘nice guy who lives next door’ type but the meaning to the song “Summer of ‘69", and the new duet with blond bombshell Pam Anderson, should go a long way in tarnishing his nice guy image. Before we know it, Bryan may change his attitude and became a manic, flying around backstage in a golf cart running over music journalists without feeling so much as a twinge of guilt.
Read on – it will all make sense by the end of the interview!
Jeb: Anthology is a great album that showcases your entire career and has all the goodies and extras that your most loyal fans want. You had done other ‘hits’ records so why did you agree to another one?Bryan: It wasn't my idea to put this out; it came from the US division of Universal records. I went along with it as it was supposed to be for the US only. It's out everywhere now, which is fine. The thing is, it's the best collection I've put out by a long shot. It has twice the music and for that reason, I'm happy about it.Jeb: The DVD that comes with the limited edition version of the CD confused the hell out of me. I thought you were 100% Canuck yet in concert there are signs everywhere that say “Welcome Home Bryan.” Explain how a man can actually be from two countries.Bryan: The DVD was shot in Portugal, where I lived for five years as a youngster. We chose Lisbon because we have such a great following in Portugal and the venue is perfect. Plus, Live in Lisbon sounds great.Jeb: I have heard that Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams wrote songs in a basement where a cat often pissed. Why didn’t someone just change the litter box?
Bryan: Litter boxes didn't matter to that cat. He was on a mission to piss on everything he could. Half of our writing sessions were spent chasing down what he had pissed on that day – then we'd write a song.
Jeb: You have written many songs for many artists. Was this the plan or was writing for others just a way to keep money coming in until you could make it yourself?
Bryan: It was just the way I got started. I didn't have a deal in the beginning, so we needed an outlet to keep ourselves inspired. Nine times out of ten, we were lucky to get the cover but believe me when i say that it was just us mucking about. We never believed we'd get the job done. It was mostly thanks to various producers that liked what we were doing at the time. Sometimes songs would get written for someone else and I'd tell Jim that I was keeping them for my album.
Jeb: “Cuts Like a Knife” is a great pop song that touched the nerve of the times. How satisfying was it to finally have your name on the ticket instead of someone you wrote songs for?
Bryan: Cuts Like A Knife was my third album in the US and it was a huge relief to see that all the touring we had done previous to its release had actually amounted to something. I didn't make any money from that album, believe it or not. It was a platinum album as well, but my deal was so bad...
Jeb: MTV embraced you early on. Whose idea was the swimming pool? Who was the girl? Basically, what was the shoot like?
Bryan: It was shot in LA and was the idea of an English director named Steve Barron. The girl was a model and she ended up being dated by a handsome record company exec. I'm not sure what happened to her. Her name was Rachel, I think.
Jeb: I understand you moved many times as a child due to your Father’s occupation. Was it tough growing up on the move or do you think it helped you with the lifestyle of being a musician?
Bryan: I loved moving around. I suppose it was good practice for the future, but moving between countries also taught me lots about culture and getting along without speaking the language. It gave me a broader sense of the world. I can remember telling my manager that I wanted to play in Europe on the Cuts Like A Knife album; he actually fought me on it. We laugh about it now.
Jeb: Did your family accept you as a musician?
Bryan: My mother was great about it but really she had no choice. I was like a rabbit on a carrot when it came to music. I was determined to get out of the shitty situation of being in school and not being interested in the work we were being taught. Well, there was my French teacher, who was amazing, and my Electronic Music class but they were the exception – by far.
Jeb: Tell me about your first band called Shock.
Bryan: There's nothing to tell, we were shocking – shockingly bad.
Jeb: “Let Me Take You Dancing” was disco. Is this the crowning jewel of embarrassment in your song writing career?
Bryan: No, it was a demo that the record company re-mixed and put out in 1978. I had nothing to do with it other than the demo. I remember panicking when I heard how much it had been sped up – it didn't sound like me. It was a good lesson to learn. I never let them, or anyone else, mess with my recordings again.
Jeb: The song “Heaven” was in the movie A Night in Heaven. The song was a hit out of the box but you held it back as a single. What made you so smart to know it should wait to be a single until your album was released? The song ended up being a # 1 hit, if I am not mistaken.
Bryan: You are right. I don't know why – things were different then. Maybe after the earlier experiences of messing with my tunes, they decided to leave me alone! There was a genuine ground swell of interest in the records we were making back then.
Jeb: You are credited with three Kiss songs from 1982. Gene Simmons is also on the credits. Did Gene do anything or was that part of the deal?
Bryan: Basically, he wanted his name on the credits, otherwise the songs wouldn't go on the record. I remember Jim and I looking at each other when Gene was on the phone saying he liked our songs but they needed another verse or something. The thing was that the songs were done. Such was life as a songwriter back then – actually it’s still like that but thankfully not for me.
Jeb: I saw you open for Journey on the Cuts Like a Knife tour. Journey was suffering from the Perry vs The Rest of the Band Syndrome. Any good dirt on them?
Bryan: No dirt on them. They were all cool and I remember visiting Steve, once in awhile, in his private trailer. He was a nice guy and a really great singer. I loved that tour. I truly owe that band and their management for helping to break us in the US. I'm very grateful to them.
Jeb: Seriously, you blew them off the stage and it became clear to me at that moment that you were more than a pop star – you were the ‘real thing.’ How did the early success pave the way for later success?
Bryan: I don't know about that, they had loads of hits and we were nothing. I can remember getting a response for a couple of songs and thinking, “That's better than the last tour we did.” It was the beginning of the right time for us.
Jeb: Reckless was the first masterpiece. Going into the studio were the songs already written?
Bryan: Some songs were tried out on the road when I toured with The Police. Jim played drums on that tour and we had a great time. Other than that, every song was prepared before we went into the studio. In those days, I used to do a whole album in about six weeks and spend a year with Jim writing it. “Summer of '69" was recorded three times in its entirety; it was a tough one to crack.
Jeb: How did the Tina Turner duet come to be?
Bryan: I'm quite simply a fan of Tina, so it was just an idea to see if she'd sing a duet. It's like the saying 'be careful for what you wish for.’ She was just about to make her comeback with Private Dancer. Her producer had recorded some of my songs for other artists and was my first connection to her -- then came management. One day she just happened to be playing in Vancouver, where we were recording. It was the last week of studio time and Tina was the opening act for Lionel Ritchie. I went back to meet her and she came running out saying "Where is he? I wanna meet Bryan." We recorded the next day.
Jeb: You got a lot of shit about being too young to be the correct age for the song “Summer of ’69.” Were you surprised the general public didn’t get the sexual innuendo?
Bryan: I love when people ask me how old I was. I always have to explain what the song is about. It happened recently in a radio station in the US. I explained to the woman DJ what the song was about and she went white. I heard the programmer for the station behind her say in a whisper "I guess we won't be playing that song again!"
Jeb: You got to open the US side of the Live Aid concert. What was the vibe and was it a dream to be around all of those artists?
Bryan: Here's what I remember: I was introduced to the world by Jack Nicholson and then I was on a plane 30 minutes later to another show in Ohio – that's the long and short of it.
Jeb: Even after you were famous, you penned some songs that sold in great numbers. “Teacher, Teacher” and “Back to Paradise” were huge hits for 38 Special and “When the Night Comes” is a classic Joe Cocker track. How was it different writing for other artists once you made it?
Bryan: I was just trying to pay my rent. Whenever one of my mates who was involved in making a record would call, Jim and I would knuckle down and get the job done. We did it over and over again; it was incredible. Had we not had so much pressure on us after Reckless, I'm sure we could have continued -- if we'd read the manual on what to do when you make it. Sadly, there's no such manual.
Jeb: By the end of the 80’s, most of your contemporaries were drying up and fading away. You actually had your biggest hit in the 90’s when Grunge was ruining the careers of rock musicians. Was this dumb luck or a genius plan?
Bryan: I hadn't allowed my songs to promote a film until the 90's. I think holding off helped in the 90's. So, I suppose it was calculated on my part but I had a feeling that films were the wrong sort of exposure for me in the beginning – even though I loved doing them and still do.
Jeb: Why did you and Jim split up towards the end of the 80’s?
Bryan: It was difficult to handle how huge things had become and after so much work together it was time to try different things.
Jeb: As successful as you were with Jim, was it a trade up to work with Mutt Lange?
Bryan: We had a lot of covers – I'm not sure how many were actual hits. Nevertheless, working with Mutt came at the right time. We were both looking for something different and it worked instantly. I think we wrote three songs in a week – it was very exciting.
Jeb: How did you meet Mutt and were you nervous to work with him?
Bryan: I went out of my way to meet him in London in 1987 and had asked him to produce Into the Fire but he was busy. We stayed friends and the time came two years later, in 1989, when we wrote our first songs together.
Jeb: The year is 1987 and you are chosen to headline The Prince’s Trust Fund Charity Concert. You played, not one, not two but three Beatles songs with Ringo, George and Paul. Describe what was going on in your mind? I think even Eric Clapton was on stage.
Bryan: Yes, they were all there. I only remember one song, "I Saw Her Standing There." The mic was open and I went and sang harmony. I didn't sleep for three days afterwards.
Jeb: Was there a band meal or an after party?
Bryan: Everyone went home afterwards as far as I remember.
Jeb: I met you in Oklahoma City right after you had just come off stage. You came around the corner of the tunnel in a golf cart and almost ran me over. You could have ignored me but you stopped and make sure I was okay. How are we supposed to get the dirt on you if you are a nice guy? Why no ego if you have fame, admiration, respect and a boat load of money?
Bryan: You're right, I should have run you down.
Jeb: What color clothes will you and the band be wearing this summer? The last couple of times out it was all black and then all white. I suggest we go with stripes or perhaps corduroy.
Bryan: I predict it's all about prison wear this season. I'm seeing a faded blue denim sort of Alcatraz cut – with a boot cut pant leg.
Jeb: Last one: On Anthology, you feature a duet with Pam Anderson. Now, Tommy Lee, Bret Michaels and Kid Rock all seem to have sex videos with this goddess of a woman. Instead of that, you just made her sing. What’s up with that?
Bryan: What the hell? She's fantastic to have done it. It's amazing what you can achieve with half a bottle of champagne and a good attitude. Prior to this version, the song had never been released in America. So, I thought it would be good to try something different.

BA Biography

2006-05-24T01:56:00.000-07:00

From the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s, Canadian singer/songwriter and guitarist Bryan Adams was one of the most successful recording artists in popular music worldwide. Usually dressed in blue jeans, sneakers, and white T-shirts, the energetic performer stalked stages around the globe, electric guitar in hand, singing his own up-tempo pop/rock songs and ballads before audiences numbering in the tens of thousands. He released a series of multi-platinum albums containing chart-topping singles featured in popular motion pictures. His raspy voice, simple compositions, and straightforward musical approach earned him early critical approbation as a likable if unoriginal rock & roll journeyman, but as he began to become massively popular, reviewers increasingly pointed out the clichés in his lyrics and the derivative nature of his music, especially as he softened his style in the early '90s for his hit movie theme songs. By the end of the '90s, his record sales had fallen precipitously and he had become largely identified with his movie work, though he continued to tour extensively, playing his many hits.
Adams was born Bryan Guy Adams on November 5, 1959, in Kingston, Ontario. (His middle name referred to Guy Fawkes, the British conspirator executed for an attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605, resulting in the observation of Guy Fawkes Day in England each November 5.) Adams' parents were British émigrés; his father, Conrad J. Adams, was a military diplomat, his mother, Elizabeth Jane Adams, had been a schoolteacher and librarian. His father's occupation caused the family to move extensively during Adams' childhood. They relocated to Ottawa when he was six, then his father began to get overseas postings, first in Vienna and next Portugal, where the family lived from 1967 to 1971. By his early adolescence, Adams had begun to show an interest in music, playing drums before taking up the guitar. From Portugal, the family briefly moved back to Ottawa, and then went to Tel Aviv. Adams had been expected to enroll at Sandhurst, a military academy in England both his father and grandfather had attended, but he refused. In the mid-'70s, his parents separated, and he returned to Ottawa with his mother and younger brother before settling permanently in Vancouver. While attending high school, he increasingly spent his time auditioning for rock bands, gaining greater success when he tried out as a singer rather than as a guitarist. By the age of 16, he was fronting a local band called Shock. In the summer of 1976, he successfully auditioned to become the new lead singer of Sweeney Todd, a glam rock band that had just scored a Canadian hit with "Roxy Roller," but had lost its vocalist, Nick Gilder. With that, Adams dropped out of school. His first assignment with the band was to record a new vocal over the instrumental tracks of "Roxy Roller" for a reissue of the single on London Records. On September 18, 1976, this single entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 99, Adams' first chart placing in the U.S. He toured with Sweeney Todd and appeared on the band's second album, If Wishes Were Horses, released in August 1977 and featuring three of his co-compositions, "Until I Find You," "Pushin' and Shovin'" (both written with bassist Budd Marr), and "Song for a Star" (written with keyboardist Dan Gaudin). Adams quit Sweeney Todd in December 1977.
In January 1978, Adams met Jim Vallance. Seven years Adams' senior, Vallance had been the drummer in the successful Canadian band Prism and had written most of the songs for their self-titled debut album under the pseudonym Rodney Higgs. But, finding that he disliked touring, he had left the band and was trying to develop a career as a songwriter and producer. He and Adams agreed to form a partnership in which they would co-write songs and he would produce demo tapes of them, on which Adams would sing. (It has been extensively reported, repeated in one rock encyclopedia after another, that they sold songs to a variety of established artists prior to the launch of Adams' own recording career. This is not true. In fact, the songwriters did place songs with many artists, but most of the recordings took place well after Adams started making records himself.) Utilizing Vallance's connections, they began sending those demos to Canadian music publishing companies, and in August 1978 they were signed to a songwriting and production deal with Irving-Almo Music, the publishing arm of A&M Records. Adams, meanwhile, was negotiating with RCA Victor Records for a separate recording contract, but when A&M got wind of that, they quickly signed him as an artist as well. In February 1979, A&M released his first single, the Adams/Vallance composition "Let Me Take You Dancing," a disco song he later disavowed, particularly the 12" single remix version. It spent 23 weeks in the Billboard dance chart, peaking at number 22, with a reported worldwide sale of 240,000 copies. March 1979 saw the release of Rock n' Roll Nights by BTO (formerly Bachman-Turner Overdrive), which Vallance had produced and on which he had placed several songs. Also included was "Wastin' Time," a song that had been credited to Sweeney Todd guitarist Skip Prest and the band's manager/producer Martin Shaer when it appeared on If Wishes Were Horses, but which here was credited to Bryan Adams as songwriter. Next, Adams and Vallance placed songs on the third Prism album, Armageddon, with "Rodney Higgs" and Adams credited on "Take It or Leave It," Adams collaborating with Prism guitarist Lindsay Mitchell on "Jealousy" (later recorded for Adams' second album), and Adams writing "You Walked Away Again" alone. Adams and Vallance also placed "I'm Ready" on the 1979 album Goose Bumps by former Stories singer Ian Lloyd. (Adams would record his own version of the song on his third album.)
Meanwhile, Adams was working on his debut LP, and Bryan Adams was released on February 12, 1980. The album was not released initially in the U.S., although "Hiding from Love" (written by Adams and folksinger Eric Kagna) was issued as a single and reached number 43 in the dance chart. Ian Lloyd's next release, 1980's 3WC (Third Wave Civilization), featured two Adams/Vallance songs that Adams later would reclaim for his own albums, "Lonely Nights" and "Straight from the Heart." In May 1980, Adams assembled a backup band and embarked on his first tour as a solo act, spending four months playing clubs and colleges in Canada. Then, he went to work on his second album, You Want It, You Got It, which A&M released in mid-1981. The album was Adams' first to come out in the U.S. He toured North America for six months starting in October, earning opening spots with the Kinks and Foreigner. The album broke into the Billboard chart in January 1982, peaking at number 118 in 13 weeks, while Adams' version of "Lonely Nights" hit number three in the mainstream rock chart and became his first solo Hot 100 entry at number 84.
As songwriters, Adams and Vallance continued to place their extra material with other artists. "Jump," written by Adams and bandmember Paul Dean, was featured on Loverboy's quadruple-platinum album Get Lucky, released in October 1981. And in January 1982, Prism's fourth album, Small Change, featured the Adams/Vallance compositions "Don't Let Him Know" and "Stay," the former becoming a number one hit on the mainstream rock chart and a Top 40 hit on the Hot 100. Adams toured Canada opening for Loverboy in the spring of 1982, then began work on his third album. His next notable credit, however, came when his, Vallance's, and bandmember Gene Simmons' "War Machine" was featured on Kiss' Creatures of the Night in October 1982. His own album, Cuts Like a Knife, was ready by the end of the year, and A&M prefaced it with his version of "Straight from the Heart," released as a single in December. It broke his career open, peaking in the Top Ten of the Hot 100 and setting up the LP, which followed in January 1983 and eventually reached the Top Ten and went platinum, spawning further Top 40 hits in the title song and "This Time." The album's success was stimulated by Adams' extensive touring in support of it, which began in Canada in January and February and continued from March to August in the U.S., where he opened for Journey, with a six-week tour of Europe in the fall and dates in Japan in November, followed by another round of shows in Canada. In total, he spent 283 days on the road in 1983.
Meanwhile, Adams and Vallance had accepted an offer to write their first song for the movies, and November 1983 saw the opening of A Night in Heaven and the release of its soundtrack album, featuring their song "Heaven," which Adams performed. The track made the Top Ten of the mainstream rock chart in early 1984, but Adams declined to release it as a single just then. Instead, he held it back for his next album, which he and Vallance began writing after he completed a tour of the Far East in March 1984. As usual, the products of their writing sessions began to turn up on other albums before Adams himself re-emerged. "Can't Wait All Night" was the title song of Juice Newton's June 1984 album and became a singles chart entry. "Boys Nite Out" (co-credited to bandmembers Marc Storace and Fernando Von Arb) was featured on The Blitz, an album by Krokus, released in August 1984. The following month saw the opening of the film Teachers, the soundtrack to which included two Adams/Vallance songs, "Teacher, Teacher," which became a Top 40 hit for .38 Special, and "Edge of a Dream," a singles chart entry for Joe Cocker. Adams' fourth album, Reckless, was released on his 25th birthday, November 5, 1984, preceded by the single "Run to You," which reached the Top Ten. It was followed by no less than five Top 20 singles drawn from the album: "Somebody," "Heaven" (which hit number one), "Summer of '69" (Top Ten), "One Night Love Affair," and a duet with Tina Turner, "It's Only Love." The LP, which hit number one in the U.S. on August 10, 1985, sold five million copies in America and a reported three million more in the rest of the world. (Adams also earned his first two Grammy nominations, best male rock performance for the album as a whole, and best rock performance by a duo or group for "It's Only Love.") As usual, Adams toured extensively to support it, his World Wide in '85 tour launching in late December and continuing through November 1, 1985. He found time early on to co-write (with Vallance and David Foster) "Tears Are Not Enough," Canada's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World," as a charity song for Ethiopian starvation relief, which was recorded by the all-star group of Canadian artists Northern Lights and became a number one hit in Canada, later included on the We Are the World LP. He also opened the American side of the Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985.
Adams' success made him and Vallance, if anything, even more appealing to other artists as songwriters. In August 1985, Loverboy featured another of their compositions, "Dangerous," on the Lovin' Every Minute of It album. The song was later released as a single and reached the Hot 100. In September, Roger Daltrey included two Adams/Vallance songs, "Rebel" and "Let Me Down Easy," on his album Under a Raging Moon, and "Let Me Down Easy" also became a chart single. (The songwriters reworked "Rebel" for the next Adams album.) Adams was also in demand as a guest performer on records. Vallance was producing the Canadian group Glass Tiger, and Adams came in to sing a duet vocal on their song "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)."
It hit number one in Canada in February 1986 and number two in the U.S. eight months later. In April, Adams and Vallance's song "No Way to Treat a Lady" appeared on Bonnie Tyler's album Secret Dreams & Forbidden Fire. (Tyler had covered "Straight from the Heart" on her platinum 1983 album Faster Than the Speed of Night. Four months later, Bonnie Raitt also sang "No Way to Treat a Lady" on her Nine Lives album.) In May 1986, Adams and Vallance's song "It Should Have Been Me" was included on Neil Diamond's album Headed for the Future. (The following year, it was covered by Carly Simon on her album Coming Around Again, with Adams producing.) In June, Adams participated in six stadium concerts as benefits for Amnesty International. In September, the songwriters contributed "Back Where You Started" to the Tina Turner album Break Every Rule.
Into the Fire, the fifth Bryan Adams album, was released in March 1987, prefaced by the single "Heat of the Night," which became Adams' fifth Top Ten hit in the U.S. The album also spawned the Top 40 hits "Hearts on Fire" and "Victim of Love," but its success fell far short of that enjoyed by Reckless. Nevertheless, Into the Fire reached the Top Ten in the U.S. and sold a million copies, with another million sold overseas. Adams' worldwide tour in support of the album went on for more than a year, starting in May 1987 and continuing until July 1988. (One of the final shows, in Werchter, Belgium, was filmed for a television special, Bryan Adams: Live in Belgium, broadcast on television in Canada January 15, 1989.) Meanwhile, as usual, there were songs for other artists. Adams and Vallance's "Back to Paradise," co-written by Pat Benatar and performed by .38 Special, was used in the film Revenge of the Nerds II in the summer of 1987 and became a singles chart entry, and in August Adams' co-composition "Hometown Hero" appeared on Loverboy's Wildside LP.
After finishing his tour in support of Into the Fire, Adams became involved in the Clint Eastwood movie Pink Cadillac, taking a bit part in the film and, with Vallance, co-writing "Drive All Night," which Dion sang on the soundtrack, released in May 1989. Adams, Vallance, and Diane Warren also wrote "When the Night Comes," which was featured on Joe Cocker's album One Night of Sin in August 1989 and, when released as a single, reached the Top 20. Unfortunately, this was one of Adams and Vallance's final collaborations. They broke up their songwriting partnership in August 1989. Adams teamed up with writer/producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, previously known for his work with AC/DC, Foreigner, and Def Leppard, to write songs for his next album. In December 1989, Live! Live! Live!, a concert album drawn from the 1988 Belgium show, was released only in Japan (it later gained release elsewhere), and Adams did a couple of New Year's shows in Japan to promote it. He also played occasional other special shows or festivals in 1990 (including Roger Waters' all-star performance of The Wall in Berlin in July 1990), but spent much of his time in England with Lange working on his sixth album.
In 1991, Adams was approached by the producers of the upcoming Kevin Costner film, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and asked to work on a theme song. He was provided a melody written by the composer of the movie's score, Michael Kamen. With this, he and Lange fashioned "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," which he also recorded and which played under the closing credits of the film when it opened on June 14, 1991. Meanwhile, although he was still putting the finishing touches on his album, he had committed to begin a concert tour in support of it, and on June 8, 1991, he had gone back on the road in Europe co-headlining with ZZ Top. Released as a single, "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" became a massive hit. It topped the U.S. charts for seven weeks, the longest any song had remained at number one for eight years, and it went triple platinum. Its international success was even greater; it spent 16 weeks at number one in the U.K., making it the longest-running chart-topper of the rock era there. Total worldwide sales came to eight million copies, more than any single since "We Are the World."
Adams finally finished his sixth album, Waking Up the Neighbours, and released it on September 24, 1991, supporting it with his Waking Up the World tour, which ran through July 1993. Also featuring the Top Ten hit "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" and three other Top 40 hits, "There Will Never Be Another Tonight," "Do I Have to Say the Words?" (both co-written by Adams, Lange, and Vallance), and "Thought I'd Died and Gone to Heaven" (plus, of course, "[Everything I Do] I Do It for You"), the album sold four million copies in the U.S. and another six million in the rest of the world. It also earned Adams six Grammy nominations: record of the year, song of the year, best pop vocal performance (male), and best song written specifically for a motion picture or TV, all for "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," and best rock vocal performance solo and best rock song for "Can't Stop This Thing We Started." "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" was also nominated for an Academy Award. (Adams' only victory was the Grammy for movie song. In the peculiar ways of the Grammys, there was also another nomination the following year for best rock male vocalist for "There Will Never Be Another Tonight.")
As he began to look forward to his next album, Adams as usual placed songs with other artists. "Feels Like Forever," co-written with Diane Warren, appeared on Joe Cocker's Night Calls album in July 1992, and "Why Must We Wait Until Tonight?," co-written with Lange, was sung by Tina Turner on the soundtrack to her film biography, What's Love Got to Do With It, in June 1993, later becoming a singles chart entry. Adams released a hits compilation, So Far So Good, in November 1993. It was a multi-platinum success, and "Please Forgive Me," a new Adams/Lange track on it, reached the Top Ten. Within weeks came Adams' theme song for the movie The Three Musketeers, "All for Love" (co-written with Lange and Michael Kamen), recorded with Rod Stewart and Sting, which hit number one in the U.S. on January 22, 1994. The same month, Adams embarked on an ambitious tour of the Far East, including countries rarely visited by a Western pop artist, among them Vietnam.
Adams maintained a low profile through 1994 and the beginning of 1995 as, once again, he and Lange painstakingly crafted a new album. He re-emerged in the spring of 1995, however, with another romantic ballad written as the theme song for a film, the flamenco-tinged "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" (once again co-written with Lange and Kamen) from the Johnny Depp/Marlon Brando film Don Juan DeMarco. And he was rewarded with another number one hit on June 3, 1995, as well as a Grammy nomination for best male pop vocal performance and another Oscar nomination for best song. In the fall, he contributed "Rock Steady" (co-written with Gretchen Peters) to Bonnie Raitt's live album Road Tested, performing the song as a duet with her, and the two shared a chart single with the song. These successes were enough to hold his fans until May 1996, when he finally delivered his seventh new studio album, 18 'Til I Die, and launched an 18-month world tour to promote it. Although it went platinum in the U.S., the album performed disappointingly, missing the Top Ten and spawning only one Top 40 hit, Adams and Lange's "Let's Make a Night to Remember." Happily, Adams had another successful duet up his sleeve, as he and Barbra Streisand combined in the fall of 1996 on "I Finally Found Someone" (written by Adams, Lange, Streisand, and Marvin Hamlisch), the theme from her film The Mirror Has Two Faces, which became a Top Ten hit and earned him his third Oscar nomination.
Adams' next hit was something of a surprise, since it found him in the realm of country music. Lonestar released his and Lange's "You Walked In" on its Crazy Nights album in June 1997, and the song went on to become a Top 20 country hit and pop singles chart entry. Less surprising was his penning (with Jean-Jacques Goldman and Eliot Kennedy) of the title song for Celine Dion's November 1997 album Let's Talk About Love, which went on to top the charts and sell ten million copies in the U.S. Meanwhile, having finished up his tour, Adams filmed an appearance for MTV's popular Unplugged series on September 26, 1997, and it was released as an album in December. It was only a modest success, but served as a stopgap until the appearance of his next studio album, On a Day Like Today, which was released in October 1998. On this album, Adams changed gears, abandoning Lange in favor of several songwriting collaborators, the most prominent of whom was Gretchen Peters, and completely eschewing ballads in an attempt to reestablish himself as a rocker. In the U.S., the result was a failure, as the album spent only two weeks in the charts, peaking at number 102. Overseas, the disc fared better, with a number 11 showing in the U.K., where "When You're Gone" (co-written with Eliot Kennedy), a duet with Melanie C. of the Spice Girls, was a Top Ten hit. The album also hit number three in Canada. In June 1999, Bryan White reached the country charts with his cover of "You're Still Beautiful to Me," an Adams/Lange song that first appeared on 18 'Til I Die, and it made the country Top 40. Adams next issued a second hits compilation, The Best of Me, in November 1999. (The American branch of A&M initially declined to release it.) The previously unissued title song (co-written with Lange) charted in Great Britain.
Adams was absent from the American charts for more than a year, then surprisingly returned via the dance charts for the first time in two decades. His vocals were heard on Chicane's "Don't Give Up," which was a number three dance hit in the spring of 2000. Adams himself, meanwhile, was collaborating with Hans Zimmer on his first full-length song score for a film, the animated DreamWorks feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which appeared in the spring of 2002, its soundtrack making the Top 40, as the emphasis track "Here I Am," featuring Adams, peaked at number five in the adult contemporary chart. Also in 2002, a dance music version of Adams and Vallance's "Heaven," recorded by DJ Sammy & Yanou Featuring Do, spent nine weeks at the top of Billboard's maxi-singles sales chart, emphasizing Adams' continuing success as a songwriter. (Artists across an amazingly broad range have recorded Adams' compositions; in addition to those previously mentioned, they include Acker Bilk, Brandy, Laura Branigan, Eric Carmen, Richard Clayderman, Billy Ray Cyrus, Johnny Hallyday, Lisa Hartman, Highway 101, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jack Jones, the Law, Henry Mancini, Randy Meisner, Lorrie Morgan, Anne Murray, Luciano Pavarotti, the Rovers, Neal Schon, John Tesh, Uriah Heep, Bob Welch, Roger Whittaker, John Williams, Trisha Yearwood, and Zamfir.)