BRYAN ADAMS

Bryan Guy Adams, OC, OBC (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 18 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also had 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television in 1992. He has also won MTV, ASCAP, and American Music awards. In addition, he has won two Ivor Novello Awards for song composition and has been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards and three times forAcademy Awards for his songwriting for films. Bryan Adams has sold nearly 70 million albums worldwide.

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

Adams was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998, and in April 2006 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards. In 2008, Bryan was ranked 38 on the list of All-Time top artists by the Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts. On 13 January 2010, he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his part in numerous charitable concerts and campaigns during his career, and on 1 May 2010 was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his 30 years of contributions to the arts.

Adams was born in Kingston, Canada, to English parents. From his grandmother he also inherited a Maltese ancestry. As Adams's father was a diplomat, he grew up traveling around the world with his parents. Subsequently, most of his youth was spent growing up in his parents' native England, Israel, Portugal, and Austria, part of the time in Cascais, Portugal, situated close to Lisbon, where he attended St Julians School. In 1973, Adams's family returned to Canada and momentarily settled down in Vancouver, British Columbia. He washed dishes, sold pet food, and worked in record stores, and at the age of 15, Adams quit school to play in nightclubs with bands like Shock and Sweeney Todd, who released an album called If Wishes Were Horses with the fifteen year old Adams as lead singer.

In 1978, at the age of 18, Adams sent a few demo recordings to A&M Records in Toronto. Not long afterwards he signed with them for the sum of one dollar. Some of the first demos written in 1978 have surfaced over the years, most notably "I'm Ready" (recorded for both the album Cuts Like a Knife and later his release for MTV Unplugged) and "Remember," which was recorded on his first album. Both songs were covered by other artists even before his first album was released. Also recorded during this time was Adams's first single, "Let Me Take You Dancing," which made the Canadian RPM chart in March 1979 (the b-side was entitled "Don't Turn Me Away").

The Adams/Vallance partnership wrote songs for many other artists notably Kiss, Prism, Bonnie Raitt, Rod Stewart,  Neil Diamond, Joe Cocker, Carly Simon, and Loverboy to name a few.