Bryan Adams

Adams is ranked 48th on the list of all-time top artists on the Billboard Hot 100.

Adams has won 20 Juno Awards and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media amongst 16 Grammy nominations, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and three Academy Awards for his songwriting for films.

Adams has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame, the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Bryan Guy Adams (born November 5, 1959) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and photographer.

He is estimated to have sold between 75 million and more than 100 million records and singles worldwide, placing him on the list of best-selling music artists.

Bryan Guy Adams was born on November 5, 1959, in Kingston, Ontario, the son of Elizabeth Jane (née Watson) and Conrad J. Adams, an English couple who emigrated to Canada from Plymouth, South West England in the 1950s.

One of his grandmothers and his great-grandmother was from Floriana, Malta.

His father, an officer from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the British Army, joined the Canadian Army and later worked as a United Nations peacekeeping observer and Canadian foreign service diplomat.

Adams travelled with his parents to diplomatic postings in Lisbon, where he attended the Carlucci American International School of Lisbon, and Vienna, where he attended the American International School Vienna, in the 1960s, and to Tel Aviv in the early 1970s.

Raised in Ottawa, he attended Colonel By Secondary School in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood of Ottawa.

"Before that, I had an imitation Strat which I bought in Reading, England in 1970.

It felt real at the time to have a Les Paul, even though I'm a massive Ritchie Blackmore fan - still am.

I was heavily into Humble Pie's Rockin' the Fillmore album at the time, and both Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott were on Les Pauls.

It's rock guitar heaven, that album." He left school to play in a group called "Shock" and used the funds his parents had saved for his college education to buy an Estey grand piano to tinker with. At one point he sold pet food and worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant, which paid the rent. He grew an interest in bands such as CCR and Deep Purple, and attended concerts by Led Zeppelin, T. Rex, Elton John, and Tina Turner. He started working in the Vancouver music scene with bands and as a studio session singer. At the age of 15, he became the vocalist for glam rock band Sweeney Todd, replacing their original vocalist Nick Gilder.

With Adams the band re-recorded "Roxy Roller", the Canadian hit single from their first album, which came in at No. 99 on the US charts.

In an interview with music magazine Guitar World, Adams said: "I bought an imitation Les Paul at a Five and Dime store in Ottawa, Canada, in 1971," Adams recalled.

In 1974, Adams, his mother, and younger brother Bruce moved to North Vancouver while his father was posted abroad.

While there, he attended Argyle Secondary School and Sutherland Secondary School.

Adams bought his first electric guitar at the age of 10 in Reading, an Italian brand from Gherson, based on a Fender Stratocaster.

The band then recorded their second album If Wishes Were Horses (1977) with Adams billed as "Bryan Guy Adams" on vocals.

Adams left the band at age 16.

In 1978, at age 18, Adams met Jim Vallance through a mutual friend in a Vancouver Long and McQuade musical instrument store.

Vallance was the former drummer and principal songwriter for Vancouver-based rock band Prism, and had recently quit that band to focus on a career as a studio musician and songwriter.

He rose to fame in North America with the 1983 top ten album Cuts Like a Knife, featuring its title track and the ballad "Straight From the Heart", his first US top ten hit, which he wrote at age 18.

His 1984 Canadian and US number one album, Reckless became the first album by a Canadian to be certified diamond in Canada and made him a global star with six charting singles including "Run to You" and "Summer of '69", both top ten hits in the US and Canada, and the power ballad "Heaven", a US number one hit.

His 1987 album Into the Fire, with its US and Canadian top ten song, "Heat of the Night", rose to number two in Canada and the top ten in the US and several other countries.

In 1989, he ended the decade by co writing with fellow Canadian songwriter Jim Vallance and American songwriter Diane Warren "When the Night Comes", played at the end credits of that year's Tom Selleck starred crime drama, An Innocent Man.

In the 1990s, Adams had six European Radio Airplay number one songs for 32 weeks, the fourth and third most, respectively; and three number one songs on the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles for 29 weeks total, the most weeks of any artist.

In 1991, Adams released "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", which went to number one in at least 19 countries, including for 16 straight weeks in the UK.

It is one of the best-selling singles of all time, having sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

The song was included on Adams' Waking Up the Neighbours (1991), a worldwide number one album that sold 16 million copies, including being certified diamond in Canada.

Another major hit off the album was the Canadian number one and US number two hit "Can't Stop This Thing We Started", which also went top ten in several other countries.

Beginning in 1993, Adams' hits were mostly ballads, including the worldwide number one or two hits "Please Forgive Me" (1993); "All for Love" (1993); and "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" (1995), the latter two topping the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Adams' 1993 greatest hits compilation album, So Far So Good, topped the charts in numerous countries selling 13 million copies worldwide, including being certified 6× platinum in Canada, 5× platinum in the US, and 14× platinum in Australia.

In 1996, Adams' 18 til I Die was a top five album in many countries, but only reached number 31 in the US.

He did duets with Barbra Streisand ("I Finally Found Someone" (1996), his last US top ten hit) and Melanie C ("When You're Gone" (1998), an international top five hit).

Since 1999, Adams released eight albums, three reaching number one in Canada, and the last three reaching the top three in the UK, Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Adams was the most played artist on Canadian radio in the 2010s and has had 25 top-15 singles in Canada and a many in the US, UK, and Australia.

At age 15, Adams replaced Nick Gilder as lead singer of glam rock band Sweeney Todd and at age 20 his eponymous debut album was released.

On May 1, 2010, Adams received the Governor General's Awards in Performing Arts - Lifetime Artistic Achievement for his 30 years of contributions to the arts.