Sting (musician)

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Sting

Template:Two other uses Gordon Matthew Sumner, CBE (born 2 October, 1951), better known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal composer, lead singer and bass player of the 1970s/1980s rock band The Police.

Biography

Sumner was born in Wallsend, near Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, to Audrey Cowell and her husband, Ernest Sumner. He is the eldest of four children and has a brother, Philip, and two sisters, Angela and Anita. His father managed a dairy, and as a boy he would often assist him with the early morning milk delivery rounds. Sumner was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, due to the influence of his paternal grandmother, who was from an Irish family.

He attended St. Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and then the University of Warwick in Coventry, but did not graduate. During this time, he would often sneak into nightclubs like the Club-A-Go-Go. Here, he would watch acts such as Jack Bruce and Jimi Hendrix who would later influence his music. After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties Teachers' Training College, which later became part of Northumbria University, from 1971 to 1974. He then worked as a teacher at St. Paul's First School in Cramlington for two years.

From an early age, Sumner knew that he wanted to be a musician. His first music gigs were wherever he could get a job, performing evenings, weekends, and during vacations from college and teaching. He played with local jazz bands such as the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit.

Origin of nickname

Sting has stated that he gained his nickname while with the Phoenix Jazzmen. He once performed wearing a black and yellow jersey with hooped stripes that bandleader Gordon Solomon had noted made him look like a bumblebee; thus Sumner became "Sting." He uses Sting almost exclusively, except on official documents. [citation needed] In a press conference filmed in the movie "Bring on the Night", he jokingly stated his children call him "Sting."

The Police

Main article: The Police

In January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London, and soon thereafter he joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani (who was very soon replaced by Andy Summers) to form the new wave band The Police. Between 1978 and 1983, they released five chart-topping albums and won six Grammy Awards.

Although their initial sound was punk inspired, The Police soon switched to reggae-tinged rock and minimalist pop. Their last album, Synchronicity, which included their most successful song, "Every Breath You Take", was released in 1983. Another popular song of the Police is "Don't Stand So Close To Me" which although not making number 1, was marked as a success.

While never formally breaking up, after Synchronicity, the group agreed to concentrate on solo projects. As the years went by, the band members, particularly Sting, increasingly dismissed the possibility of reforming. In 2007, however, the band reformed and announced a world tour.

Solo career

Early solo work

In September 1981, Sting made his first live solo appearance, performing on all four nights of the fourth Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis. He performed solo versions of "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle".

He also led an all-star band (dubbed "The Secret Police") on his own arrangement of Bob Dylan's, "I Shall Be Released". The band and chorus included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, all of whom (except Beck) later worked together on Live Aid.

His performances were featured prominently in the album and movie of the show and drew Sting major critical attention. Sumner's participation in The Secret Policeman's Other Ball was the beginning of his growing involvement in raising money and consciousness for political and social causes.

In 1982 he released a solo single, Spread a Little Happiness from the Dennis Potter television play Brimstone and Treacle. The song was a re-interpretation of a song from the 1920s musical Mr. Cinders by Vivian Ellis, and was a surprise Top 20 hit in the UK.

1980s

Sting's first solo album, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, featured a cast of accomplished jazz musicians, including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim, and Branford Marsalis. It included the hit single "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free". The single included a fan favorite non-LP track titled "Another Day". The album also yielded the hits "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Russians", and "Love is the Seventh Wave". Within a year, it reached Triple Platinum. This album would help Sting garner a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. The film and video "Bring On The Night" documented the formation of the band and its first concert in France.

Also in 1985, he sang the introduction and chorus to "Money for Nothing", a groundbreaking song by Dire Straits. He would perform this song with Dire Straits at the Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium. Sting also provided a short guest vocal performance on the Miles Davis album You're Under Arrest. He also sang backing vocals in Arcadia's single "The Promise" from their only album, "So Red The Rose". He also contributed a version of "Mack the Knife" to the Hal Willner-produced tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill.

Sting released ...Nothing Like the Sun in 1987, including the hit songs "We'll Be Together", "Fragile", "Englishman in New York", and "Be Still My Beating Heart", dedicated to his recently-deceased mother. It eventually went Double Platinum. The song "The Secret Marriage" from this album was adapted from a melody by German composer Hans Eisler, and "Englishman In New York" was about the eccentric writer Quentin Crisp. The album's title is taken from William Shakespeare's Sonnet #130.

Soon thereafter, in February 1988, he released Nada Como el Sol, a selection of five songs from Sun sung (by Sting himself) in Spanish and Portuguese. Sting was also involved in two other recordings in the late 1980s, the first in 1987 with noted jazz arranger Gil Evans who placed Sting in a big band setting for a live album of Sting's songs (the CD was not released in the U.S.), and the second on Frank Zappa's 1988 "Broadway The Hard Way" album, where Sting performs an unusual arrangement of "Murder By Numbers", set to the tune "Stolen Moments" by jazz composer Oliver Nelson, and "dedicated" to fundamentalist evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

October 1988 saw the release of Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Kent Nagano. It featured Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Ian McKellen and Sting in the role of the soldier.

1990s

Sting's 1991 album The Soul Cages was dedicated to his recently-deceased father and included the Top 10 song "All this Time" and the Grammy-winning "Soul Cages". The album eventually went Platinum. The following year, he married Trudie Styler and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in music from Northumbria University. In 1993, he released the album Ten Summoner's Tales, which went Triple Platinum in just over a year. The title is wordplay on his surname, Sumner and Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Canterbury Tales. Concurrent video albums were released to support "Soul Cages" (a live concert) and "Ten Summoner's Tales" (recorded during the recording sessions for the album).

In May 1993, Sting released a cover of his own classic Police song from the Ghost In The Machine album, "Demolition Man" for the Demolition Man film.

Sting reached a pinnacle of success in 1994. Together with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, they performed the chart-topping song "All For Love" from the film The Three Musketeers. The song stayed at the top of the U.S. charts for five weeks and went Platinum; it is to date Sumner's only song from his post-Police career to top the U.S. charts. In February, he won two more Grammy Awards and was nominated for three more. The Berklee College of Music gave him his second honorary doctorate of music degree in May. In November, he released a greatest hits compilation called Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting, which eventually was certified Double Platinum.

Sting's 1996 album, Mercury Falling debuted strongly, but it dropped quickly on the charts. Yet, he reached the Top 40 with two singles the same year with "You Still Touch Me" (June) and "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" (December). During this period, Sumner was also recording music for the upcoming Disney film Kingdom of the Sun, which went on to be reworked into The Emperor's New Groove. The film went through drastic overhauls and plot changes, many of which were documented by Sumner's wife, Trudie Styler. She captured the moment Sumner was called by Disney who then informed him that his songs would not be used in the final film. The story was put into a final product: The Sweatbox, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Disney currently holds the rights to the film and will not grant its release. That same year Sting also released a little-known CD-ROM called All This Time, which was well ahead of its time in providing music, commentary and custom computer features describing Sumner and his music from his perspective.

"Moonlight," a rare jazz performance by Sting for the 1995 remake of Sabrina, written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and John Williams, was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television.

The Emperor's New Groove soundtrack was released, however, with complete songs from the previous version of the film, which included Rascall Flatts and Shawn Colvin. This is seen by many as a move on Disney's part to soothe the relationship with Sting and to keep open the door for future projects. The final single used to promote the film was "My Funny Friend and Me".

2000s

Sting's September 1999 album Brand New Day included the Top 40 hits "Brand New Day" and "Desert Rose" (Top 10). The album went Triple Platinum by January 2001. In 2000, he won Grammy Awards for Brand New Day and the song of the same name. At the awards ceremony, he performed "Desert Rose" with Cheb Mami. For his performance, the Arab-American Institute Foundation gave him the Kahlil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Award. However, Sting was criticized for appearing in a Jaguar advertisement using "Desert Rose" as its backing track, particularly as he was a notable environmentalist.

In February 2001, he won another Grammy. His song "After The Rain Has Fallen" made it into the Top 40. His next project was to record a live album at his Tuscan villa, which was to be released as a CD and DVD, as well as being simulcast in its entirety on the internet. The CD and DVD were to be entitled "On such a night" and should feature re-workings of Sting favourites such as "Roxanne" and "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free.". The concert, however, was scheduled for September 11, 2001 and due to the terrorist attacks in America that same day, the project was altered in various ways. The webcast was shut down after one song (a reworked version of Fragile), after which Sting let it be up to the audience whether or not to continue with the show. Eventually they decided to go through with the concert, and the resultant album and DVD was released in November under a different title, "...All This Time". Both are dedicated "to all those who lost their lives on that day."

He performed a special arrangement of "Fragile" with Yo-Yo Ma and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In 2002 Sting won a Golden Globe Award and in June, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In the summer, Sting was awarded the honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). In 2003 with, he released Sacred Love, a studio album collaboration with hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige and sitar maestro Anoushka Shankar. He and Blige won a Grammy for their duet, "Whenever I Say Your Name."

His autobiography Broken Music was published in October. Sting embarked on a Sacred Love tour in 2004 with performances by Annie Lennox. Sting went on the Broken Music tour, touring smaller venues, with a four piece band kicking off in Los Angeles on 28 March 2005 and ending this "College Tour" on 14 May 2005. Continuing with his involvement in Live Aid, he appeared at Live 8 in July 2005. During 2006, Sting collaborated with Roberto Livi in producing a spanish language version of his cult classic "Fragile" entitled "Fragilidad" on the album "Rhythms Del Mondo" by Latino recording legends "The Buena Vista Sound" (previously known as the Buena Vista Social Club) available via www.apeuk.org

In October 2006, Sting released an album, to mixed reviews, entitled Songs from the Labyrinth featuring the music of John Dowland (an Elizabethan-era composer) and accompaniment from Bosnian lute player Edin Karamazov.[1] As a part of the promotion of this album, he appeared on the fifth episode of Studio 60 during which he performed a segment of Dowland's "Come Again" as well as his own "Fields of Gold" in the arrangement for voice and two archlutes. Reports surfaced in early 2007 that Sting would reunite with his former Police bandmates for a 30th anniversary tour. These rumours were confirmed by posts on the popular fanzine Stingus and on various other newswebsites such as De Standaard, Yahoo! etc.

On February 11, 2007, Sting reunited with the other members of the Police as the introductory act for the 2007 Grammy Awards, singing "Roxanne", and subsequently announced The Police Reunion Tour.

Acting career

File:Feyd Rautha.jpg
Sting as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in David Lynch's Dune (1984)

Sting occasionally has ventured into acting. Notable film roles include:

Sting also has made appearances on the stage and television, including guest spots on Saturday Night Live and Ally McBeal. He also provided the voice of Zarm on the 1990s television show Captain Planet and the Planeteers. In 1989 he starred as Macheath (Mack the Knife) in the The Threepenny Opera, the classic 1928 German musical work by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in New York and Washington. He most recently appeared as a musical guest on the fictional series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Activism

While with the Police, Sting wrote "Driven to Tears," a scathing diatribe against world hunger, and it preceded his work on Sir Bob Geldof's "Feed The World" project. Sumner sang on "Do They Know It's Christmas?" -- a hit single from Geldof's pop music super-group called "Band Aid" which eventually led to the Live Aid Concert in July of 1985, in which Sting also took part, performing with Branford Marsalis, Phil Collins, and with the group Dire Straits.

Throughout the 1980s, Sting strongly supported environmentalism and humanitarian movements, such as Amnesty International. In 1986 he was interviewed by the BBC about his support for Amnesty International and he stated: "I've been a member of Amnesty and a support member for five years, due to an entertainment event called The Secret Policeman's Ball and before that I did not know about Amnesty, I did not know about its work, I did not know about torture in the world."

His most high-profile contribution to the human-rights cause came in 1988, when he joined a team of major musicians and rising stars—-including Peter Gabriel and Bruce Springsteen—-assembled under the banner of Amnesty International for the six-week world Human Rights Now! Tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 1988, he released the single "They Dance Alone" which chronicled the plight of the wives and daughters of the disappeared, the innocent victims of the Pinochet regime in Chile. Unable to protest against the government about their missing loved ones, the women of Chile would pin photos of their relatives on their clothing, and dance in silent outrage against the government.

With his wife Trudie Styler and Raoni Metuktire, a Kayapó Indian leader in Brazil, Sumner founded the Rainforest Foundation to help save the rainforests. His support for these causes continues to this day, and includes an annual benefit concert held at New York's Carnegie Hall with Billy Joel, Elton John, James Taylor and other music superstars.

In the early 1990s, Sting performed with Don Henley and Billy Joel in New York's Madison Square Garden at The Concert for Walden Woods. He also took part in the post-9-11 rock telethon to raise money for the families of the victims of terror attacks in the United States, and performed at the Live 8 concert, the follow up to 1985's Live Aid Concert.

Sting is known to support cannabis reclassification in the United Kingdom. Following Tony Blair's intention to revoke the rescheduling of cannabis executed in January 2006, he has joined a list of prominent figures who have written to the Prime Minister urging him to keep cannabis as a class C drug. [1]

Personal life

Sting married actress Frances Tomelty from Northern Ireland, on 1 May, 1976. Before they divorced in 1984, the couple had two children: Joseph (born 1976) and Fuchsia Catherine (born 1982). Joe is following in his father's musical footsteps and is a member of the band Fiction Plane.

In 1982, shortly after the birth of his second child, Sting separated from Tomelty and began living with actress (and later film producer) Trudie Styler. The couple eventually married in 1992. Sting and Styler have four children: Bridget Michael (a.k.a. "Mickey," born 1984), Jake (born 1985), Eliot Pauline (nicknamed "Coco", born 1990), and Giacomo Luke (born 1995).

Both of Sting's parents died from cancer in 1987. He did not, however, attend either funeral claiming that the media fuss would be a disrespect to his parents.

Sumner owns several homes worldwide, including Elizabethan manor house Lake House and its 60-acre country estate in Wiltshire, England, a country cottage in the Lake District, a New York City apartment, a beach house in Malibu, California, a 600-acre estate in Tuscany, Italy, and two properties in London: an apartment on the Mall and an 18th-century terrace house in Highgate. [2] According to an interview he did for German television broadcaster NDR in 1996 Sumner chose a tree on the Lake House estate beside which he wishes to be buried someday.

Trivia

  • Sting was a fan and frequent passenger of British Airways' supersonic Concorde. He appeared in several documentaries and publications as an unofficial spokesperson for the high-speed service, during both its November 2001 relaunch (following a crash and the subsequent grounding of the aircraft) as well as the service's October 2003 retirement.
  • The song "Russians" from The Dream of the Blue Turtles utilized a theme (Suite from Lieutenant Kije, Op. 60) by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Sting's fondness for Prokofiev manifested itself subsequently when he served as narrator for Peter and the Wolf: A Prokofiev Fantasy, one of the many versions of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf that have been recorded by celebrities. And indeed in the official VHS release of the Synchronicity Tour, at the very beginning just before the performance, Sting can be heard playing ad-lib tunes on his bass, and the Cat Tune from Peter and the Wolf can be clearly recognised.
  • A species of Colombian tree frog, Dendropsophus stingi (renamed from Hyla stingi in 2005), was named after him in recognition of his "commitment and efforts to save the rain forest" (Kaplan 1994).
  • To keep physically fit, for years Sting ran five miles a day, and performed aerobics. However, around 1990 he met Danny Paradise who introduced him to yoga. Soon after, Sting began practicing yoga regularly. His practice consists primarily of an Ashtanga Vinyasa series, though he has experimented with other forms.
  • Although Sting famously claimed to have had long bouts of tantric sex with his wife, he has more recently said that it was a dinner-party joke that took on a life of its own. This "tantric sex" would be immortalized in Barenaked Ladies' 1998 smash hit "One Week", stating "Like Sting, I'm tantric..."
  • Sting has his own signature Fender Precision Bass, but over the years, has played a variety of basses, including a fretless Fender Precision Bass, a 1960s Fender Jazz Bass, a fretless Ibanez Musician Bass, a Spector NS-1, a Steinberger L2, a Framus electric double bass, and several others.
  • 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo is named after Sting's son.
  • Sting has recorded a version of his song A Thousand Years with the fado singer Mariza

Discography

For Sting's discography with The Police, see The Police Discography.

Albums

Live Albums

Compilations

Soundtracks & Multi-Artist albums

Foreign Language Albums

Singles

Year Title Chart positions Album
U.S. Hot 100 U.S. Modern Rock UK Singles Chart
1982 "Spread a Little Happiness" - - #16 Brimstone and Treacle OST
1985 "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" #3 - #26 The Dream of the Blue Turtles
1985 "Love Is the Seventh Wave" #17 - #41 The Dream of the Blue Turtles
1985 "Fortress Around Your Heart" #8 - #49 The Dream of the Blue Turtles
1985 "Russians" #16 - #12 The Dream of the Blue Turtles
1986 "Moon Over Bourbon Street" - - #44 The Dream of the Blue Turtles
1987 "We'll Be Together" #7 - #41 ...Nothing Like the Sun
1988 "Englishman in New York" #84 - #51 ...Nothing Like the Sun
1988 "Be Still My Beating Heart" #15 - - ...Nothing Like the Sun
1988 "Fragile" - - #70 ...Nothing Like the Sun
1988 "They Dance Alone" - - #94 ...Nothing Like the Sun
1990 "Englishman In New York" (Ben Liebrand remix) - - #15 -'
1991 "All This Time" #5 #1 (2 weeks) #22 The Soul Cages
1991 "Mad About You" - - #56 The Soul Cages
1991 "The Soul Cages" - #9 #57 The Soul Cages
1992 "It's Probably Me" (with Eric Clapton) - - #30 Ten Summoner's Tales
1993 "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You" #17 - #14 Ten Summoner's Tales
1993 "Seven Days" - - #25 Ten Summoner's Tales
1993 "Fields Of Gold" #23 - #16 Ten Summoner's Tales
1993 "Shape Of My Heart" (Also known as "Professional", it was the soundtrack of Léon) - - #57 Ten Summoner's Tales
1993 "Demolition Man" - - #21 Demolition Man OST
1994 "All For Love"(with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart) #1 - #2 The Three Musketeers OST
1994 "Nothing 'Bout Me" #57 - #32 Ten Summoner's Tales
1994 "When We Dance" #38 - #9 Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994
1995 "This Cowboy Song" - - #15 Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994
1996 "Spirits In The Material World" (with Pato Banton) - - #36 Ace Ventura OST
1996 "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot" #86 - #15 Mercury Falling
1996 "You Still Touch Me" #60 - #27 Mercury Falling
1996 "I Was Brought to My Senses" - - #31 Mercury Falling
1996 "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" (feat. Toby Keith)A #94 - #54 Mercury Falling
1997 "Roxanne '97" (Puff Daddy Remix) (feat. Pras of The Fugees) #59 - #17 The Very Best of Sting & The Police
1999 "Brand New Day" #100 - #13 Brand New Day
2000 "Desert Rose" (feat. Cheb Mami) #17 - #15 Brand New Day
2000 "After the Rain Has Fallen" - - #31 Brand New Day
2003 "Rise & Fall" (Craig David feat. Sting) - - #2 Slicker Than Your Average (Craig David album)
2003 "Send Your Love" - - #30 Sacred Love
2003 "Whenever I Say Your Name" (Duet with Mary J. Blige) - - #60 Sacred Love
2004 "Stolen Car (Take Me Dancing)" - - #60 Sacred Love
2005 "Taking the Inside Rail" - - - Racing Stripes soundtrack
2006 "Always on Your Side" (with Sheryl Crow) #33 - - Wildflower

AAlso reached #2 on the Country Tracks chart.

Bibliography

  • 2003 Autobiography Broken Music, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-7434-5081-7
  • 2005 Biography Sting and I, James Berryman, John Blake, ISBN 1-84454-107-X
  • 1998 Biography Sting - Demolition Man, Christopher Sandford, Little, Brown and Company, ISBN 0-316-64372-6
  • M. Kaplan (1994). "A new species of frog of the genus Hyla from the Cordillera Oriental in northern Columbia with comments on the taxonomy of Hyla minuta". Journal of Herpetology. 28 (1): 79–87.

See also

References

  1. ^ Evanescence, OutKast lead busy fall releases, Reuters/Billboard, Jul 29, 2006.

External links

Listening

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