Stan Ridgway

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Stan Ridgway (2010)
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Stanard "Stan" Ridgway (born April 5, 1954 in Barstow , California ) is an American musician.

history

In the 1980s, Stan Ridgway was a founding member, singer and one of the creative heads of the band Wall of Voodoo , whose best-known song is Mexican Radio from the 1982 album Call Of The West . He left the group soon after and established himself as a solo artist. Ridgway's biggest hit in Europe in 1986 was the single Camouflage from his debut album The Big Heat , which made it to number 4 in the UK singles charts and can now be found on many samplers with music from the 1980s. Camouflage reached 8th place in Germany, 17th place in Austria and 11th place in Switzerland.

Three years later he had another radio hit with the single Calling Out To Carol from the album Mosquitos , which has remained in the playlists of major broadcasters ( WDR 2 , SWR3 ) to this day. Partyball was his last album on a major label in 1991 . In addition, Ridgway was repeatedly involved as a musician in film projects, for example in 1983 with the song Don't Box Me In together with Stewart Copeland (drummer of the band The Police ) in Francis Ford Coppola's film Rumble Fish , the film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Susan E. Hinton . In 1987 the title End Of The Line from the Franco-German feature film Terminus also appeared as a single, in 1990 he also contributed the song Talk Hard to the film Hart on air with Christian Slater .

He is married to the singer and keyboardist Pietra Wexstun . The Ridgway / Wexstun couple are also closely connected musically: While Pietra appears regularly on Stan's solo albums, he is a member of their band Hecate's Angels . In addition, both have been active with the Drywall project since 1995 and in 2003 they recorded the soundtrack album Blood for an exhibition by the American painter Mark Ryden . Ridgway also has a penchant for the music of Kurt Weill (German text by Bertolt Brecht ), but none of his interpretations of these works can be found on his solo albums (on the best-of compilation Songs That Made This Country Great from 1992 is but included a recording of The Cannon Song from the Threepenny Opera ).

Special

Ridgway has been passionate about ventriloquism since childhood . For this reason, a doll named Jackie "Teak" Lazar appeared in the video for the song Big Dumb Town from the album Black Diamond . Some albums feature solo pieces by Jackie, often cover versions of well-known pieces such as A Very Good Year (originally by Frank Sinatra ).

Since the beginning of his career, Stan Ridgway has struggled with a typo in his name: The spelling Ridg e way can be found in many sources, possibly due to the pronunciation . This notation has persisted to this day and has even found its way into some online catalogs and similar works.

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1986 The big heat DE38 (10 weeks)
DE 		- CH27 (2 weeks)
CH 		- US131 (9 weeks)
US
First published: 1986

more publishments

  • 1989: Mosquitos
  • 1991: party ball
  • 1992: Songs That Made This Country Great (Best-Of-Compilation)
  • 1996: Black Diamond
  • 1997: Film Songs (compilation)
  • 1998: The Way I Feel Today ( cover album )
  • 1999: Anatomy
  • 2002: Holiday In Dirt (Compilation)
  • 2003: Blood (soundtrack with Pietra Wexstun)
  • 2004: Snakebite
  • 2010: Neon Mirage
  • 2011: The Complete Epilogues (Compilation)
  • 2012: Mr. Trouble
  • 2016: Priestess Of The Promised Land (with Pietra Wexstun)

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1983 Don't Box Me In
Rumble Fish (OST) 		- - - UK91 (1 week)
UK 		-
First published: December 1983
with Stewart Copeland
1986 Camouflage
The Big Heat 		DE8 (15 weeks)
DE 		AT17 (6 weeks)
AT 		CH11 (11 weeks)
CH 		UK4 (12 weeks)
UK 		-
First published: June 1986
1989 Calling Out to Carol
Mosquitos 		- - - UK91 (2 weeks)
UK 		-
First published: May 1989

More singles

  • 1985: The Big Heat
  • 1985: Salesman
  • 1985: Drive She Said
  • 1986: The Big Heat (Remix)
  • 1986: Walkin 'Home Alone
  • 1987: End Of The Line (Soundtrack)
  • 1989: Goin 'Southbound
  • 1989: Lonely Town
  • 1991: I Wanna Be A Boss
  • 1996: Big Dumb Town
  • 1996: Knife And Fork

With drywall

  • 1995: Work The Dumb Oracle
  • 1996: The Drywall Project / The Drywall Incident
  • 2005: Barbeque Babylon

Web links

Commons : Stan Ridgway  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
personal data
SURNAME Ridgway, Stan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ridgway, Stanard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH April 5th 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Barstow , California