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Bryan Adams unerring gift for radio-friendly pop hooks has made him
the most successful artist exported from Canada in the Eighties.
His father was a Canadian diplomat, and Bryan attended military schools
in England, Austria, Portugal, and Israel. When he was 12 his parents
separated, and he lived with his mother in Vancouver, British Columbia.
By then he had taught himself to play guitar and decided make music
his career. At 16, he quit school, bought a grand piano with money
from his college fund, and joined bands. At age 17 he befriended Jim
Valiance, who had written songs for the Canadian band Prism. After
two years of writing and recording demo tapes, their partnership produced
the 1979 disco-styled Canadian single "Let Me Take You Dancing." The
pair sold songs to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Joe Cocker, and Juice
Newton, then landed a publishing deal with A&M Records, which led
to Adams’ recording contract.
Adams’ eponymous debut album stiffed, but the follow up, You Want
It, You Got It (#118, 1982) did better, and Adams opened shows for
such bands as the Kinks, Foreigner, and Loverboy. Cuts Like a Knife
(#8, 1983) was Adams’ U.S. breakthrough, producing hits in "Straight
from the Heart" (#10, 1983), the title cut (#15, 1983), and "This
Time" (#24, 1983); the latter two were accompanied by popular eye-catching
videos. Reckless (#1, 1984) was even bigger, selling over five million
copies and yielding such hits as "Run to You" (#6,1984), "Somebody"
(#11, 1985), and "Summer of ‘69" (#5, 1985), Adams’ first hit ballad
in "Heaven" (#1, 1985), and "It’s Only Love" (#15, 1985), a duet with
Tina Turner (with whom Adams toured, and for whom he produced a track
on her 1986 Break Every Rule). Adams appeared at Live Aid in Philadelphia
in 1985, and in 1986 performed on Amnesty International’s Conspiracy
of Hope Tour with Sting and U2.
His Into the Fire yielded hits in "Heat of the Night" (#6, 1987),
"Hearts of Fire" (#26, 1987), and "Victim of Love" (#32, 1987). Adams
refused to allow the use of the album’s "Only the Strong Survive"
in the Tom Cruise film Top Gun, because he felt the movie glorified
war.
After performing at the 1988 Freedomfest in London to honour freed
South African apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela, Adams began work on
Waking Up the Neighbours. Meantime, Joe Cocker recorded Adams’ "When
the Night Comes," and Dion recorded his "Drive All Night"; Adams had
a quick cameo in the 1989 Clint Eastwood film Pink Cadillac and performed
at Roger Waters’ 1990 Berlin production of The Wall. The release of
Neighbours (#6, 1992) was preceded by the appearance of "(Everything
I Do) I Do It for You" under the credits of the Kevin Costner film
Robin Hood -- Prince of Thieves. The ballad was an instant smash,
topping the U.S. pop chart for seven weeks, and the U.K. chart for
a record-breaking 16 weeks. In February 1992 Adams took issue with
his homeland’s "Canadian Content" regulations, which restricted airplay
of Neighbours because Adams co-wrote and coproduced the record with
an Englishman, Mutt Lange. Adams briefly threatened to boycott the
annual Juno Awards, Canada’s version of the Grammys, where he ended
up winning Entertainer and Producer of the Year awards. A hits collection,
So Far So Good (#6,1993), proved his continuing appeal in the Nineties.
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