Bryan Guy Adams OC OBC FRPS (born November 5, 1959) was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, composer, and photographer. He is professionally known as Bryan Adams. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold between 75 million and more than 100 million records and singles worldwide. In the 2010s, he was the most played artist on Canadian radio, and has had a remarkable 25 top-15 singles in Canada, and a dozen or more in each of the US, UK, and Australia.
Adams was a teenage prodigy, joining his first band at the tender age of 15. By the time he was 20, his eponymous debut album was released, marking the beginning of an illustrious career in music. He gained recognition in North America with the 1983 top ten album Cuts Like a Knife, featuring the title track and the ballad "Straight From the Heart," his first US top ten hit.
However, his breakthrough album was the 1984 Canadian and US number one album, Reckless, which became the first album by a Canadian to be certified diamond in Canada. It made him a global star with tracks like "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, featured the US and Canadian top ten song "Heat of the Night" and rose to number two in Canada and the top ten in the US and several other countries.
In 1989, Adams co-wrote "When the Night Comes" with fellow Canadian songwriter Jim Vallance and American songwriter Diane Warren. The song was played at the end credits of that year's Tom Selleck starred crime drama, An Innocent Man.
Adams has achieved numerous accolades throughout his career. In 2008, he was ranked 38th on the list of all-time top artists on the Billboard Hot 100. He has won 20 Juno Awards and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture or Television among 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 various Hall of Fames, including 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. In recognition of his 30 years of contributions to the arts, he received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award on 1 May 2010. Besides music, Adams is an accomplished photographer, and his work has been exhibited in galleries around the world.
