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Bon Jovi's Biography
In the beginning
of eighties, John Bongiovi was one young talented musician who wanted to
start a new rock band. His cousin Tony Bongiovi owned the PowerStation studios
in NY and John assembled a group of young musicians to record his first
single, 'Runaway'. He managed to get local airplay in NY. Later, John got
together with four more musicians to establish his band Richie Sambora - the
guitarist, Tico Torres - the drummer, Alec John Such- the bass player, and
David Bryan - keyboard expert.
The band, called BON
JOVI, also gained experience on the road together with ZZ Top and their
recorded their first album, simply called 'Bon Jovi'. The album was released
in 1984, and recorded in Warehouse Studios, Philadelphia. 'Runaway' hit the
charts and brought the album to the gold status (50000 copies sold). In 1985,
the band recorded their second album - '7800 Fahrenheit'
containing songs as
'In And Out Of Love' and 'Tokyo Road'. However, this album was not as
successful as was expected to be. One of the first career highlights of the
band was to appear at the first Farm Aid charity event in USA, together with
such stars as Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. Then, the recording of the
third album began. Canadian Bruce Fairbairnwas brought in as producer
replacing Lance Quinn, and the songwriting team was expanded - Jon Bon Jovi,
Richie Sambora and new member, Desmond Child, who was working with Aerosmith
and Kiss. This record, 'Slippery When Wet', was something like absolute
success for Bon Jovi. The album featured major chart toppers - 'You Give Love
A Bad Name', 'Living On A Prayer', 'Wanted Dead Or Alive', and 'Never Say
Goodbye'. In September 1988, the next album was released - 'New Jersey' - a
mixture of rock and romance. The album contained enormous hits 'Bad Medicine',
'Lay Your Hands On Me', 'Living In Sin' and 'I'll Be There For You'. Sales
were lower than with 'Slippery', "only" 8 million. The band really
believed in this album - the evidence is major promotional tour - from London
via Moscow to Los Angeles. The Moscow Music Peace Festival is one of BJ's
greatest moments. Bon Jovi became the world's most successful rock'n'roll
band, playing to 4 million people in 1989 alone and selling 25 million albums
1985-89. But, the band were exhausted and had to take a break. During these
years off, Jon recorded his solo soundtrack album for the 'Young Guns II' film
- 'Blaze of Glory' (Feb 1990). He also made a cameo appearance in this film.
In 1993 'Blaze Of Glory' sold over 3 million copies and the title track was a
big hit worldwide. Jon also established his own record label, Jambco. Richie
also recorded his first solo album - 'Stranger In This Town' album in 1991,
featuring Tico, David and Eric Clapton.
In 1992, the band
regrouped and spent 6 months recording 'Keep The Faith', the album released in
November 1992. The album contained 5 hit singles: 'Keep The Faith', 'I
Believe', 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead', 'In These Arms', and 'Bed Of Roses'.
This album was not promoted by a world tour, but by a series of short stints.
The 'I'll Sleep When I'm Dead' tour kicked off in Phoenix, AZ on Oct 8th 1992
and ended on 31st December 1993. Bon Jovi's next memorable moment was 10th
Anniversary, celebrated with 'Cross Road - The Best Of' album, released in
1994. The album contained 13 old classics and 2 new songs - 'Always' and
'Someday I'll be Saturday Night'. After the release of that album Alec left
the band. Along with this unpredicted split came equally unpredicted union -
Richie married Heather Locklear. Jon got his second kid in February 1995,
Jesse James and recorded occasional Christmas 1994 single with Cindy Crawford,
'Please Come Home For Christmas'. The in 1995 came their 7th album "These
Days" followed by a world tour. Since 1995 Jon has been a movie star as
well, his first movie "Moonlight and Valentino" starring Kathleen
Turner and Whoopi Goldberg and since then he's starred in many other films
like "Little City", "Homegrown", "U-751"
Also in 1997 Jon
released his second solo album "Destination Anywhere". And now the
band has released their album "Crush" (May-June 2000). And
after the Crush tour the band has released the video of their concert live in
Zürich 2000. In May 2001 Bon Jovi have released their first Live Album
"One Wild Night-Live 1985-2001" and are currently making a world
tour called One wild night 2001.