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STING
But the group’s faith and hope never faltered. When Fallout was released on Stewart’s Illegal label in May, he arranged and paid for manufacture and designed the cover. The he and Sting went around and sold all 2,000 copies to record shops personally. The publicity campaign comprised all the flyposters they could get up on the empty walls and billboards of London - the two artists taking turns on paste-bucket and lookout duties.
In May of the same year, bassist and producer called Mike Howlett invited Sting to sing with his new band, Stronium 90 at a one-off concert in Paris. An original line-up reunion of cult hippie group Gong, with all the members' current combos appearing as support acts, it was a remarkable affair staged in a circus tent to an audience of 5,000 which was, in every respect, was the antithesis of punk. Incidentally, when Howlett's drummer withdrew at the last minute, Stewart went along to help out. When Strontium 90 convened for a brief rehearsal, Stewart and Sting were introduced to Howlett's lead guitarist Andy Summers – the guitarist who would, in less than two months, join The Police and replace Henri Padovani.
For the next seven years, Sting (vocals and bass), Stewart Copeland (percussion) and Andy Summers (guitar) took on the world with their music which would inevitably establish Sting as a world-renowned songwriter and singer. In April 1978 The Police's single “Roxanne” was released. From then on, there was no stopping the trio. Seven months later, in November of the same year, The Police album Outlandos d'Amour was released and in August of 1979, “Can't Stand Losing You” went to No 2 in UK charts. In the next 5 years, The Police would successfully release four more albums studio albums, namely, Reggatta De Blanc (October 1979), from which the single “Message in a Bottle” is released, Zenyatta Mondatta (October 1980), Ghost in the Machine (October 1981), and Synchronicity. All these and the trio’s live work and best-of compilations all forecasted the astonishing inventiveness and range of influences that Sting would later on realize fully in his solo career.
In 1982, two years before the break-up of the Police, for whom he was lead singer and bass player, Sting, following a very successful career with his band, ventured out on his own and embarked on an even more lucrative solo career. In that same year, he starred as the enigmatic antihero of the black comedy film Brimstone & Treacle and from it released a version of the 30s ballad, "Spread A Little Happiness", composed by Vivian Ellis. Its novel character and Sting's own popularity ensured Top 20 status in Britain. In 1984, he won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for “Brimstone & Treacle” which was included in the soundtrack of the movie with the same title. While continuing to tour and record with the Police, he also co-wrote and appeared on the Dire Straits hit Money for Nothing and sang harmonies on Phil Collins' No Jacket Required.
Sting Goes Solo
In June of 1983 The Police released Synchronicity, their final album as a group. By 1984, however, despite a successful six years together, the other members of the Police were pursuing solo interests, which eventually led to the band taking a permanent break from each other. It was at this time that Sting began experimenting with new musical genres and formed a touring band, the Blue Turtles. The result was a powerful first solo album, Dream of the Blue Turtles (1985), for which he enlisted leading New York jazz figures such as Branford Marsalis (alto saxophone), Kenny Kirkland (keyboards) and Omar Hakim (drums). Interestingly, The title of the LP came from a dream Sting had about blue turtles (which represented chaos) destroying his garden. Dream of the Blue Turtles found Sting developing the more cerebral lyrics found on the final Police album, Synchronicity while at the same time, moving away from the standard pop fare of the Police into a more a socially aware, jazz-based state of mind. Certified platinum in just two months since its release and three times platinum in less than a year, Dream of the Blue Turtles sold two million copies and brought Sting his first solo Top 3 hit: "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free" (UK number 26, US number 3), followed by the international hits "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Love Is The Seventh Wave," and "Russians". While Sting may have lost some of his Police following, he began gaining new audiences through music that was still accessible to pop audiences, and had enough lyrical content to keep critics pleased.
When Sting took to the road to promote the album, he realized the success of the tour and thanked his fans by releasing Bring on the Night, an in-concert film about Sting and his touring band which came out as a somewhat tour documentary. A double-live album of the same name was also released. This collection not only showed Sting performing his own new material, but also jazzed up versions of already popular Police songs. In February of 1987, Bring on the Night won Sting a Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Long Form and a year later, another Grammy Award for the same album, but this time for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.
Still riding high on political strife, in 1987, Sting released his second solo studio album, Nothing Like The Sun (a title taken from a Shakespeare sonnet) with Marsalis and Police guitarist Andy Summers. It also featured a bevy of superstar musicians including Rubén Blades, Eric Clapton and Dire Strait's Mark Knopfler. An instant international success, it contained the track, "They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)", Sting's tribute to the victims of repression in Chile, in addition to a notable recording of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" which featured one of the last orchestral arrangements by the late Gil Evans. Although not as jazz-influenced as his debut, Nothing Like the Sun showed Sting's ability to bring forth new influences and different styles to achieve his sound. Dedicated to Sting's deceased mother, Nothing Like the Sun later ranked at # 90 on Rolling Stone magazine's "100 Greatest Albums of The 80s" survey.
With lyrics that became even more issue-oriented as his personal politics, Sting stepped up his involvement in various social causes, continuing with his work in Amnesty International as he took part in Amnesty International's Human Rights Now! tour and founded the Rainforest Foundation with girlfriend Trudy Styler to publicize the plight of the Indians of the Brazilian rainforest where he devoted much of the following two years to campaigning and fund-raising activity on behalf of said environmental causes.
Eventually, he set up his own label, Pangaea, in the late 80s to release material by jazz and avant garde artists. In August 1990, a track from Nothing Like The Sun, "An Englishman In New York" (inspired by English eccentric Quentin Crisp), reached number 15 in the UK charts after being remixed by Ben Liebrand.
Sting's next studio effort, The Soul Cages, released in 1991, was a dark, autobiographical album that showed a more personal side of the man singing introspectively about his family and saw him battling demons over the death of his parents and his Newcastle childhood from which "All This Time" reached number 5 on the US Billboard charts. In two months, Soul Cages was certified platinum, and in February the following year, Sting won another Grammy Award for Best Rock Song (songwriter) for "Soul Cages". In August of that same year, Sting married Trudi Styler.
He continued in a similar vein with the hit Ten Summoner's Tales in 1993, which showed his lighter side as he sang about love and relationships and brought him a Grammy for Best Music Video, Long form, and at the same time, was also nominated both for Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Certified three times platinum in just three months since its release, the album produced two Top 20 hits, "Fields of Gold" and "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You", for which he won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. In that same year, he teamed up with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart to record "All For Love" a sappy love song for the Three Musketeers soundtrack which topped the US charts in November 1993, reached number 2 in the UK the following January, rose to the number 1 spot where it stayed for 5 weeks and topped the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart for 3 weeks and the Hot 100 Singles Sales chart for a week. It was the success of these three singles that solidified Sting's transition from new wave rock star to adult contemporary recording artist. At the same time, the compilation Fields Of Gold highlighted Sting's considerable accomplishment as one of the finest quality songwriters to appear out of the second UK "new wave" boom (post-1977). The collection featured two new tracks, "This Cowboy Song", and "When We Dance", the latter of which not only got Sting nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Pope Vocal Performance, but also brought him his highest charting UK solo single at that time when it reached number 9 in October 1994.
In February of 1996, after a traumatic summer in 1995 when Sting had to testify in court after accusing his accountant of stealing over $9 million of his income which fortunately turned out on singer's favor and led his former accountant to a six-year prison sentence, Mercury Falling was released. Though as strong as Ten Summoner's Tales, Mercury Falling was very much a marking-time album that proved to be good enough to satisfy his fans and placate most reviewers and earned him a Grammy nomination in February of 1997 for Best Pop Album. Aside from this, Sting also received 2 other Grammy Award nominations for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot", Best Pop Vocal Collaboration for "The Wind Cries Mary" with John McLaughlin, Dominic Miller & Vinnie Colaiuta from In From The Storm - The Music Of Jimi Hendrix.
Three years since the release of Mercury Falling, Sting came out with the 1999 blockbuster, A Brand New Day which featured guest appearances by Stevie Wonder, James Taylor and past Sting crony Branford Marsalis. The title track of that album, “Brand New Day”, proved he was still capable of achieving hit singles when it reached UK number 13 in September 1999. In February the following year, Brand New Day, both the single and the album, won Sting 2 Grammy Awards for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and Best Pop Album.
Finally, in 2001, Sting released All This Time, his first live album in 15 years marking yet another beginning. Recorded near his home in Tuscany, he transformed classics from his solo and Police careers, as well as highlights from his 1999 album, Brand New Day. It was a 2.5 million-selling masterwork that finds Sting rediscovering his own music, the songs that form part of the soundtrack of our lives that also won him an an Emmy Award for Best Performance, Variety or Music Program
In addition to this stunning live recordings, Sting has put in other landmark concert appearances including his performance with renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
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copyright valerie v. mayuga 2005 |