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ByBrian Boone/
Bryan Adams was an unstoppable hit machine in the '80s and early '90s. Songs like "Summer of '69," "Run to You," and "Heaven" were inescapable on pop radio. Today. those tunes are considered classics, but Adams himself is no longer a music industry A-lister. Let's find out what Canada's answer to John Mellencamp has been doing over the past few years.
He's still making records, but is anyone listening?
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It's been a long time since Adams had a hit single on the same level as "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." In fact, he hasn't seen the BillboardTop 10 since 1996, when he released "I Finally Found Someone"with Barbra Streisand. Though he doesn't churn out albums or singles at the rapid clip he once did, Adams still drops an album every few years.
In addition to studio albums such asRoom Service (2004) and 11 (2008), Adams released Bare Bones (2010), a stripped collection of hits recorded live with just Adams on guitar and harmonica and a piano accompaniment. He continued to remake the classics with 2014'sTracks of My Years, an album of covers that includes The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Down on the Corner."
Adams' most recent work is Get Up (2015), produced by Electric Light Orchestra mastermind Jeff Lynne, who in the '80s engineered late-career comebacks for George Harrison and Roy Orbison. Alas, Adams' effort was met with mediocre reviews.
He's extremely charitable
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After atsunamidestroyed wide swaths of Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka in 2004, Adams put together The Bryan Adams Foundation, an organization that aims to "improve the quality of people's lives around the world" by bankrolling and spearheading projects that focus on "education and children in need."
Adams didn't just slap his name on a charity and call it a day. He's actively involved in the foundation, overseeing its activaties and participating in fundraising efforts. Among those who've benefited from the group: African children in need of facial reconstructive surgery, Middle Eastern refugees, girls from rural India who want to attend school, homeless Canadian teenagers, and pediatric cancer patients in Lebanon.
He's huge in Europe and Asia
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Adams doesn't fill stadiums and arenas in the States anymore (favoring theaters and casinosthese days,) but he's still a major draw in Europe and Asia. Some of his concerts have literally made history overseas.
In 2011, he became the first musician from outside of Nepal to play a concert in the small Asian nation, and in 2006, Adams was the first Western artist to stage a concert in Pakistanafter the events of 9/11 strained international relations.Adams' music is particularly popular in India, and he became one of the first North American artists to tour there.
He's an accomplished photographer
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Everybody has that friend who out of the blue says one day, "You know, I think I'm going to take up photography." Bryan Adams did that, and then he actually got really, really good at it.
Since 2000, Adams has staged more than 30 exhibitions at some of the world's most prestigious art galleries, including the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow.
He's also compiled four volumes of his art, which is exceedinglyversatile. In July 2005, he published American Women,a collaboration with Calvin Klein that featured females from different walks of life dressed in the designer's finery. Adams followed up that project with Exposed, a collection of portraits of celebrities such as Morrissey, Michael Jackson, and Lindsay Lohan. He then releasedWounded: The Legacy of War, which focuses on British soldiers injured or disfigured in combat and training. Adams' most recent work is Untitled, a book of abstract, super-artsy black-and-white photos.
He's grown so skilled and comfortable behind a camera that he now shoots the images for his own album covers and even directs his own music videos.
He opened the Vancouver Olympics
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Adams is a world-famous musician, but he's downright legendary in Canada, which made him an obvious choice to pen and perform a song for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Adams and his songwriting partner, Jim Vallance, wrote "Bang the Drum," which Adams sang (or lip-synced,)along with another Canadian superstar Nelly Furtado, at the opening ceremonies.
He's heavily involved in animated movies
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Adams is most comfortable behind a microphone and in the studio, and he's put those talents to use working on animated movies. In 2002, he wrote all the songs for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, a pretty movie about a pretty horse that was nominated for best animated feature film at the Academy Awards.
Adams also voiced the title role and wrote and performed songs for the 2011 South African cartoon Jock of the Bushveld. Based on the true story of a famous folk hero working dog, the project was released under the title Jock the Hero Dog in the United States.
He's stoked about the Pretty Woman musical
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It's a Broadway trend that just won't die: adapting popular movies into stage musicals. (Hey, you've got to attract as many people as possible if you're going to charge $200 a ticket.) Soon to join Aladdin, The Lion King, and School of Rock on the American stage: Pretty Woman–a musical based on the 1990 Julia Roberts rom-com about the world's most adorable prostitute.
Adams wrote the music and lyrics for the show, along with longtime collaborator Vallance. Adams wasn't a shoo-in for the gig. He toldBillboardthat when he heard a show was in the works, he proactively threw his hat in the ring and crafted some songs for the audition.
Pretty Woman: The Musicalnow has about two dozen tunes and will debut at Chicago's Oriental Theatre in March 2018.
He's a family guy
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Adams has been romantically linked to several models and actresses, including Elle Macpherson and Gwyneth Paltrow, but he recently settled down and started a family.His partner is a British woman named Alicia Grimaldi, co-founder of The Bryan Adams Foundation. In 2011, the pair had their first child together, a daughter named Mirabella Bunny. "She arrived like all good Easter bunnies on Easter Friday," Adams' team told People.
Grimaldi gave birth to another child in 2013. "My second daughter Lula Rosylea arrived at tea time," Adams postedon Facebook. "The name Lula comes from Gene Vincent's 1958 song 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' and Rosylea is a play on the expression 'a rosie lee' which is co*ckney rhyming slang in London for 'a cup of tea.'" Adams added, "She was born in London and...she's my cup of tea."
He was almost on Star Trek
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Many famous rock musicians have dabbled in acting, for better (David Bowie in Labyrinth) and for worse (Britney Spears in Crossroads), but Adams has stuck with music.
That almost changed in 2017. On BBC One's The One Show, Adams said he was offered a role in CBS All Access'Star Trek: Discoveryseries. "I said, 'Yeah, I'd love to do that!' I'm naturally looking like a Klingon anyway!" Adams recalled, but then the opportunity just, um, "went away." Bummer.
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