Bryan Guy Adams, OC, OBC, singer, songwriter, guitarist, photographer, social activist (born 5 November 1959 in Kingston, ON). Bryan Adams is Canada's most successful rock artist of the 1980s, named Artist of the Decade in 1990 by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) (now Music Canada). His most famous hit singles include “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” (certified double-platinum), “Summer of ’69,” “Heaven,” “Run To You,” “Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman,” “Cuts Like A Knife” and “Straight From The Heart.” Ten of his studio albums are certified platinum, with two diamond-selling albums, Reckless (1984) and Waking Up The Neighbours (1991). He has won 20 Juno Awards, 20 SOCAN awards and a Grammy Award, and has sold over 100 million albums worldwide. He has received the 1986 Bob Geldorf Humanitarian Award and the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS)’s 2010 Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his social activism, partly through the Bryan Adams Foundation. He also received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement in 2010. He has been inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Member of the Order of British Columbia.

Early Music Career
Born in Kingston, Bryan Adams was raised in England, Israel, Portugal and Austria until he moved back to Canada with his family, first settling in Ottawa, then in Vancouver. He replaced the band Sweeney Todd’s singer Nick Gilder on the album If Wishes Were Horses (1977). At age 18 Adams began a songwriting partnership with Jim Vallance that would result in some of his biggest hits years later. Some of their early efforts were recorded by Prism and Loverboy, both clients of Bruce Allen, who became Adams' career-long manager in 1979.
Bryan Adams’ first single, “Let Me Take You Dancing,” was a disco hit in 1979. He released his self-titled debut album for A&M Records in 1980, followed by 1981's You Want It You Got It. Similarly to his partnership with Bruce Allen, Adams remained with the label for the next 40 years of his career. Of his other early singles, "Fits Ya Good" was popular in 1982.
Cuts Like a Knife (1983) and Reckless (1984)
Bryan Adams’ popularity soared with the release of his third studio album, Cuts Like a Knife (1983). The singles “Cuts Like a Knife,” “Straight from the Heart,” and “This Time” were all international hits in 1983. The album earned him four Juno Awards, including Best Male Vocalist and Album of the Year.
Reckless (1984) was an even bigger hit, selling more than twelve million copies worldwide, including more than one million in Canada alone, and including such smash hits as "Run to You," "Summer of '69," “Heaven,” “Somebody” and "It's Only Love" (a duet with Tina Turner).
Bryan Adams' blue-collar image – typically, a T-shirt and jeans – mirrored the hard-working values of his music, a straightforward style of rock and roll. His writing with Jim Vallance reflected superior craftmanship; the sentimental themes of Adams' songs to the mid-1980s – love, love lost, loneliness – were unsentimentally sung in a voice characterized by a raspy urgency.
Bryan Adams' performing career followed in successive steps, taking him from clubs across Canada in 1980 to opening spots on Canadian and United States tours with Loverboy, Foreigner, Journey, and others by 1983. By 1985, he had toured Europe and had headline status at North American arenas and stadiums such as Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum, New York City's Madison Square Garden, and Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition.
Into The Fire (1987) and International Tours
A fifth album, Into The Fire (1987), included the hits "Heat of the Night," "Heart's on Fire," and "Victim of Love." The darker, introspective songs of Into The Fire broached such topics as war (“Remembrance Day”) and Indigenous rights (“Native Son”). Critics hailed this change of tone as a sign of a new maturity.
Bryan Adams toured extensively in Europe (opening for Tina Turner) and Japan following the release of Reckless and Into The Fire. Bryan Adams’ Rock Werchter 1988 concert in Werchter, Belgium, led to the live album Live! Live! Live! (1988) (with the track “Into The Fire,” recorded in Tokyo) and the concert documentary Live in Belgium, telecast on 15 January 1989 by the CBC.
During the 1980s, the songwriting team of Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance had songs recorded by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Joe Cocker (“Edge of a Dream”), Roger Daltry, Paul Dean, Neil Diamond, Paul Hyde and the Payolas, Kiss, Juice Newton, Peter Pringle, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, 38 Special (“Teacher, Teacher”), Tina Turner, Bonnie Tyler, Uriah Heep, and Bob Welch. Adams also collaborated with Lisa Dal Bello, Eric Kagna and others.
Waking Up The Neighbours (1991)
Bryan Adams’ next album Waking Up The Neighbours (1991) was a domestic success with over one million sales in Canada alone. The long-delayed album included “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” which made the Guinness Book of World Records when its 16-week run at the top of the chart made it the longest-standing number-one single in British history. The song, which was featured in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, was Adams' biggest hit to date, selling some seven million copies internationally as a single. It stayed at No. 1 for seven weeks in the United States and four months in the United Kingdom and was, at that point, the biggest-selling single in the history of A&M Records. It pushed Waking Up The Neighbours past the triple-platinum mark.
With that album, Bryan Adams' producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, became his new songwriting partner, co-credited on each song. The album also established Adams' modus operandi for the rest of the 1990s: the release of one romantically themed hit single every two to three years, tied to a feature film soundtrack. He had massive success, for example, with the 1993 No. 1 single “All For Love” (a platinum-selling track sung with Sting and Rod Stewart, from The Three Musketeers soundtrack) and the 1995 No. 1 “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?”
18 Til I Die (1996) and On A Day Like Today (1998)
A greatest hits package called So Far So Good was released in 1993, and Bryan Adams returned with new material on 1996's 18 Til I Die. While the album sold about 5 million copies worldwide, it stalled at less than 400,000 in Canada and was looked upon by many as a disappointment in comparison to his earlier successes.
Bryan Adams Unplugged (1997) showed a change of direction, with the artist performing acoustic versions of old hits, more obscure album tracks and three new songs. Adams released his next studio album, On A Day Like Today, in 1998, and followed that up a year later with a second greatest-hits package, The Best of Me (1999).
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron (2002), Room Service, 11
Bryan Adams always had a lot of success with songs for films, and that was again the case when he wrote the songs for the 2002 animated feature film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron. The album includes the duet “Don’t Let Go” with fellow Vancouver singer Sarah McLachlan. He also contributed new songs to the films Color Me Kubrick and Racing Stripes in 2005.
Bryan Adams' self-produced album Room Service was largely recorded while on tour in Europe and was a major hit there when it was released in the fall of 2004. A 2-disc set titled Anthology, featuring both hits and lesser-known tracks from his catalogue, was released in 2005 along with the Live in Lisbon DVD.
Bryan Adams made a strong comeback with the March 2008 release of 11, which was his first album to top the Canadian sales chart since 18 Til I Die. The album also hit No. 1 in India and Switzerland and had top 10 debuts in 11 countries before being issued exclusively by Walmart and Sam's Club stores in the United States in May.
2010s – Present
In 2010 Bryan Adams released Bare Bones, an acoustic live album certified gold in Canada. He was awarded the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement the same year. The 5-minute National Film Board of Canada short Bryan Adams: Bare Bones was created to honour the reception of this award. The film depicts Adams working in his Vancouver recording studio, surrounded by his collection of vintage microphones, at times strumming a guitar that once belonged to Johnny Cash.
Adams and his partner Alicia Grimaldi had two daughters in April 2011 and February 2013, respectively. Tracks Of My Years (2014), a cover album produced by longtime collaborator David Foster under the Polydor label, includes ten songs that shaped Adams’ musical taste over the course of his career. The production of Tracks Of My Years occurred in tandem with that of his 2015 studio album Get Up. Adams recalls leaving one studio for the other where he worked on his own material alongside British producer Jeff Lynne.
Ultimate (2017) is a collection of Bryan Adams’ classic tracks along with the two original songs “Ultimate Love” and “Please Stay.” In October 2018, the Adams-Vallance team wrote all 16 songs featured in Pretty Woman: The Musical, an adaptation of the popular 1990 rom-com of the same name. Adams’ following studio album Shine a Light (2019) was well-received and was certified gold in Canada.

The early 2020s were marked by considerable change in Bryan Adams’ career. He switched labels for the first time in July 2021, ending a partnership of 40 years with A&M Records. With Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), he went on to release the 2022 studio album So Happy It Hurts as well as several live albums recorded at the Robert Albert Hall in London, United Kingdom. He earned another Grammy Awards nomination (Best Rock Performance) in 2023 for the single “So Happy It Hurts.” In December 2023 Adams split with his manager Bruce Allen, choosing to manage his own career. He also founded his own label, Bad Records, in August 2024. His next studio album Roll With The Punches is to be released on 29 August 2025.
Humanitarian Work
Bryan Adams has been involved with numerous international charities and social causes. He co-wrote (with Jim Vallance and David Foster) and took a leading role in the 1985 charity pop song “Tears Are Not Enough” written to support famine relief efforts in Ethiopia.
In the company of many rock and pop stars of the day, Adams participated in such other major humanitarian and political events as Live Aid (JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, 1985), the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour (several US cities, 1986), Rock the World (for Greenpeace, Washington, DC, 1987), Freedomfest (in celebration of Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday, London, 1988), and Roger Waters' The Wall (Berlin, 1990). Some of these were televised internationally, as were the World Music Video Awards (1989), on which Adams appeared in a live performance from Moscow. In similar company, he was heard on the live recordings The Prince's Trust Concert 1987 and Tina [Turner] Live in Europe (1987).
In 2020 Bryan Adams was part of the lineup of Canadian artists recruited to sing “Lean On Me”, a song written and recorded by Bill Withers, used by the music collective ArtistsCAN to support the Canadian Red Cross and provide COVID-19 relief. The celebrity roster included Avril Lavigne, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Justin Bieber, Marie-Mai, Michael Bublé, Sarah McLachlan and several others.
Two collections of Bryan Adams' photographic work have been published, both as fundraisers for charitable organizations including the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The first, Made In Canada (1999), mixed shots of celebrities with portraits of breast cancer patients (see also Breast Cancer Research in Canada). The core of that collection was displayed at the Royal Ontario Museum. The second collection, Haven, was published in 2000. Canada Post used his photograph of Queen Elizabeth II for a postage stamp issued in 2004 and 2005.
The Bryan Adams Foundation, created in 2006, aims to protect vulnerable individuals, “advance education and learning opportunities for children and young people worldwide,” and provide financial support through grants for specific projects that are “committed to bettering the lives of other people.” Also in 2006, Bryan Adams became the first notable western artist to perform in Karachi, Pakistan (since the events of 9/11), to help raise money to send underprivileged children to school.
Honours
In total, Bryan Adams has recorded some 30 hit singles and sold over 65 million albums worldwide. His fourth studio album Reckless (1984) was the first Canadian album to be certified diamond (see Music Canada Sales Certifications). He has been the subject of several books, including Bryan Adams: Everything He Does (1993) by Vancouver-based journalist Sorelle Saidman.
Bryan Adams has won 20 Juno Awards since the beginning of his career. He shared PRO Canada’s William Harold Moon Award with Jim Vallance in 1985 for international achievement. In 1986 he won Best Stage Performance in a Video at the MTV Music Video Awards for “It’s Only Love” and received the Bob Geldof Humanitarian Award.
Adams was made a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia in 1990, the same year the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) (now Music Canada) named him its artist of the decade. He won a Grammy Award in 1992 for Best song written for a motion picture amongst three nominations. In addition, Adams received three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture (1992, 1996, 1997), and another nomination for “I Finally Found Someone,” a track he collaborated on and recorded with Barbra Streisand for the soundtrack of her self-directed movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). He was elevated to Officer of the Order of Canada and inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 1998, the year it was founded.
Adams received SOCAN Classics awards for a whopping 19 songs over the course of his career. In 2002 he received the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, and he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the 2006 Juno Awards. In 2009 he was featured in Canada Post’s series of postage stamps depicting top-ranking Canadian recording artists along with Robert Charlebois, Stompin’ Tom Connors and Édith Butler.
In 2010 Adams received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award from the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS). The National Film Board of Canada filmed the 5-minute short Bryan Adams: Bare Bones to highlight his Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2010). In 2012 he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Adams and co-host Russell Peters won in the Canadian Screen Awards’s Best Host in a Live Program or Series category (2018) for The 2017 Juno Awards.
In 2022 Bryan Adams was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Awards
- Best Male Vocalist (1983)
- Best Male Vocalist (1984)
- Composer of the Year (“Cuts Like A Knife”, shared with Jim Vallance) (1984)
- Album of the Year (Cuts Like A Knife) (1984)
- Producer of the Year (Cuts Like A Knife) (1984)
- Best Male Vocalist (1985)
- Composer of the Year (Reckless) (1985)
- Album of the Year (Reckless) (1985)
- Best Male Vocalist (1986)
- Best Male Vocalist (1987)
- Canadian Entertainer of the Year (1987)
- Canadian Entertainer of the Year (1992)
- Producer of the Year (“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” / “Can't Stop This Thing We Started”) (1992)
- International Achievement Award (1992)
- Best-selling Album (“Waking Up The Neighbours”) (1993)
- Male Vocalist of the Year (1997)
- Best Songwriter (1999)
- Best Male Artist (2000)
- Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (Shine A Light) (2020)
SOCAN Awards
- International Achievement, William Harold Moon Award (shared with Jim Vallance), PRO Canada (1985)
- International Song (“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”) (1992)
- Pop / Rock Music (“Do I Have To Say The Words?”) (1993)
- Classics Award (“Straight From The Heart”) (1995)
- Classics Award (“The Best Was Yet To Come”) (1995)
- Classics Award (“Heaven”) (1995)
- International Song (“Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?”) (1996)
- Pop / Rock Music (“I’m Ready”) (1999)
- International Song (“On A Day Like Today”) (2000)
- Classics Award (“Summer Of ‘69”) (2000)
- Classics Award (“Run To You”) (2004)
- Classics Award (“Somebody”) (2004)
- Classics Award (“I’m Ready”) (2007)
- Classics Award (“It’s Only Love”) (2007)
- Classics Award (“This Time”) (2007)
- Classics Award (“Cuts Like A Knife”) (2007)
- Classics Award (“Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Edge Of A Dream”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“When You’re Gone”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Lonely Nights”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Kids Wanna Rock”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Do I Have To Say The Words?”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Heat Of The Night”) (2017)
- Classics Award (“Teacher Teacher”) (2017)
Others
- Best Stage Performance in a Video (“It’s Only Love”), MTV Music Video Awards (1986)
- Bob Geldof Humanitarian Award (1986)
- Member, Order of Canada (1990)
- Member, Order of British Columbia (1990)
- Artist of the Decade, Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) (now Music Canada) (1990)
- Best Song Written for a Motion Picture (“(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”), Grammy Awards (1992)
- Inductee, Canada's Walk of Fame (1998)
- Officer, Order of Canada (1998)
- Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002)
- Inductee, Canadian Music Hall of Fame (2006)
- Allan Waters Humanitarian Award, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) (2010)
- Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (2010)
- Inductee, Hollywood Walk of Fame (2010)
- Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012)
- Best Host in a Live Program or Series (The Juno Awards 2017, shared with Russell Peters), Canadian Screen Awards (2018)
- Inductee, Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (2022)
Discography
- Bryan Adams (1980)
- You Want It You Got It (1981)
- Cuts Like a Knife (1983)
- Reckless (1984)
- Into the Fire (1987)
- Waking Up the Neighbours (1991)
- 18 Til I Die (1996)
- On a Day Like Today (1998)
- Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
- Room Service (2004)
- 11 (2008)
- Tracks of My Years (2014)
- Get Up (2015)
- Shine a Light (2019)
- So Happy It Hurts (2022)
- Roll with the Punches (2025)
