Sting has varied his musical style throughout his career, incorporating distinct elements of jazz ,

vocals , bass guitar , double bass , mandolin , lute , guitar , piano , keyboards , synthesizers , guitalele , harmonica , saxophone , oboe , hurdy gurdy , synclavier , drum machine , bass pedals , percussion
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner [1] CBE (born 2 October 1951), known by his stage name Sting , is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist , activist, actor and philanthropist. Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist for the rock band The Police .
Sting has varied his musical style throughout his career, incorporating distinct elements of jazz , reggae auto europe car rentals , classical , New Age , and worldbeat into his music. [2] As a solo musician and member of The Police, Sting has received sixteen Grammy Awards for his work, receiving his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, three Brit Awards  — winning Best British Male in 1994, a Golden Globe , an Emmy Award , and several Oscar nominations for Best Original Song. He is a member auto europe car rentals of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame .
Sting was born in Wallsend , Newcastle upon Tyne , England, [3] the eldest of four children born to Audrey (née Cowell), a hairdresser, and Ernest Matthew Sumner, a milkman and engineer. auto europe car rentals [4] His siblings were Philip, Angela and Anita. Young Gordon would often assist his father with the early-morning milk-delivery rounds, and by age 10 he became obsessed with an old Spanish auto europe car rentals guitar that had been left behind by an emigrating friend of his father. [5]
He attended St. Cuthbert s Grammar School in Newcastle auto europe car rentals upon Tyne. He would often sneak into nightclubs auto europe car rentals like the Club A Go-Go, where he would watch acts such as Cream and Jimi Hendrix , artists who would later influence his own music. After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties College of Education, (which later became part of Northumbria University ) from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher. [6] He then worked as a schoolteacher at St. Paul s First School in Cramlington for two years. [7]
Sting performed in jazz bands on evenings, weekends, and during breaks from college and from teaching. auto europe car rentals He played with local jazz bands such as the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit . He gained his nickname after he performed wearing a black and yellow sweater auto europe car rentals with hooped stripes while onstage with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon [8] thought that the sweater auto europe car rentals made him look like a bee, which prompted the nickname auto europe car rentals Sting . [9] In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night he was addressed by a journalist as Gordon , and replied: My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, who is this Gordon character? [10] In a 2011 interview for Time magazine, he stated: I was never called Gordon. You could shout Gordon auto europe car rentals in the street and I would just move out of your way. [11]
In January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London, and soon thereafter he joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers ) to form the New Wave band The Police . Between 1978 and 1983, they released five chart-topping albums and won six Grammy Awards . Although their initial auto europe car rentals sound was punk inspired, The Police auto europe car rentals soon switched to reggae -tinged rock and minimalist pop. Their last album, Synchronicity auto europe car rentals , which included their most successful song, Every Breath You Take , was released in 1983. According to Sting, who appeared in the documentary Last Play at Shea , he decided to leave The Police while onstage during the 18 August 1983 concert at Shea Stadium because he felt that playing that venue was Everest . [12] While never formally breaking up, after Synchronicity the group agreed to concentrate auto europe car rentals on solo projects. As the years went by, the band members, auto europe car rentals particularly Sting, dismissed the possibility of reforming. In 2007, however, the band reformed and undertook a world tour . [13]
In September 1981, Sting made his first live solo appearance, performing on all four nights of the fourth Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman s Other Ball at the invitation of producer Martin Lewis . He performed solo versions of Roxanne and Message in a Bottle . He also led an all-star band (dubbed The Secret Police ) on his own arrangement of Bob Dylan s I Shall Be Released auto europe car rentals . The band and chorus included Eric Clapton , Jeff Beck , Phil Collins , Bob Geldof and Midge Ure , all of whom except Beck later worked together on Live Aid . His performances were featured prominently in the album and movie of the show and drew critical attention to his work. Sting s participation in The Secret Policeman s Other Ball was the beginning of his growing involvement in raising money and consciousness for political and social causes. In 1982 he released a solo single, Spread a Little Happiness auto europe car rentals from the film version of the Dennis Potter television play Brimstone and Treacle . The song was a re-interpretation of a song from the 1920s musical Mr. Cinders auto europe car rentals by Vivian Ellis , and was a surprise Top 20 hit in the UK. [14]
His first solo album, 1985 s The Dream of the Blue Turtles , featured a cast of jazz musicians, including Kenny Kirkland , Darryl Jones , Omar Hakim , and Branford Marsalis . It included the hit singles If You Love Somebody Set Them Free , (backed with the non-LP song Another Day ) Fortress Around Your Heart , Love Is the Seventh Wave , and Russians , the last of which was based on a theme from the Lieutenant Kijé Suite . [15] Within a year, the album reached Triple Platinum . This album would garner Sting a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. The film Bring on the Night , directed by Michael Apted , documented the formation of the band and its first concert auto europe car rentals in France.
Also in 1985, he sang the introduction and chorus auto europe car rentals to Money for Nothing by Dire Straits auto europe car rentals . Sting was reportedly embarrassed when his publishing company insisted on a co-writing credit (and royalties) since his I Want My MTV line, was sung to exactly the same notes as the chorus of Don t Stand So Close to Me . He performed this song with Dire Straits at the Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium . [16] Prior to the Live Aid concert, in November 1984 Sting performed Do They Know It s Christmas? with Band Aid for the relief of poverty in Africa. [17] In 1985 Sting provided a short guest vocal performance on the Miles Davis album You re Under Arrest . He also sang backing vocals on Arcadia s single The Promise , and on two songs from Phil Collins album No Jacket Required . He also contributed a version of Mack the Knife to the Hal Willner -produced tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill . In September 1985, Sting performed If You Love Somebody Set Them Free at the 1985 MTV Video Music Awards at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. [18]
Sting released Nothing Like the Sun in 1987, including the hit songs We ll Be Together , Fragile , Englishman in New York , and Be Still My Beating Heart , dedicated to his mother, who had recently died. It eventually went Double Platinum. The song The Secret Marriage auto europe car rentals from this album was adapted from a melody by German composer Hanns Eisler , and Englishman In New York was about the eccentric writer Quentin Crisp . The album s title is taken from William Shakespeare s Sonnet 130 . [19]
Soon thereafter, in February 1988, he released Nada como el sol , a selection of five songs from Sun sung (by Sting himself) in Spanish and Portuguese. He was also involved in two other recordings in the late 1980s, the first in 1987 with jazz arranger Gil Evans , who placed Sting in a big band setting for a live album of Sting s songs (the CD was not released in the U.S.), and the second on Frank Zappa s 1988 Broadway the Hard Way album, where Sting performs auto europe car rentals an unusual arrangement of Murder By Numbers , set to the tune Stolen Moments by jazz composer Oliver Nelson , and dedicated to fundamentalist evangelist Jimmy Swaggart auto europe car rentals . October 1988 saw the release of Igor Stravinsky s The Soldier s Tale with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Kent Nagano . It featured Vanessa Redgrave , Sir Ian McKellen and Sting in the role of the soldier. [20]
His 1991 album The Soul Cages was dedicated to his recently deceased father and included the Top 10 song All This Time , which reached No. 5 on the U.S. Pop chart, and the Grammy-winning The Soul Cages . The album eventually auto europe car rentals went Platinum. The following year, he married Trudie Styler and was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in music from Northumbria University . In 1991, Sting appeared on Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John Bernie Taupin , an album dedicated to the singer/songwriter duo. Sting performed Come Down in Time , for the album which also features other popular artists and their renditions auto europe car rentals of John/Taupin Songs. The album was released on 22 October 1991 by Polydor. Also in 1991, a recording of Prokofiev auto europe car rentals s Peter and the Wolf was made by Deutsche Grammophon, narrated by Sting, and played by Claudio Abbado and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. This was also used as the soundtrack to the television special Peter and the Wolf: A Prokofiev Fantasy. In 1993, he released the album Ten Summoner s Tales , which peaked at number two in the UK and US Album Charts, and went triple platinum in just over a year. [14] [21] Ten Summoner s Tales was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1993 and nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1994. The title is a wordplay on his surname, Sumner, and The Summoner s Tale , one of The Canterbury auto europe car rentals Tales . Hit singles on the album include Fields of Gold and If I Ever Lose My Faith in You . , the latter earning Sting his second Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 36th Grammy Awards . [22] Concurrent video albums were released to support Soul Cages (a live concert) and Ten Summoner s Tales (recorded during the recording sessions for the album).
In May 1993, he released a cover of his own Police song from the Ghost in the Machine auto europe car rentals a