Bryan Adams: Refusing To Stay Down With ‘Get Up!’

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Bryan Adams (Photo by Bryan Adams)
Bryan Adams (Photo by Bryan Adams)

When you think of one of Canada’s greatest pop exports, uninformed music fans may blurt out single monikers—Bieber, Celine or even Drake. But if you’re of a certain age, you’ll sagely nod and respond with the guy who really dominated the charts throughout the 1980s and early 1990s—Bryan Adams.

While his stage persona was that of a Great White North heartland rocker, he and songwriting partner Jim Vallance possessed a knack for churning out pop with a hard rock edge produced by musicians that—gasp—actually played instruments. Long before the Beebs was being a TMZ sensation and foisting mediocrity on the pop world, his fellow Canadian was being one of the world’s best-selling performers of all time thanks to a wealth of hits, relentless touring and a songwriting partnership with Vallance that yielded solid songs for both himself and numerous other artists.

The duo briefly parted ways for most of the 1990s, but a 2003 reconciliation has found them working together ever since, a reunion Adams is quite happy about.

Jeff Lynne
Jeff Lynne

“We love it. It’s as simple as that. Usually if we sit down and muck around with guitars, songs happen,” he admitted.

That recent bit of musical messing around most recently yielded last year’s Get Up! It’s an outing that gave the Canadian rocker a chance to have Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne helm this batch of songs as a producer.

“I’d been writing songs with Jim Vallance and I’d been reintroduced to Jeff Lynne and started working with him on some of the songs. It came together pretty quickly,” Adams explained. “[Jeff and I] had a mutual friend, who reintroduced us. We’d met in the 1980s, when he came to my gig. Jeff was fantastic to work with­—he turned our demos into proper records.”

With the new record, the Adams/Vallance tandem has found a sympathetic ear in Lynne, whose touch can be heard on “You Belong to Me,” the quasi-rockabilly opener that’s got whiffs of Dave Edmunds all over it; “That’s Rock and Roll,” a jangly ear work adorned with handclaps and the epic “Don’t Even Try,” which has a sweeping Roy Orbison vibe to it.

Bryan Adams’ Favorite Guest Spots

One of the hallmarks of Bryan Adams’ storied career is a lengthy list of collaborations, be they of recorded songs (Kiss, Joe Cocker) or joining forces in the studio (Tina Turner, Roger Daltrey). The following are five less recognized times the Canadian-born singer says still resonate with him:

1996 Los Angeles
“I sang ‘Everybody Knows’ with Don Henley at the VH-1 Honors concert.”

BryanAdamsSidebar_090916.BonnieRaitt1995 San Francisco
“Bonnie Raitt and I did ‘Rock Steady’ for her live album Road Tested.”

1998
“I performed two songs with John Fogerty—’I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ and ‘Soothe Me.’

BryanAdamsSidebar_090916.SmokeyRobinson1993 New York City
“I got to sing ‘Bring It On Home to Me’ with Smokey Robinson live at the Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame in Harlem.”

1987 London
“I sang ‘The Wanderer’ with Dave Edmunds at The Prince’s Trust Concert.”

The album ends up with acoustic versions of the latter along with versions of three other plugged-in songs: “We Did It All,” “You Belong To Me” and “Brand New Day.” These songs hint at Adams’ love of early rock and roll and the 1970s stars he grew up being influenced by. And while it was The Beatles that inspired him, like millions of other kids to pick up a guitar, there were plenty of other artists that inspired Adams.

“Musical influences were usually to do with voices I liked,” he recalled. “So everyone from Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Joe Cocker, Lennon and McCartney, Janis Joplin, John Fogerty, Steve Marriott, and then later I got into Simon and Garfunkel, Jackson Browne, Springsteen, Eagles and lots of American music.”

Nowadays, the lifelong Boston Bruins fan (whose favorite player was Bobby Orr and who wound up singing at Wayne Gretzsky’s last game as a New York Ranger), has found a second outlet as a professional photographer. Not only has he had his work shown in a number of international galleries, but he’s shot for numerous high-end fashion magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair and Esquire. It’s a path that Adams has been thrilled to explore.

“I’ve always loved making photos, and I started doing my own album covers in the 1990s,” he said. “It’s much the same as anything I put my mind to. I always like to take things as far as I can. The art form is incredible.”

Always one to stay creatively busy, Adams’ current outlet finds him firmly pointed in the direction of musical theater.

“I’m writing the songs for a musical at the moment; it’s a production of the film Pretty Woman, which will come out in 2018.”

BryanAdamsFeature_091916Bryan Adams will be appearing on Sept. 7 at the Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island, 3052 W. 21st St. Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.coneyislandlive.com or call 917-618-6700.

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