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Ryan Adams

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Not to be confused with Bryan Adams
Ryan Adams (born David Ryan Adams on November 5, 1974) is an alt-country and rock and roll singer/songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Adams dropped out of high school at 16 to work in a shoe shop and make music. He formed a band named Whiskeytown in 1994; they disbanded in 1999. Adams went on to put out his first solo record, Heartbreaker, in 2000.

Ryan Adams is a highly prolific artist, releasing six albums as a solo artist between January 2000 and December 2005. He has also produced an album by Jesse Malin, contributed to Beth Orton, the Wallflowers and Counting Crows albums, dated Winona Ryder, Alanis Morissette, Beth Orton, Leona Naess, Carrie Hamilton, and Parker Posey, performed specials with Elton John (who refers to him as "Oh Fabulous One"), Willie Nelson, and Toots & the Maytals, and found time to release a punk record with Jesse Malin under the name The Finger. Additionally, at least ten other session recordings can be found floating around the internet.

Contents

Musical career and personal life

Early years

Ryan Adams started out as a punk artist in a band known as The Patty Duke Syndrome. They released two songs in 1994 on a 7" single (two songs on one side, the other side was a band called GlamourPuss). Ryan would later describe punk rock as "too hard to sing" in the song "Faithless Street" which appeared on the debut album of the same name for his new band, Whiskeytown. The band was part of the burgeoning alt-country movement which traces its roots to the country-rock pioneers, most notably Gram Parsons. Following the success of Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown quickly gained critical acclaim with the release of their second full-length album, Stranger's Almanac. Adams' antics soon proved destructive for the band, with only Caitlin Cary enduring Adams for all 3 albums, the rest came and went in rapid succession. Their last album, 2001's Pneumonia (Ryan's first collaboration with Ethan Johns) was held up by legal troubles and finally came out as a sort of work-up for Gold, two years after Ryan had left Whiskeytown.
Album cover of Heartbreaker
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Album cover of Heartbreaker

Solo debut

Ryan made his solo debut in 2000, with Heartbreaker (also produced by Ethan Johns). It's the story of the end of a relationship from one man's perspective. Emmylou Harris, Gram Parson's legendary singing partner, sang backup on album highlight "Oh My Sweet Carolina." Other backing vocals and instruments are provided by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings and Kim Richey as Ryan embraced a more folkish style. It was met with considerable critical success, but sales were slow.

Gold

In 2001, Ryan released Gold, a sprawling sixteen-song album with a limited edition five-song bonus disc. This album adopted a more 'rock' (less country) style. On September 7, 2001, Ryan made a video for his song, "New York, New York" featuring Ryan standing on the Brooklyn shoreline, with the twin towers of the World Trade Center looming over his shoulders, and Ryan singing "I still love you, though, New York," it became a near-immediate staple on MTV in the days following the September 11 attacks, although it obviously wasn't written with that in mind. In 2002, Adams was nominated for three Grammy Award, "Best Male Rock Vocal" for "New York"; "Best Rock Album, Gold; and "Best Male Country Vocal, a cover of Hank Williams's "Lovesick Blues" from Timeless. Neither won. The album went on to sell 364,000 copies, Ryan's best-selling album to-date.

Demolition

Since the success of Gold, Adams has continued to record incessantly (as evidence by numerous bootlegs and unreleased albums). The first of these was called Demolition and was culled from numerous Demo sessions as the favorite tracks of his then-girlfriend Carrie Hamilton. The tracks were pulled from various sessions including the sessions for 48 Hours, The Suicide Handbook and other unreleased tracks. Although the album garnered more critical attention it failed to sell as well as Gold.

Rock N Roll and Love is Hell

After the death of his friend and one-time girlfriend Adams released a pair of EPs (later repackaged as a single album) entitled Love is Hell (Parts 1 and 2) as well as a harder rocking affair Rock N Roll. The first of these was Adams' year long attempt at dealing with the loss of Carrie Hamilton to lung cancer. After Lost Highway received the album, they decided it was not commercially viable. Disgusted, Adams went into the studio and two weeks later emerged with Rock N Roll (many songs coming from his considerable back catalog). Eventually, Lost Highway would release both albums in November of 2003. Notable guest musicians on Rock N Roll include Melissa Auf Der Maur, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, and Adams' partner at the time, Parker Posey.

Adams was nominated for a Grammy Award for his cover of Oasis's "Wonderwall" from Love is Hell but did not win. However, his nomination for the award against such greats as Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits in the same category only further solidified his place as a talented and accomplished young artist.

Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights and 29

Album cover of 29
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Album cover of 29

Early in the year, Adams announced he would record and release three albums in 2005. His first release of the year, a double album entitled Cold Roses, was released on May 3, 2005. Credited to Ryan Adams and The Cardinals (a band that had opened for his solo performances prior to their recording relationship), the album also includes backing vocals from Rachael Yamagata on three songs; "Let it Ride", "Cold Roses", and "Friends." His second album of the year released with The Cardinals, Jacksonville City Nights, includes the songs "Hard Way To Fall", "The Hardest Part" as well as "Dear John," which features Norah Jones. Ryan Adams, this time without The Cardinals, released his third album of the year, 29, on December 20, 2005. The album, according to Adams, would be his last as a solo artist. Though Adams claimed in interviews that the album would feature nine songs, each nine minutes long, the album actually featured nine songs of lengths shorter than the projected nine minutes.

Elizabethtown

His song "Come Pick Me Up" from 2000's Heartbreaker was featured in the Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. The previously unreleased song "Words" appeared on an iTunes Exclusive EP, Songs For The Ride Home, as well as the second volume of the Elizabethtown soundtrack, released on February 7, 2006, along with "English Girls Approximately" originally from Love Is Hell. In the film, Kirsten Dunst's character can be seen packing the album Love Is Hell for her trip.

UK Tour '06

February 2006 saw Ryan complete a UK tour without interruption for the first time since 2003. Playing solo, often accompanied by Brad Pemberton (drummer in The Pinkhearts and The Cardinals, respectively) and on the final date in London by Neal Casal, the tour was used to premier around half a dozen new songs which may appear on his upcoming works.

Work together with Jesse Malin

Ryan Adams made his album-production debut with Jesse Malin's first album, The Fine Art of Self Destruction in 2002 (Ryan also plays some electric guitar and keyboard on the album as well as contributing some backing vocals). Ryan later worked with Malin to form the punk-rock group The Finger (under the pseudonyms, "Warren Peace" and "Irving Plaza" respectively), who released two E.P.s which were collected to form the album: We Are Fuck You, released on One Little Indian Records in 2003. Ryan has also gotten behind the board on some of his solo works, but mainly relies on such pros as Ethan Johns and Tom Schick to twist the knobs while he cranks out the songs. In 2005 Adams and Malin, along with Blondie and others, played a Hurricane Katrina benefit show at Irving Plaza in New York City.

Adams and the Copyright Laws

Although Adams is not personally involved, his label's parent company, Universal Music Group, is engaged with the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office in prosecuting the first arrests on violation of the prerelease copyright provision law passed in 2005. The law makes it a federal offense to release copyrighted music before its scheduled time without permission of the copyright holder. Two separate individuals, Robert Thomas (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Jared Chase Bowser (Jacksonville, Florida), were charged on March 10, 2006, for posting four tracks of Jacksonville City Nights on a message board forum in August 2005, shortly before its release. The two face up to 11 years in prison and fines up to $750,000.http://www.ew.com/ew/article/reuters/0,24012,1171797_10_0_,00.html.

Trivia

Ryan has a reputation for his unstable temperament. Notable incidents include:

Discography

Albums

EPs

Singles

Bootlegs

References

External links

 

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