Born on November 5th: Bryan Adams, the Canadian rocker who is also a photographer and yoga enthusiast

Bryan Adams was born in Kingston in 1959. Mind you, not under the Jamaican sun, but rather on the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada.

During his childhood, thanks to his father, a military man in the Canadian army and later a diplomat, he had already developed a taste for world tours! He wasn't singing yet or accustomed to picking up his guitar to play those incisive chords he would later master, but he was already setting down his suitcases in the Middle East, particularly in Israel, as well as in Austria and Portugal.

He wasn't even 20 when he experienced his first successes in Canada with Sweeney Todd, a glam-rock band, a musical style that was very much in vogue at a time when David Bowie's albums "Aladdin Sane" and "Diamond Dogs" were still fresh in everyone's minds. But despite the success of their second album, "If Wishes Were Horses," Bryan Adams preferred to try his luck under his own name. And thus, hold all the cards! On his self-titled debut album in 1980, he even wrote a song that perfectly captures this state of mind: "Try To See It My Way."

Success wasn't immediate, and he had to wait until "Cuts Like A Knife" for his repertoire, alternating between slightly emphatic ballads and hard-hitting tracks crafted from classic but undeniably effective rock, to begin finding its audience.

In 1984, the album "Reckless" brought him widespread acclaim, featuring tracks like "Run To You," "Summer Of 69," "Somebody," and "Kids Wanna Rock." It was around this time that Tina Turner took him under her wing for her "Private Dancer" tour and endorsed him nightly by performing "It's Only Love" with him.

The hit-making machine was thus launched, and Bryan Adams can still count on a loyal fanbase that allows him to fill venues and headline festivals. Alongside his trusty Gibson ES-295, his favourite guitar, he discovered other passions with the onset of wrinkles. In addition to a few film roles, notably in Andrei Konchalovsky's "The House of All," he also devotes himself to photography. As an interesting side note, one of his works appears on a Canadian postage stamp, and he also co-founded "Zoo Magazine" in Berlin in 2006. He has, in fact, received more awards for his photography than Grammy Awards!

And for the past few years, to maintain his fitness and flexibility, especially while touring, he has dedicated himself to yoga. Proof that rockers, some of them at least, can also have a remarkably healthy lifestyle…

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Bryan Adams (with Molière) at the Astoria Hotel in Brussels, Belgium, in April 1985, a few hours before his concert with Tina Turner