Sting

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, known professionally as Sting, was born on 2 October 1951 at Sir G B Hunter Memorial Hospital in Wallsend, Northumberland, England, the eldest of four children of Audrey Sumner, a hairdresser, and Ernest Matthew Sumner, a milkman and former fitter at an engineering works. He grew up near Wallsend's shipyards. By the age of ten he had become absorbed with an old Spanish guitar left behind by a friend of his father's who had emigrated. He attended St Cuthbert's Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, where visits to nightclubs such as Club A'Gogo exposed him to acts including Cream and Manfred Mann. After leaving school in 1969 he briefly enrolled at the University of Warwick before departing after a single term. He subsequently worked as a bus conductor, a building labourer, and a tax officer before attending the Northern Counties College of Education, now Northumbria University, from 1971 to 1974, qualifying as a teacher. He then taught for two years at St Paul's First School in Cramlington.

Alongside his teaching work, Sting performed jazz with groups including the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit. His nickname originated with the Phoenix Jazzmen, whose bandleader Gordon Solomon observed that a black and yellow hooped jumper Sting habitually wore made him resemble a bee or, as Sting himself noted, a wasp. Despite using the name throughout his career, he chose never to legally change it from Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner.

In January 1977, Sting joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani, who was soon replaced by Andy Summers, to form the Police, serving as the band's lead singer, bassist, and primary songwriter. Between 1978 and 1983 the group released five UK chart-topping albums and won six Grammy Awards along with two Brit Awards, for Best British Group and for Outstanding Contribution to Music. Their punk-influenced early sound evolved into reggae rock and minimalist pop. Their final album, Synchronicity, received five Grammy nominations including Album of the Year and contained their most successful song, "Every Breath You Take," written by Sting. Four of the band's five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and both "Every Breath You Take" and "Roxanne," each written by Sting, appeared on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time as well as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 and appeared on both Rolling Stone and VH1's lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. After the Synchronicity tour the group members agreed to pursue solo projects, though they reunited temporarily for a tour in 2007.

Sting launched his solo career in 1985 with the album The Dream of the Blue Turtles, which featured jazz musicians Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim, and Branford Marsalis and reached Triple Platinum within a year. The record drew Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, and Best Engineered Recording. His 1987 follow-up, Nothing Like the Sun, went Double Platinum and included the singles "We'll Be Together," "Fragile," "Englishman in New York," and "Be Still My Beating Heart." As a solo artist and as a member of the Police combined, Sting has sold more than 100 million records. His solo work has incorporated rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat elements. He has received 17 Grammy Awards across his solo and Police careers, three Brit Awards including Best British Male Artist in 1994 and Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2002, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and four Academy Award nominations. Additional honors include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II for services to music, Kennedy Center Honors, the Polar Music Prize, and, in May 2023, the designation of Ivor Novello Fellow.

Sting's Broadway career spans 1989 to 2020 and includes appearances in both The Threepenny Opera and The Last Ship. For The Last Ship, for which he also served as book writer, he received a 2015 Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score Written for the Theatre and a 2015 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Music. His connection to The Last Ship drew on his upbringing near the shipyards of Wallsend, an environment that had made a lasting impression on him from childhood.