Further Reading
Bane, Vickie, and Lorenzo Benet.The Lives of
Danielle Steel.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Hoyt, Nicole.Danielle Steel: The Glamour, the Myth, the
Woman. New York: Windsor, 1994.
Mar yanne Barsotti
See also Book publishing; King, Stephen; Litera-
ture in the United States.
Sting
Identification British musician, songwriter, and
actor
Born October 2, 1951; Wallsend,
Northumberland, England
During the first half of the 1980’s, Sting was the lead
singer, bass player, and primar y songwriter for the New
Wave band the Police, one of the most popular musical
groups of the decade. When the band’s members went their
separate ways, Sting concentrated on his solo career, achiev-
ing great success.
In early 1977, Gordon Sumner, who was nicknamed
“Sting” after wearing a black and yellow jersey early
in his career, formed the Police with drum player
Stewart Copeland and lead guitarist Henry Pado-
vani (who was soon replaced by Andy Summers).
Embracing eclecticism, the Police merged reggae
and ska with punk and even jazz, produced several
successful albums, and won six Grammy Awards in
the early 1980’s. Their final album,Synchronicity
(1983), included their most successful song, “Every
Breath You Take.”
Even before the Police disbanded, Sting began to
make solo appearances. In 1982, he released a solo
single, “Spread a Little Happiness,” from the sound
track to the television playBrimstone and Treacle,in
which he also appeared. The single became a hit in
the United Kingdom. His first solo album,The Dream
of the Blue Turtles(1985), blended rock, reggae, jazz,
and pop and featured many important jazz and fu-
sion musicians, including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl
Jones, Omar Hakim, and Branford Marsalis. Later
albums continued to blend various musical styles
and always featured intelligent, literate lyrics. In
1987, Sting again worked with jazz artists, such as
Marsalis and veteran jazz arranger Gil Evans, releas-
ing... Nothing Like the Sun, which included the hit
songs “We’ll Be Together,” “Fragile,” “Englishman in
New York,” and “Be Still My Beating Heart.” In Feb-
ruary, 1988, he releasedNada Como el Sol, a selection
of five songs from... Nothing Like the Sunsung
in Spanish and Portuguese. Later that
year, he performed an arrangement of
“Murder by Numbers” (a song from
Synchronicity) on Frank Zappa’s album
Broadway the Hard Way.
Active in support of various humani-
tarian and environmental causes, Sting
performed on all four nights of the
fourth Amnesty International benefit,
The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball, in 1981,
and he led an all-star band that in-
cluded Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, and
Bob Geldof in the Live Aid concert in- In 1988, Sting joined a group of
major artists, such as Peter Gabriel and
Bruce Springsteen, for Amnesty Inter-
national’sHuman Rights Now!world
tour and also released a single, “They
Dance Alone,” which chronicled the
plight of women under the Augusto
Pinochet Ugarte regime in Chile. Sting
also founded the Rainforest Founda-
tion.
920 Sting The Eighties in America
Sting, center, with fellow Police members Andy Summers, right, and Stewart Cope-
land.(PA Photos/Landov)