Ryan Adams

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Ryan Adams
Ryan Adams, performing live
Background information
Birth name	David Ryan Adams
Born	5 November 1974
Origin	Jacksonville, North Carolina, US
Genre(s)	Alternative country Rock
Instrument(s)	Vocals Guitar Piano Harmonica
Years active	1994 - present
Label(s)	Lost Highway
Associated acts	Whiskeytown
Website	Official Website

Ryan Adams (born David Ryan Adams on November 5, 1974) is an alt-country/rock singer-songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Adams dropped out of high school at 16 to work in a shoe shop and make music. He subsequently earned his GED and briefly attended Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville. He formed a band named Whiskeytown in 1994; they disbanded in 1999 after releasing 3 albums. Ryan Adams is a prolific artist, releasing his first solo record, Heartbreaker, in 2000. It was the first of eight solo albums released between 2000 and 2005.

He has also produced albums by Jesse Malin and Willie Nelson, contributed to Beth Orton, The Wallflowers, Minnie Driver, Jesse Malin ^[1], Counting Crows, and America albums, 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. At least 15 other session recordings can be found floating around the internet.

In December of 2006, he posted 11 new albums on the Cardinal Radio section of his website. He did so under the pseudonyms of DJ Reggie, Sad Dracula, The Shit, and WereWolph.^[2]

He is due to release his 9th solo album, Easy Tiger, June 26th, 2007.^[3]

Contents 1 Demolition 2 Rock N Roll and Love is Hell 3 Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights and 29 4 Elizabethtown 5 2006 6 DJ Reggie, The Shit, and WereWolph 7 2007 and Easy Tiger 8 Working with Jesse Malin 9 Working with Phil Lesh 10 Trivia 11 Songs Featured in Television and Film 12 Discography 12.1 Albums 12.2 EPs 12.3 Singles & Notable Promos 12.4 Bootlegs 13 External links 14 Notes and references

[edit] Demolition

Since the success of Gold, Adams has continued to record incessantly (as evinced by numerous bootlegs and unreleased albums). He boasted that he was going to put out five albums in 2002, but ultimately only one came out. "Demolition" is a compilation of the favorite tracks of Adams' then-girlfriend Carrie Hamilton from the five projects, including the sessions for the unreleased albums 48 Hours, and The Suicide Handbook. Although the album garnered more critical attention it failed to sell as well as Gold. The song "Dear Chicago," from Demolition, was said to have originally been intended to be the closing track on Heartbreaker; it remains a staple of Adams's live shows to this day.

[edit] Rock N Roll and Love is Hell

In an attempt to deal with the death of Carrie Hamilton, Adams began a year long effort at recording an album; the result was Love Is Hell. Upon completion, Lost Highway, Adams' current label, perceived it to be too dark and not commercially viable. Disgusted, Adams went into the studio and two weeks later emerged with Rock N Roll. These sessions featured notable guest musicians including Melissa Auf Der Maur, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, and Adams' partner at the time, Parker Posey. Adams and Lost Highway eventually struck a deal where the label would release the more commercial Rock N Roll coupled with Love Is Hell in two EP installments, the first of which would coincide with the release of Rock N Roll in November 2003. The second would be released later in December. In May of 2004, Love Is Hell was released as the complete album it was intended to be. It featured the total tracks from both EPs as well as an extended version of "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home?" which was initially released on Rock N Roll.

Adams was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for his cover of Oasis's "Wonderwall" from Love is Hell but lost to Bruce Springsteen's "Code of Silence" in the Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance category.

[edit] Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights and 29

Early in the year, Adams announced he would 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, 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.

[edit] Elizabethtown

Adams' song "Come Pick Me Up" (co-written with Van Alston) from 2000's Heartbreaker was featured in the Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. The previously unreleased song "Words", which was featured in the film during Drew's (Orlando Bloom) road trip, first appeared officially on an iTunes Exclusive EP, Songs For The Ride Home, followed by a more proper release on 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, Claire (Kirsten Dunst) can be seen packing the album Love Is Hell in her suitcase along with Heart's Jupiter's Darling.

[edit] 2006

February 2006 saw Adams complete a UK tour without interruption for the first time since 2003. Playing solo, often accompanied by Brad Pemberton (drummer for both The Pinkhearts and The Cardinals) and on the final date in London by Neal Casal. Adams began a tour of the United States with five dates on the west coast in April, then moved on to an East Coast/Midwest tour in June, July, and August. Adams played at Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 4, 2006. This tour premiered around half a dozen new songs which may appear on his upcoming works, including Breakdown in the Resolve, Two Hearts, Rip Off, Everybody Knows, and Blue Hotel. Adams also drew heavily from the Grateful Dead's catalogue, covering songs such as He's Gone, Bird Song, Franklin's Tower, and Stella Blue.

In the beginning of August a new song was made available on his official website. The song was titled Lovely and Blue (though it was initially incorrectly labeled France) and is, according to a message board post quoting Adams, "an old chesnut kicked up from the demo box."[1] The track bears tonal qualities reminiscent of Rock N Roll-era material.

Several other online board posts purportedly from Ryan Adams appeared in late July of 2006, state that he plans to release three new albums in 2006, but that his record company is hesitant to release them. The supposed titles to the three albums are Blackhole, War and Peace, and Starwars. [2]

On August 30, 2006 it was announced via the official Ryan Adams website that Cardinals' bassist Catherine Popper had decided to leave the band indefinitely. The band's replacement will be a long-time friend of the band, Chris Feinstein.

In late September 2006, Adams added hip-hop music to his repertoire, posting two new tracks as a welcome to his official website, which had been redesigned. The tracks seemed to be heavily influenced by Beck and featured humorous and nonsensical lyrics.

On October 31, 2006, the album Songbird, a collaboration with Willie Nelson, was released. Ryan produced the album for Nelson while he and The Cardinals performed as his backing band.

During a three concert series (December 4-6, 2006) at the Town Hall in NYC, Ryan told the audience each night that he had been sober for seven months.^{[citation needed]} On the first night he changed the lyrics of Peaceful Valley from "Up there in heaven with a bottle of wine" to "Up there in heaven with a bottle of diet Sprite."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] DJ Reggie, The Shit, and WereWolph

In December of 2006, Adams released 11 new albums on the Cardinal Radio section of his website[3]. The albums were released under the pseudonyms of DJ Reggie, The Shit, and WereWolph. Three other albums were also released under the pseudonyms Sad Dracula and Warren Peace, but were subsequently removed from the website. Critics stated the music was "either the stupidest or awesomest shit we’ve ever heard." [4] As of March 2007, Adams has since released onto his site, an additional 3 DJ Reggie albums, 2 The Shit albums, 1 album under the pseudonym "Rhoda Ro", and 1 album under the pseudonym "Ghetto Birds".^[4] Whether the albums will be commercially released remains to be seen.

[edit] 2007 and Easy Tiger

In a press release dated 8th March 2007, Lost Highway Records confirmed that Adams has completed a new album for release on June 26th (June 25th elsewhere). The track order is not yet finalised but will comprise: Goodnight Rose, Everybody Knows, The Sun Also Sets, Halloween Head, Off Broadway, Two Hearts, Tears of Gold, These Girls, Two, I Taught Myself How to Grow Old, Oh My God, Whatever, Etc., Rip Off and Pearls on a String.

Half of the songs were debuted live in 2006 on the solo European tour or further dates with the Cardinals, whereas Off Broadway, for example, is an older song, featured on the unreleased Suicide Handbook album.

Adams is set to play an intimate gig at Stonehenge in South West England in June.

[edit] Working with Jesse Malin

Ryan Adams made his first foray into album production 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). Adams 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. In 2005 Adams and Malin, along with Blondie and others, played a Hurricane Katrina benefit show at Irving Plaza in New York City. Ryan Adams also contributed on Jesse Malin's 2004 release The Heat and his 2007 release Glitter in the Gutter.

[edit] Working with Phil Lesh

Ryan Adams made quick friends with an unlikely legend, Phil Lesh of the famed Grateful Dead. He and Lesh met at the Jammys awards in New York in 2005. The two performed Jerry Garcia's "Wharf Rat". Adams performed at subsequent outings of Phil Lesh & Friends, including a two-night stand at Red Rocks outside of Denver, CO and on New Year's Eve 2005 at the Bill Graham Event Center in San Francisco. Lesh has also appeared at several of Adams' concerts as a guest, including a September 2006 show at the Hollywood Bowl.^{[citation needed]} Lesh has publicly endorsed Adams as one of the "great guitarists of his generation."^{[citation needed]} Throughout 2006, Lesh's live performances included compositions by Adams, including several from Cold Roses ("Cold Roses," "Let It Ride," and "Magnolia Mountain"), which was heavily influenced by American Beauty and Working Man's Dead, two acoustic-flavored Grateful Dead records from 1970.

[edit] Trivia

• The Old 97's song Crash on the Barrelhead is supposed to be about Adams being drunk at their Austin City Limits performance. It is a variation of the Louvin Brothers song Cash on the Barrelhead.
• Adams shares a birthday with both Gram Parsons, one of his major musical influences, and his near-namesake Bryan Adams.
• In the credits of his album Gold, Adams thanked Alanis Morissette 10 times, when asked about this in an interview he said that it was from a bet they had which she had won, although Ryan won't clarify what their bet was.
• Adams co-wrote the song Butterfly in Reverse with Adam Duritz. The song appears on the Counting Crows' album Hard Candy.
• Adams also co-wrote the song Essence, with Lucinda Williams, which appears on the album of the same name.
• Noel Gallagher of Oasis once said of Adams' version of Wonderwall, "I never got my head round this song until I went to see heard [sic] Ryan Adams play and he did an amazing cover of it."[5]
• Adams has co-written Thorns on every Rose with Scottish alt-country band Endrick Brothers and the song is featured on their album Attraction Versus Love, released on February 12, 2007.
• Although the official release date for the album Gold will read as September 25th, 2001 on many websites, its actual initial release date was September 11th of the same year. The decision to delay the release of the album was made because of the upside down American Flag on the cover, which was seen as inappropriate for a time when patriotism was at the forefront of the American media.

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

• Ejecting a fan who repeatedly requested the song Summer of 69 (written and performed by Bryan Adams) at a Nashville concert on October 14, 2002. According to an interview with Pitchfork, Adams explains that he was upset with the disrespect of a fan's Bryan Adams-related screams during a three-part harmony between Adams, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
• Leaving a drunken message on Jim Derogatis' answering machine in response to the critic's review of his concert. This has subsequently been leaked onto the Internet.^[5] Although initially viewed as a rather irresponsible act, the message has now become something of a touchstone for those irked by the current state of musical criticism. Derogatis felt the impact of the confrontation through a backlash against his work and heavy criticism of his methodology and style.^{[citation needed]}
• Posting a message on celebrity gossip site Jossip [6] defending Jessica Joffe against what he saw as an attempt "to trash a decent, thoughtful, hard-working beautiful person." A similar message was sent to the editor of Gawker [7] under the name of Johnathan Carter. Adams described the Gawker post on Joffe [8] as "cruel and meaningless".

[edit] Songs Featured in Television and Film

• The song "New York, New York" appeared on the TV show American Idol, during the New York auditions.
• The song "When the Stars Go Blue" appeared in the TV series ER.
• The song "To Be Young (Is to be sad, Is to be high)" appeared in the comedy Old School, the comedy Accepted and the independent film The Slaughter Rule.
• The song "Dance All Night" is played over the ending credits of the romantic comedy film Must Love Dogs.
• The song "Rescue Blues" concludes a fourth season episode (entitled Moving On) of the TV series Felicity, a third season episode of the TV series Scrubs, and also plays over the end of the film Behind Enemy Lines.
• The song "Harder Now That It's Over" is featured in a fourth season episode of the TV series Felicity entitled The Storm.
• The song "Gonna Make You Love Me" can be heard throughout one of the trailers from the movie The Break-up. It is also featured in the film Sweet Home Alabama. In addition, it was played on the pilot episode of TV series The Evidence.
• The song "In My Time Of Need" is featured on the soundtrack for the film The Rookie.
• The song "Desire" is featured in a sixth season episode of the TV series The West Wing and a second season episode of the TV series House.
• The song "La Cienega Just Smiled" is featured in the fifth season episode of the TV series Angel entitled Unleashed and in a fourth season episode of the TV series Felicity entitled Declaration of Independence. It is also featured on the Felicity soundtrack.
• The songs "Wonderwall" (Season 1), "Friends" (Season 2 finale) and "Night Birds" (season 3) feature in the TV series The O.C..
• The song "When The Stars Go Blue" is featured in TV series One Tree Hill and the two characters on the show, Haley James and Chris Keller, sing a cover version of this song. And previously the song "Shadowlands" was featured in season 1"
• The songs "Burning Photographs" and "Let it Ride" are featured in episodes of the TV series Six Feet Under. "Burning Photographs" appears in the ninth episode of the fourth season. "Let it Ride" appears in the seventh episode of the fifth and final season.
• The song "Hallelujah" appears in a second-season episode of the TV series Rescue Me.
• The song "Wonderwall" appears in the fourth-season episode of the TV series "Cold Case" titled "Saving Sammy".
• The song "Dancing with the Women at the Bar", recorded by Whiskeytown, appears in the bar scene in the comedy movie Clay Pigeons.
• The song "Everything I Do", recorded by Whiskeytown, is featured in an episode of the TV series Friday Night Lights entitled El Accidente.
• The song "Don't Be Sad", recorded by Whiskeytown, is featured in the comedy Eurotrip.
• The Song "Nightbirds" is featured on the second-season episode of the TV series Bones (TV series) titled "The Headless Witch In The Woods".
• The song "The Rescue Blues" is featured in the advert for and the program "The Trial of Tony Blair" (a one off Channel4 drama).
• An arrangement of "Now That You're Gone" featuring just Ryan with an acoustic guitar, as well as being extended by more choruses appeared in an epsidone of One Tree Hill.
• The Song "Wither, I'm a Flower" recorded by Whiskeytown is featured in the movie Hope Floats.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

• Heartbreaker - (2000) (Mobile Fidelity SACD reissue 2004)
• Gold - (2001)
• Demolition - (2002)
• Rock N Roll - (2003)
• Love Is Hell - (2004)
• Cold Roses (under the artist name Ryan Adams and the Cardinals) - (2005)
• Jacksonville City Nights (under the artist name Ryan Adams and the Cardinals) - (2005)
• 29 - (2005)
• Easy Tiger - (2007)

[edit] EPs

• Love Is Hell pt. 1 - (2003 - CD)
• Love Is Hell pt. 2 - (2003 - CD)
• The Rescue Blues - (2004 - double 7")
• California - (2004 - double 7")

[edit] Singles & Notable Promos

• New York, New York - (2001 - CD)
• Answering Bell - (2002 - 2xCD)
• Answering Bell (Live at the Paradiso) - (2002 - CD)
• Nuclear - (2002 - CD & 7")
• Hey Parker, It's Christmas - (2003 - Promo 7")
• Come Pick Me Up (4-Track version) - (2003 - Promo 7")
• So Alive - (2004 - 2xCD & 7")
• This is It - (2004 - CD)
• Wonderwall - (2004 - 2xCD & 7")
• Halloween - (2004 - Promo CD)
• Now that You're Gone - (2004 - 7")
• Let it Ride - (2005 - 2xCD)
• Easy Plateau - (2005 - 2xCD)

[edit] Bootlegs

• Heartbreaker Demos - 1999, actually the demos for Whiskeytown's Pneumonia
• Exile On Franklin Street - (2000)
• Destroyer - (2000)
• The Suicide Handbook - (2001)
• 48 Hours - (2001)
• Streetwalking Blues - (2001)
• The Pinkheart Sessions - (2001)
• The Pinkheart Sessions 2 - (2002)
• The Sweden Sessions - (2001)
• The Cowboy Technical Services Sessions - (2001)
• The Skylarks Sessions - (1994)
• The Freightwhaler Sessions - (1996)
• The Highway 145 Sessions - (1997)
• The Forever Valentine Sessions - (1997)
• The Snow Kobra Sessions - (1999)
• Saturday Morning Feverblister (The Scott Litt Sessions) - (2002)
• Amsterdam or Bust (Recorded live at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) - (2/6/2002)
• According to an NME.com article, Adams has also recorded an entire cover of The Strokes' debut album Is This It, but currently has not released it on the internet or in retail stores.

[edit] External links

• Ryan Adams' official website
• Ryan Adams @ IMDb
• Official MySpace Page
• Ryan Adams at MusicBrainz
• Ryan Adams collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive

[edit] Notes and references

1. ^ http://www.nme.com/news/ryan-adams/27147
2. ^ http://www.dose.ca/music/story.html?id=8f3152b0-ccbb-489b-ba4d-4ebffb072afd&k=76376
3. ^ http://main.losthighwayrecords.com/news.aspx?bid=1795
4. ^ http://www.ryan-adams.com/cardinalRadio.html
5. ^ http://www.mp34u.com/songCard.php?posting=1066&by=results

Persondata
NAME	Adams, David Ryan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ryan Adams
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American singer
DATE OF BIRTH	November 5, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH	Jacksonville, North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH