Sting

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Sting (b. 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, and singer.

Born Gordon Matthew Sumner, he is the eldest of four children. Sumner was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, due to the influence of his paternal grandmother, who was from an Irish family. He attended St Cuthbert’s Grammar School in Newcastle upon Tyne, and then the University of Warwick, but did not graduate. During this time, he often sneaked into nightclubs like the Club-a-Go-Go. Here he saw acts like Jack Bruce and Jimi Hendrix, who would later influence his music. After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, he attended Northern Counties Teachers’ Training College, which later became part of Northumbria University, from 1971 to 1974. He then worked as a teacher at St Paul’s First School in Cramlington for two years.

From an early age, Sumner knew that he wanted to be a musician. His first music gigs were wherever he could get a job, performing evenings, weekends, and during vacations from college and teaching. He played with local jazz bands such as the Phoenix Jazzmen, the Newcastle Big Band, and Last Exit.

He gained his nickname while with the Phoenix Jazzmen. He once performed wearing a black and yellow jersey with hooped stripes that bandleader Gordon Solomon had noted made him look like a bumblebee; thus Sumner became “Sting”.

In January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London, and soon thereafter he joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani (who was very soon replaced by Andy Summers) to form the new wave band The Police. The group had several chart-topping albums and won six Grammy Awards in the early 1980s.
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