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Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville at age 14 to become a country artist. She signed a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in 2004 and a recording contract with Big Machine Records in 2005. Her 2006 self-titled debut album made her the first female country singer to write or co-write a U.S. platinum-certified album entirely.
Swift's next albums, Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010), explored country pop. The former's ""Love Story"" and ""You Belong with Me"" were the first country songs to top the U.S. pop and all-genre airplay charts, respectively. She experimented with rock and electronic styles on Red (2012), which featured her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, ""We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"", and eschewed her country image in her synth-pop album, 1989 (2014), supported by chart-topping songs ""Shake It Off"", ""Blank Space"", and ""Bad Blood"". Media scrutiny inspired the urban-flavored Reputation (2017) and its number-one single ""Look What You Made Me Do"".
Exiting Big Machine, Swift signed with Republic Records in 2018 and released her seventh studio album, Lover (2019), followed by the autobiographical documentary Miss Americana (2020). She ventured into indie folk and alternative rock in her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, whose singles ""Cardigan"" and ""Willow"" topped the Hot 100. Swift began re-recording her first six albums after a dispute over their masters, re-releasing two in 2021—Fearless (Taylor's Version) and Red (Taylor's Version). The latter's ""All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"" became the longest song to top the Hot 100. Her tenth original album Midnights (2022) and its single ""Anti-Hero"" broke all-time streaming records. Swift has self-directed music videos and films, such as All Too Well: The Short Film (2021), and had supportive acting roles in others.
Having sold over 200 million records globally, Swift is one of the best-selling musicians in history. She is the most streamed woman on Spotify, and the only act to have five albums open with over one million copies sold in the US. Among her accolades are 11 Grammy Awards, including three Album of the Year wins; an Emmy Award; 40 American Music Awards; 29 Billboard Music Awards; and 92 Guinness World Records. Swift has been featured in rankings such as Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, Billboard's Greatest of All Time Artists, the Time 100 and Forbes Celebrity 100. Honored with titles such as Artist of the Decade and Woman of the Decade, Swift is an advocate for artists' rights and women's empowerment. Her music is credited with influencing a generation of singer-songwriters.
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989,[1] at the Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pennsylvania.[2] Swift's father, Scott Kingsley Swift, is a former stockbroker for Merrill Lynch[3] and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift (née Finlay), is a former homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.[4] Her younger brother, Austin, is an actor.[5] She was named after singer-songwriter James Taylor,[6] and has Scottish[7] and German heritage. Her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, was an opera singer.[8] Swift spent her early years on a Christmas tree farm that her father had purchased from one of his clients.[9][10] Swift identifies as a Christian.[11] She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by the Bernadine Franciscan sisters,[12] before transferring to The Wyndcroft School.[13] The family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,[14] where Swift attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.[15] She spent her summers at the beach in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, and performed in a local coffee shop.[16][17]
At age nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and performed in four Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions.[18] She also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons.[19] Swift later shifted her focus toward country music, inspired by Shania Twain's songs, which made her ""want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything.""[20] She spent weekends performing at local festivals and events.[21][22] After watching a documentary about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure she needed to move to Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in music.[23] She traveled with her mother at age eleven to visit Nashville record labels and submitted demo tapes of Dolly Parton and The Chicks karaoke covers.[24] She was rejected, however, because ""everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different.""[25]
When Swift was around 12 years old, computer repairman and local musician Ronnie Cremer taught her to play guitar. ""Kiss Me"" by Sixpence None the Richer was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. Cremer helped with her first efforts as a songwriter, leading her to write ""Lucky You"".[26][27] In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based talent manager Dan Dymtrow. With his help, Swift modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch as part of their ""Rising Stars"" campaign, had an original song included on a Maybelline compilation CD, and attended meetings with major record labels.[28] After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, Swift, then 13 years old, was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother.[29][30][31] To help Swift enter into the country music scene, her father transferred to Merrill Lynch's Nashville office when she was 14 years old, and the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee.[9][32] Swift initially attended Hendersonville High School[33] before transferring to the Aaron Academy after two years, which better suited her touring schedule through homeschooling. She graduated one year early.[34]
In Nashville, Swift worked with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally, and the Warren Brothers[35][36] and formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.[37] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.[38] Rose thought the sessions were ""some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks."" Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house,[39] but left the Sony-owned RCA Records at the age of 14 due to the label's lack of care and them ""cut[ting] other people's stuff"". She was also concerned that development deals may shelve artists,[31][22] and recalled: ""I genuinely felt that I was running out of time. I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through.""[40]
At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form an independent record label, Big Machine Records. She had first met Borchetta in 2004.[42] She was one of Big Machine's first signings,[31] and her father purchased a three-percent stake in the company for an estimated $120,000.[43][44] She began working on her eponymous debut album with producer Nathan Chapman, with whom she felt she had the right ""chemistry"".[22] Swift wrote three of the album's songs alone, and co-wrote the remaining eight with Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall, Brian Maher, and Angelo Petraglia.[45]Taylor Swift was released on October 24, 2006.[46]Country Weekly critic Chris Neal deemed Swift better than previous aspiring teenage country singers because of her ""honesty, intelligence and idealism"".[47] The album peaked at number five on the U.S. Billboard 200, where it spent 157 weeks—the longest stay on the chart by any release in the U.S. in the 2000s decade.[48] It made Swift the first female country-music artist to write or co-write every track on a U.S. platinum-certified album.[49]
Big Machine Records was still in its infancy during the June 2006 release of the lead single, ""Tim McGraw"", which Swift and her mother helped promote by sending copies of the CD single to country radio stations.[50] As there was not enough furniture at the label yet, they would sit on the floor to do so.[50] She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift with a radio tour, television appearances; she opened for Rascal Flatts on select dates during their 2006 tour,[51] as a replacement for Eric Church.[52] Borchetta said that although record industry peers initially disapproved of his signing a 15-year-old singer-songwriter, Swift tapped into a previously unknown market—teenage girls who listen to country music.[50][9] Following ""Tim McGraw"", four more singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: ""Teardrops on My Guitar"", ""Our Song"", ""Picture to Burn"" and ""Should've Said No"". All appeared on Billboard's Hot Country Songs, with ""Our Song"", and ""Should've Said No"" reaching number one. With ""Our Song"", Swift became the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number-one song on the chart.[53] ""Teardrops on My Guitar"" reached number thirteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.[54] Swift also released two EPs, The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection in October 2007 and Beautiful Eyes in July 2008.[55][56] She promoted her debut album extensively as the opening act for other country musicians' tours throughout 2006–2007, including George Strait,[57]Brad Paisley,[58] and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.[59]
Swift won multiple accolades for Taylor Swift. She was one of the recipients of the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, becoming the youngest person to be honored with the title.[60] She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist,[61] the Academy of Country Music Awards' Top New Female Vocalist,[62] and the American Music Awards' Favorite Country Female Artist honor.[63] She was also nominated for Best New Artist at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.[64] In 2008, she opened for the Rascal Flatts again,[65] and dated singer Joe Jonas for three months.[66][67]
Swift's second studio album, Fearless, was released on November 11, 2008, in North America,[70] and in March 2009, in other markets.[71] Critics lauded Swift's honest and vulnerable songwriting in contrast to other teenage singers.[72] Five singles were released in 2008 through 2009: ""Love Story"", ""White Horse"", ""You Belong with Me"", ""Fifteen"", and ""Fearless"". ""Love Story"", the lead single, peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one in Australia.[54][73] It was the first country song to top Billboard's Pop Songs chart.[74] ""You Belong with Me"" was the album's highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number two,[75] and was the first country song to top Billboard's all-genre Radio Songs chart.[76] All five singles were Hot Country Songs top-10 entries, with ""Love Story"" and ""You Belong with Me"" topping the chart.[77]Fearless became her first number-one album on the Billboard 200 and 2009's top-selling album in the U.S.[78] The Fearless Tour, Swift's first headlining concert tour, grossed over $63 million.[79]Journey to Fearless, a three-part documentary miniseries, aired on television and was later released on DVD and Blu-ray.[80] Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour in 2009.[81]
In 2009, the music video for ""You Belong with Me"" was named Best Female Video at the MTV Video Music Awards.[82] Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West,[83] an incident that became the subject of controversy, widespread media attention, and many Internet memes.[84] That year she won five American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album.[85]Billboard named her 2009's Artist of the Year.[86] The album ranked number 99 on NPR's 2017 list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women.[87] She won Video of the Year and Female Video of the Year for ""Love Story"" at the 2009 CMT Music Awards, where she made a parody video of the song with rapper T-Pain called ""Thug Story"".[88] At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards, Fearless was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, and ""White Horse"" won Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Swift was the youngest artist to win Album of the Year.[note 1] At the 2009 Country Music Association Awards, Swift won Album of the Year for Fearless and was named Entertainer of the Year, the youngest person to win the honor.[91]
Swift featured on John Mayer's single ""Half of My Heart"" and Boys Like Girls' single ""Two Is Better Than One"", both of which she co-wrote.[92][93] She co-wrote and recorded ""Best Days of Your Life"" with Kellie Pickler,[94] and co-wrote two songs for the Hannah Montana: The Movie soundtrack—""You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home"" and ""Crazier"".[69] She contributed two songs to the Valentine's Day soundtrack, including the single ""Today Was a Fairytale"", which was her first number-one on the Canadian Hot 100, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.[95][96] While shooting her film debut Valentine's Day in October 2009, Swift dated co-star Taylor Lautner.[97] In 2009, she made her television debut as a rebellious teenager in an CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode.[98] She hosted and performed as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live; she was the first host to write their own opening monologue.[99][100]
In August 2010, Swift released ""Mine"", the lead single from her third studio album, Speak Now. It entered the Hot 100 at number three.[101] Swift wrote the album alone and co-produced every track.[102]Speak Now, released on October 25, 2010,[103] debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of one million copies.[104] It became the fastest-selling digital album by a female artist, with 278,000 downloads in a week, earning Swift an entry in the 2010 Guinness World Records.[105] Critics appreciated Swifts grown-up perspectives;[106]Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote, ""in a mere four years, the 20-year-old Nashville firecracker has put her name on three dozen or so of the smartest songs released by anyone in pop, rock or country.""[107] The songs ""Mine"", ""Back to December"", ""Mean"", ""The Story of Us"", ""Sparks Fly"", and ""Ours"" were released as singles, with the latter two reaching number one.[77] ""Back to December"" and ""Mean"" peaked in the top ten in Canada.[96] She briefly dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010.[108]
At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, Swift won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance for ""Mean"", which she performed during the ceremony.[109] Swift won other awards for Speak Now, including Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association (2010 and 2011),[110][111] Woman of the Year by Billboard (2011),[112] and Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music (2011 and 2012)[113] and the Country Music Association in 2011.[114] At the American Music Awards of 2011, Swift won Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album.[115]Rolling Stone placed Speak Now at number 45 in its 2012 list of the ""50 Best Female Albums of All Time"", writing: ""She might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days, with a flawless ear for what makes a song click.""[116]
The Speak Now World Tour ran from February 2011 to March 2012 and grossed over $123 million,[117] followed up with its live album, Speak Now World Tour: Live.[118] She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games soundtrack album: ""Safe & Sound"", co-written and recorded with the Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett, and ""Eyes Open"". ""Safe & Sound"" won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.[119][120] Swift featured on B.o.B's single ""Both of Us"", released in May 2012.[121] Swift dated Conor Kennedy that year.[122]
In August 2012, Swift released ""We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"", the lead single from her fourth studio album, Red. It became her first number one in the U.S. and New Zealand,[123][124] and reached the top slot on iTunes' digital song sales chart 50 minutes after its release, earning the Fastest Selling Single in Digital History Guinness World Record.[125] Other singles released from the album include ""Begin Again"", ""I Knew You Were Trouble"", ""22"", ""Everything Has Changed"", ""The Last Time"", and ""Red"". ""I Knew You Were Trouble"" reached the top five on charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.[126] Three singles, ""Begin Again"", ""22"", and ""Red"", reached the top 20 in the U.S.[54]Red was released on October 22, 2012.[127] On Red, Swift worked with longtime collaborators Nathan Chapman and Liz Rose, as well as new producers such as Max Martin and Shellback.[128] The album incorporated many pop and rock styles such as heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop.[129] Randall Roberts of Los Angeles Times said Swift ""strives for something much more grand and accomplished"" with Red.[130] It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies, making Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings—a Guinness World Records.[131][132]Red was Swift's first number-one album in the U.K.[133]
The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million, becoming the highest-grossing country tour when it completed.[134] The album earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards (2014).[135] Its single ""I Knew You Were Trouble"" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards.[136] Swift received American Music Awards for Best Female Country Artist in 2012, and Artist of the Year in 2013.[137][138] She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013.[139] Swift was honored by the Association with the Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks.[140] During this time, she briefly dated English singer Harry Styles.[141]
In 2013, Swift recorded ""Sweeter than Fiction"", a song she wrote and produced with Jack Antonoff for the One Chance film soundtrack. The song received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards.[142] She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song ""Highway Don't Care"", which featured guitar work by Keith Urban.[143] Swift performed ""As Tears Go By"" with the Rolling Stones in Chicago, Illinois as part of the band's 50 & Counting tour.[144] She joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing ""Cruise"".[145] Swift voiced Audrey in the animated film The Lorax (2012),[146] made a cameo in the sitcom New Girl (2013),[147] and had a supporting role in the dystopian drama film The Giver (2014).[148]
In March 2014, Swift began living in New York City.[note 2] She worked on her fifth studio album, 1989, with producers Jack Antonoff, Max Martin, Shellback, Imogen Heap, Ryan Tedder, and Ali Payami.[151] She promoted the album through various campaigns, including inviting fans to secret album-listening sessions.[152] The album was released on October 27, 2014, and debuted atop the U.S. Billboard 200 with sales of 1.28 million copies in its first week.[153] Its singles ""Shake It Off"", ""Blank Space"" and ""Bad Blood"" reached number one in Australia, Canada and the U.S., the first two making Swift the first woman to replace herself at the Hot 100 top spot;[154] other singles include ""Style"", ""Wildest Dreams"", ""Out of the Woods"" and ""New Romantics"".[155]The 1989 World Tour ran from May to December 2015 and was the highest-grossing tour of the year with $250 million in total revenue.[156]
Prior to 1989's release, Swift stressed the importance of albums to artists and fans.[157] In November 2014, she removed her entire catalog from Spotify, arguing that the streaming company's ad-supported, free service undermined the premium service, which provides higher royalties for songwriters.[158] In a June 2015 open letter, Swift criticized Apple Music for not offering royalties to artists during the streaming service's free three-month trial period and stated that she would pull 1989 from the catalog.[159] The following day, Apple Inc. announced that it would pay artists during the free trial period,[160] and Swift agreed to let 1989 on the streaming service.[161] Swift's intellectual property rights holding company, TAS Rights Management, filed for 73 trademarks related to Swift and the 1989 era memes.[162] She then returned her entire catalog plus 1989 to Spotify, Amazon Music and Google Play and other digital streaming platforms in June 2017.[163] Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year in 2014, becoming the first artist to win the award twice.[164] At the 2014 American Music Awards, Swift received the inaugural Dick Clark Award for Excellence.[165] On her 25th birthday in 2014, the Grammy Museum at L.A. Live opened an exhibit in her honor in Los Angeles that ran until October 4, 2015, and broke museum attendance records.[166][167] In 2015, Swift won the Brit Award for International Female Solo Artist.[168] The video for ""Bad Blood"" won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards.[169] Swift was one of eight artists to receive a 50th Anniversary Milestone Award at the 2015 Academy of Country Music Awards.[170] At the 58th Grammy Awards in 2016, 1989 won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, and ""Bad Blood"" won Best Music Video. Swift was the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice as a lead artist.[171]
Swift dated Scottish DJ Calvin Harris from March 2015–June 2016.[172] Prior to their breakup, they co-wrote the song ""This Is What You Came For"", which features vocals from Barbadian singer Rihanna; Swift was initially credited under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg.[173] After briefly dating English actor Tom Hiddleston,[174] Swift began dating English actor Joe Alwyn in September 2016.[175][176] She wrote the song ""Better Man"" for country band Little Big Town;[note 3] it earned Swift an award for Song of the Year at the 51st CMA Awards.[178] Swift and English singer Zayn Malik released a single together, ""I Don't Wanna Live Forever"", for the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker (2017). The song reached number two in the U.S.[179] and won Best Collaboration at the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards.[180] In August 2017, Swift successfully sued David Mueller, a former radio jockey for KYGO-FM. Four years earlier, Swift had informed Mueller's bosses that he had sexually assaulted her by groping her at an event. After being fired, Mueller accused Swift of lying and sued her for damages from his loss of employment. Shortly after, Swift counter-sued for sexual assault for nominal damages of only one dollar.[181] The jury rejected Mueller's claims and ruled in favor of Swift.[182]
After a one-year hiatus from public spotlight, Swift cleared her social media accounts[183] and released ""Look What You Made Me Do"" as the lead single from her sixth album, Reputation.[184] The single was Swift's first U.K. number-one single.[185] It topped charts in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.S.[186]Reputation was released on November 10, 2017.[187] It incorporated a heavy electropop sound, along with hip hop, R&B, and EDM influences.[188] Reviewers praised Swift's mature artistry, but some denounced the themes of fame and gossip.[189] The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. Swift became the first act to have four albums sell one million copies within one week in the U.S.[190] The album topped the charts in the UK, Australia, and Canada,[191] and had sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide as of 2018.[192] It spawned three other international singles, including the U.S. top-five entry ""...Ready for It?"",[193] and two U.S. top-20 singles—""End Game"" (featuring Ed Sheeran and rapper Future) and ""Delicate"".[155] Swift launched the short-lived The Swift Life mobile app for fans in late 2017.[194]Reputation was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards in 2019.[195] At the American Music Awards of 2018, Swift won four awards, including Artist of the Year and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist. After the 2018 AMAs, Swift garnered a total of 23 awards, becoming the most awarded female musician in AMA history, a record previously held by Whitney Houston.[196] In April 2018, Swift featured on country duo Sugarland's ""Babe"".[note 4] In support of Reputation, she embarked on her Reputation Stadium Tour, which ran from May to November 2018.[198] In the U.S., the tour grossed $266.1 million in box office and sold over two million tickets, breaking many records, the most prominent being the highest-grossing North American concert tour in history. It grossed $345.7 million worldwide.[199] It was followed up with an accompanying concert film on Netflix.[200]
Reputation was Swift's last album with Big Machine. In November 2018, she signed a new deal with the Universal Music Group; her subsequent releases were promoted by Republic Records. Swift said the contract included a provision for her to maintain ownership of her masters. In addition, in the event that Universal sold any part of its stake in Spotify, it agreed to distribute a non-recoupable portion of the proceeds among their artists.[201]Vox called it a huge commitment from Universal, which was ""far from assured"" until Swift intervened.[202]
Swift released her seventh studio album, Lover, on August 23, 2019.[203] Besides Jack Antonoff, Swift worked with new producers Louis Bell, Frank Dukes, and Joel Little.[204]Lover made Swift the first female artist to have a sixth consecutive album sell more than 500,000 copies in one week in the U.S.[205] Critics commended the album's free-spirited mood and emotional intimacy.[206][207] The lead single, ""Me!"", peaked at number two on the Hot 100.[208] Other singles from Lover were the U.S. top-10 singles ""You Need to Calm Down"" and ""Lover"", and U.S. top-40 single ""The Man"".[54]Lover was the world's best-selling album by a solo artist of 2019, selling 3.2 million copies.[209] The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported Swift as the global best-selling artist of 2019. Swift became first woman to win the honor twice, having previously won in 2014.[210]Lover and its singles earned nominations at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020.[211] At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, ""Me!"" won Best Visual Effects, and ""You Need to Calm Down"" won Video of the Year and Video for Good. Swift was the first female and second artist overall to win Video of the Year for a video that they directed.[212]
While promoting Lover, Swift became embroiled in a public dispute with talent manager Scooter Braun and Big Machine over the purchase of the masters of her back catalog.[213] Swift said she had been trying to buy the masters, but Big Machine only allowed her to do so if she exchanged one new album for each older one under another contract, which she refused to do.[213][214] Swift began re-recording her back catalog in November 2020.[215] Besides music, she played Bombalurina in the movie adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats (2019), for which she co-wrote and recorded the Golden Globe-nominated original song ""Beautiful Ghosts"".[216][217] Critics panned the film but praised Swift's performance.[218] The documentary Miss Americana, which chronicled parts of Swift's life and career, premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix that January.[219][220] Swift signed a global publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group in February 2020 after her 16-year-old contract with Sony/ATV expired.[221]
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift released two surprise albums: Folklore on July 24, and Evermore on December 11, 2020.[222][223] Both explore indie folk and alternative rock with a more muted production compared to her previous upbeat pop songs.[224][225] Swift wrote and recorded the albums with producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner from the National.[226] Alwyn co-wrote and co-produced select songs under the pseudonym William Bowery.[227] The albums garnered widespread critical acclaim. The Guardian and Vox opined that Folklore and Evermore emphasized Swift's work ethic and increased her artistic credibility.[228][229] Three singles supported each of the albums, catering the U.S. mainstream radio, country radio, and triple A radio. The singles, in that order, were ""Cardigan"", ""Betty"", and ""Exile"" from Folklore, and ""Willow"", ""No Body, No Crime"", and ""Coney Island"" from Evermore.[230] Swift became the first artist to debut a U.S. number-one album and a number-one song at the same time with Folklore's ""Cardigan"" and Evermore's ""Willow"".[231]Folklore was 2020's best-selling album in the U.S. with 1.2 million copies.[232] It won Album of the Year at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, making Swift the first woman to win the award thrice.[233] At the 2020 American Music Awards, Swift won three awards, including Artist of the Year for a record third consecutive time.[234] She was 2020's highest-paid musician in the U.S., and the world's highest-paid solo musician.[235]
Following the masters dispute, Swift released two re-recorded albums in 2021, to critical appraisal centering on Swift's vocals.[236][237] The first, Fearless (Taylor's Version), peaked atop the Billboard 200, becoming the first re-recorded album to do so.[238] It was preceded by the three tracks: ""Love Story (Taylor's Version)"", ""You All Over Me"" with Maren Morris, and ""Mr. Perfectly Fine"",[239] the first of which made Swift the second artist after Dolly Parton to have both the original and the re-recording of a single reach number one on the Hot Country Songs chart.[240] The second re-recording Red (Taylor's Version) was released on November 12.[241] Its final track, ""All Too Well (10 Minute Version)""—accompanied by the namesake short film directed by Swift—debuted at number one on the Hot 100, becoming the longest song in history to top the chart.[242] The film received highly positive reviews of Swift's direction.[243] She was the highest-paid female musician of 2021,[244] and both her 2020 albums and the re-recordings were ranked among the top 10 best-sellers of the year.[245] In May 2021, Swift was awarded the Global Icon Award by the Brit Awards[246] and the Songwriter Icon Award by the National Music Publishers' Association.[247] ""Wildest Dreams (Taylor's Version)"" and ""This Love (Taylor's Version)"" were released on September 17, 2021, and May 6, 2022.[248][249]
Outside her albums, Swift featured on five songs in 2021–2023: ""Renegade"" and ""Birch"" by Big Red Machine,[250] a remix of Haim's ""Gasoline""[251] and Sheeran's ""The Joker and the Queen"",[252] and ""The Alcott"" by the National.[253] She released ""Carolina"" as part of the soundtrack of the film Where the Crawdads Sing,[254] and played a brief role in the period comedy Amsterdam.[255] She received four nominations at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, including ""All Too Well (10 Minute Version)"" for Song of the Year and ""Carolina"" for Best Song Written for Visual Media.[254] At the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards, Swift won Video of the Year (for All Too Well: The Short Film) for a record-breaking third time.[256] A feature film written and directed by Swift for Searchlight Pictures was announced on December 9, 2022.[257]
Her tenth studio album, Midnights, was released on October 21, 2022.[258] Swift experimented with electronica[259] and chill-out music styles on it.[260]Rolling Stone critics dubbed the album an ""instant classic"".[261][262] Commercially, Billboard described the album a blockbuster,[263] while CNBC called it Swift's biggest success yet.[264] Breaking a string of records across all formats of music consumption,[265][266]Midnights and its lead single, ""Anti-Hero"", became Spotify's most-streamed album and song in one day with 185 million and 17.4 million plays,[267][268] and the best selling album and song of 2022, respectively.[266] The album debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 1.57 million units and marked Swift's fifth album to open with over one million copies sold. She tied Barbra Streisand for the most number-one albums among women (11), and also became the first artist in history to monopolize the Hot 100's entire top 10, with ""Anti-Hero"", ""Lavender Haze"", ""Maroon"", and ""Snow on the Beach"" featuring Lana Del Rey occupying the top four spots.[265] Swift will embark on the Eras Tour in 2023; it broke the record for most concert tickets ever sold in a single day.[265] However, Ticketmaster was widely castigated for its handling of the tour's sales, triggering government investigations into the company.[269]
One of Swift's earliest memories of music is listening to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, sing in church.[4] As a child, she enjoyed Disney film soundtracks: ""My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own.""[270] Swift said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child.[271] She also attributes her ""fascination with writing and storytelling"" to her mother.[272] Swift was drawn to the storytelling aspect of country music,[273] and was introduced to the genre listening to ""the great female country artists"" of the 1990s—Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and the Dixie Chicks.[274][275] Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence.[276] Hill was Swift's childhood role model, and she would often imitate her.[277] She admired the Dixie Chicks' defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments.[278] Swift also explored the music of older country stars such as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Dolly Parton,[21] the last of whom she believes is exemplary to female songwriters,[112] and alt-country artists like Patty Griffin[279] and Lori McKenna.[9] As a songwriter, Swift was influenced by Joni Mitchell, citing especially how Mitchell's autobiographical lyrics convey the deepest emotions; ""I think [Blue] is my favorite because it explores somebody's soul so deeply.""[280]
Swift has also been influenced by various pop and rock artists. She lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bryan Adams,[281]the Rolling Stones,[282]Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, and Carly Simon as her career role models.[9][283] She likes Springsteen and the Stones for remaining musically relevant for a long time[284] and credits the Stones with being ""a huge influence on my entire outlook on my career.""[285] As she grows older, Swift aspires to be like Harris and prioritize music over fame.[286] Her synth-pop album 1989 was influenced by some of her favorite 1980s pop acts, including Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Phil Collins, and Madonna.[287][288] She has also cited Keith Urban's musical style[289] and Fall Out Boy's lyrics as major influences.[290]
""If there's one thing that Swift has proven throughout her career, it's that she refuses to be put in a box. Her ever-evolving sound took her from country darling to pop phenom to folk's newest raconteur.""
—The Recording Academy, 2021[291]
Swift is known for venturing into various music genres,[257] having been described as a ""music chameleon"".[292][293] She self-identified as a country musician until 2012, when she released her fourth studio album, Red.[294] Her albums were promoted to country radio, but music critics noted wide-ranging styles of pop and rock.[295][296] After 2010, they observed that Swift's melodies are rooted in pop music, and the country music elements are limited to instruments such as banjo, mandolin, and fiddle, and her slight twang;[297][298] some commented that her country music identity was an indicator of her narrative songwriting rather than musical style.[299][300] Although the Nashville music industry was receptive of Swift's status as a country musician, critics accused her of abandoning the legitimate roots of country music in favor of crossover success in the mainstream pop market.[301][302]Red's eclectic pop, rock, and electronic styles intensified the critical debate, to which Swift responded, ""I leave the genre labeling to other people.""[303]
Music journalist Jody Rosen commented that by originating her musical career in Nashville, Swift made a ""bait-and-switch maneuver ... planting roots in loamy country soil, then pivoting to pop"".[304] She abandoned her country-music identity in 2014 with the release of her synth-pop fifth studio album, 1989. Swift described this as her first ""documented, official pop album"".[305] Her albums Reputation (2017) and Lover (2019) have an upbeat pop production; the former incorporates hip hop and trap elements.[306][307] Although reviews of Swift's pop albums were generally positive, some critics lamented that the pop music production indicated Swift's pursuit of mainstream success, eroding her authenticity as a songwriter nurtured by her country music background—a criticism that has been retrospectively described as rockist.[308][309]Musicologist Nate Sloan remarked that Swift's pop music transition was rather motivated by her need to expand her artistry.[310] Swift eschewed mainstream pop in favor of alternative styles like indie rock with her 2020 studio albums, Folklore and Evermore.[311][312]Clash said her career ""has always been one of transcendence and covert boundary-pushing"", reaching a point at which ""Taylor Swift is just Taylor Swift"", not defined by any genre.[313]
Swift possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range,[314] and a generally soft but versatile timbre.[315][316] During her career as a country singer, her vocals were criticized by some as weak and strained compared to those of her contemporaries.[317] Swift admitted her vocal ability often concerned her in her early career, and has worked hard to improve.[318] After transitioning to pop music with 1989, reviews of her vocals remained mixed; critics complained that she lacks proper technique but appreciated her usage of her voice to communicate her feelings to the audience, prioritizing ""intimacy over power and nuance"".[319] They also praised her for refraining from correcting her pitch with Auto-Tune.[320]Los Angeles Times remarked in 2010 that Swift's defining vocal feature is her attention to detail to convey an exact feeling—""the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow"".[321]
Reviews of Swift's later albums were more appreciative of her vocals, finding them less nasal, richer, and more resonant.[298][322] With Folklore and Evermore, critics complimented her sharp and agile yet translucent and controlled vocals.[323][324][325]Pitchfork noted her as a ""versatile, expressive vocalist"".[326]Music theory professor Alyssa Barna said Swift's timbre is ""breathy and bright"" in the upper register and ""full and dark"" in the lower.[225] With her 2021 re-recorded albums, critics began to praise the mature, deeper and ""fuller"" tone of her voice.[327][328][329] An i review said Swift's voice is ""leagues better now"" with her new-found vocal furniture.[330]The Guardian highlighted ""yo-yoing vocal yelps"" and passionate climaxes as the trademarks of Swift's voice,[331] and that her country twang has faded away.[332]Midnights received acclaim for her nuanced vocals.[333] She ranked 102nd on the 2023 Rolling Stone list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.[316]
Swift has been referred to as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and the best of her generation by several publications.[334][335][336] She told The New Yorker in 2011 that she identifies as a songwriter first: ""I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across.""[9] Swift's personal experiences were a common inspiration for her early songs, which helped her navigate life.[337][338] Her ""diaristic"" technique began with identifying an emotion, followed by a corresponding melody.[339][340] On her first three studio albums, love, heartbreak, and insecurities, from an adolescent perspective, were dominant themes.[341][342] She delved into the tumult of toxic relationships on Red,[343] and embraced nostalgia and post-romance positivity on 1989.[287]Reputation was inspired by the downsides of Swift's fame,[344] and Lover detailed her realization of the ""full spectrum of love"".[345] Other themes in Swift's music include family dynamics, friendship,[346][347] alienation, self-awareness, and tackling vitriol, especially sexism.[272][348]
Her confessional lyrics received positive reviews from critics;[349][9][350] they highlighted its vivid details and emotional engagement, which they found uncommon in pop music.[351][352][353] Critics praised her melodic songwriting; Rolling Stone described Swift as ""a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture"".[354][355]NPR remarked that Swift's songs offer emotional engagement because ""the wit and clarity of her arrangements turn them from standard fare to heartfelt disclosures"".[355] Despite the positive reception, The New Yorker stated she was generally portrayed ""more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary"".[9]Tabloid media often speculated and linked the subjects of her songs with her ex-lovers, a practice reviewers and Swift herself criticized as sexist.[356][357][358] Aside from clues in album liner notes, Swift avoided talking about the subjects of her songs.[359]
On her 2020 albums Folklore and Evermore, Swift was inspired by escapism and romanticism to explore fictional narratives.[360] Without referencing her personal life, she imposed emotions onto imagined characters and story arcs, which liberated her from tabloid attention and suggested new paths for her artistry.[339] Swift explained that she welcomed the new songwriting direction after she stopped worrying about commercial success.[360] According to Spin, she explored complex emotions with ""precision and devastation"" on Evermore.[361]Consequence stated her 2020 albums provided a chance to convince skeptics of Swift had ""songwriting power"", noting her transformation from ""teenage wunderkind to a confident and careful adult"".[362]
Swift categorizes her songwriting into three types: ""quill lyrics"", referring to songs rooted in antiquated poeticism; ""fountain pen lyrics"", based on modern and vivid storylines; and ""glitter gel pen lyrics"", which are lively and frivolous.[363] Critics note the fifth track of every Swift album as the most ""emotionally vulnerable"" song of the album.[364] Swift's bridges are often underscored as one of the best aspects of her songs,[365][362] earning her the title ""Queen of Bridges"" from Time.[366] Awarding her with the Songwriter Icon Award in 2021, the National Music Publishers' Association remarked that ""no one is more influential when it comes to writing music today"" than Swift.[367]The Week deemed her the foremost female songwriter of modern times,[368] and the Nashville Songwriters Association International named her Songwriter-Artist of the Decade in 2022.[265]Carole King considers Swift her ""professional grand daughter"" and thanked Swift for ""carrying the torch forward.""[369] Swift has also published two original poems: ""Why She Disappeared"" and ""If You're Anything Like Me"".[370]
Swift emphasizes visuals as a key creative component of her music making process.[371] She has collaborated with different directors to produce her music videos, and over time she has become more involved with writing and directing. She developed the concept and treatment for ""Mean""[372] and co-directed the music video for ""Mine"" with Roman White.[373] In an interview, White said that Swift ""was keenly involved in writing the treatment, casting and wardrobe. And she stayed for both the 15-hour shooting days, even when she wasn't in the scenes.""[374]
From 2014 to 2018, Swift collaborated with director Joseph Kahn on eight music videos—four each from her albums 1989 and Reputation. Kahn has praised Swift's involvement in the craft.[375] She worked with American Express for the ""Blank Space"" music video (which Kahn directed), and served as an executive producer for the interactive app AMEX Unstaged: Taylor Swift Experience, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program in 2015.[376] Swift produced the music video for ""Bad Blood"" and won a Grammy Award for Best Music Video in 2016.[377]
Her production house, Taylor Swift Productions, Inc., is credited with producing all of her visual media starting with her 2018 concert documentary Reputation Stadium Tour.[378] She continued to co-direct music videos for the Lover singles ""Me!"" with Dave Meyers, and ""You Need to Calm Down"" (also serving as a co-executive producer) and ""Lover"" with Drew Kirsch,[379] but also ventured into sole direction with the videos for ""The Man"" (which won her the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction), ""Cardigan"", ""Willow"", ""Anti-Hero"" and ""Bejeweled"".[380] After Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Swift debuted as a filmmaker with All Too Well: The Short Film, which won her the MTV award for Best Direction for the second time.[265] Swift has cited Chloé Zhao, Greta Gerwig, Nora Ephron, Guillermo del Toro, John Cassavetes and Noah Baumbach as her filmmaking influences.[371]
Swift is well known for her philanthropic efforts.[381] She was ranked at number one on DoSomething's ""Gone Good"" list,[382] and has received the ""Star of Compassion"" accolade from the Tennessee Disaster Services,[383] The Big Help Award from the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for her ""dedication to helping others"" as well as ""inspiring others through action"".[384] In 2008, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood.[385] Swift has performed at charity relief events, including Sydney's Sound Relief concert.[386] In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV.[387] In 2011, Swift used a dress rehearsal of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the U.S., raising more than $750,000.[388] In 2016, she donated $1 million to Louisiana flood relief efforts and $100,000 to the Dolly Parton Fire Fund.[389][390] Swift donated to the Houston Food Bank after Hurricane Harvey struck the city in 2017.[391] In 2020, she donated $1 million for Tennessee tornado relief.[392]
Swift is a supporter of the arts. She is a benefactor of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.[393] She has donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium,[394] $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville,[395] $60,000 to the music departments of six U.S. colleges,[396] and $100,000 to the Nashville Symphony.[397] Also a promoter of children's literacy, she has donated money and books to various schools around the country to improve education.[398][399] In 2007, Swift partnered with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police to launch a campaign to protect children from online predators.[400] She has donated items to several charities for auction, including the UNICEF Tap Project and MusiCares.[401] As recipient of the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year in 2011, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee.[402] In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing the charity single ""Ronan"", which she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma.[403] She has also donated $100,000 to the V Foundation for Cancer Research[404] and $50,000 to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.[405] Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local communities as part of Global Youth Service Day.[406]
Swift donated to fellow singer-songwriter Kesha to help with her legal battles against Dr. Luke[381] and to actress Mariska Hargitay's Joyful Heart Foundation organization.[407] After the COVID-19 pandemic began, Swift donated to the World Health Organization and Feeding America[408] and offered one of her signed guitars as part of an auction to raise money for the National Health Service.[409] Swift performed ""Soon You'll Get Better"" during the One World: Together At Home television special, a benefit concert curated by Lady Gaga for Global Citizen to raise funds for the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.[410] In 2018 and 2021, Swift donated to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.[381][411] In addition to charitable causes, she has made donations to her fans several times for their medical or academic expenses.[412]
Swift refrained from discussing politics early in her career, fearing it might influence people.[413] Critics took issue with her previously apolitical stance despite her wealth and celebrity.[306][414] Swift publicly voiced her political opinion for the first time in the 2018 United States elections, when she endorsed Democratic candidates in her home state, Tennessee.[415] In 2019, Swift told The Guardian that when she started her country music career, she was advised against discussing politics by her label executives because of the consequences of the Dixie Chicks controversy, but finally decided to speak up after she became disillusioned with contemporary American politics and moved out of Big Machine.[415]
She identifies as a pro-choice[416]feminist, and is one of the founding signatories of the Time's Up movement against sexual harassment.[417] She criticized the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade (1973) and end federal abortion rights in 2022.[418] Swift advocates for LGBT rights,[419] and has called for the passing of the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.[420][421]The New York Times wrote her 2011 music video for ""Mean"" had a positive impact on the LGBTQ+ community.[414] Swift performed during WorldPride NYC 2019 at the Stonewall Inn, frequently deemed the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement.[422] She has donated to the LGBT organizations Tennessee Equality Project and GLAAD.[423][424]
In August 2020, Swift urged her fans to check their voter registration ahead of elections, which resulted in 65,000 people registering to vote within a day after her post.[425] She endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.[426] Swift supported the March for Our Lives movement and gun control reform,[427] and is a vocal critic of white supremacy, racism, and police brutality in the country.[428][416] In the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests, she donated to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Black Lives Matter movement,[429] called for the removal of Confederate monuments in Tennessee,[430] and advocated for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.[431]
During the Fearless era, Swift supported campaigns by Verizon Wireless and ""Got Milk?"".[432][433] She launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Walmart,[434] and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls.[435][436] She became a spokesperson for the National Hockey League's (NHL) Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras.[437][438] She launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances—Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted.[439] In 2013, she released the fragrances Taylor by Taylor Swift and Taylor by Taylor Swift: Made of Starlight,[440][441] followed by her fifth fragrance, Incredible Things, in 2014.[442]
Swift signed a multi-year deal with AT&T in 2016.[443] She later headlined DirecTV's Super Saturday Night event on the eve of the 2017 Super Bowl. In 2019, Swift signed a multi-year partnership with Capital One,[444] and released a sustainable clothing line with Stella McCartney.[445] In 2022, in light of her philanthropic support for independent record stores throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Record Store Day named Swift their first-ever global ambassador.[446]
Swift became a teen idol with her debut,[447] and has since been a dominant figure in popular culture,[448] often referred to as a pop icon.[306][449] Several publications note her immense popularity and longevity, with I-D describing it as the kind of fame ""unseen"" since the 20th century.[450][451] Music critics Sam Sanders and Ann Powers regard Swift as a ""surprisingly successful composite of megawatt pop star and bedroom singer-songwriter.""[452]
Journalists have written about her polite and ""open"" personality,[34][43] calling her a ""media darling"" and ""a reporter's dream"".[349] Awarding her for her humanitarian endeavors in 2012, former First Lady Michelle Obama described Swift as an artist who ""has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year-old can accomplish"".[454] Swift was labeled by the media in her early career as ""America's Sweetheart"" for her likability and girl-next-door image.[455][456]YouGov surveys ranked her as the world's most admired female musician from 2019 to 2021.[457]
Though Swift is reluctant to publicly discuss her personal life, believing it to be ""a career weakness"",[458] it is a topic of widespread media attention and tabloid speculation.[459]Clash described Swift as a lightning rod for both praise and criticism.[460]The New York Times asserted in 2013 that her ""dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash"" and questioned whether she was in the midst of a ""quarter-life crisis"".[461] Critics have highlighted the misogyny and slut-shaming to which Swift's life and career have been subject.[462][463]Glamour opined Swift is an easy target for male derision, triggering ""fragile male egos"".[464]The Daily Telegraph said her antennae for sexism are crucial for the industry.[465]
Media outlets describe Swift as a savvy businesswoman.[466]Inc. describes her as an ""incredible flywheel"" of social media buzz and virtual word-of-mouth,[467] and The Ringer said she is an omnipresent ""musical biosphere unto herself"", having achieved the kind of success ""that turns a person into an institution, into an inevitability.""[349] Swift is also known for her traditional album rollouts, consisting of a variety of promotional activities,[468] which Rolling Stone described as an inescapable ""multimedia bonanza"".[469]Easter eggs and cryptic teasers became a common practice in contemporary pop music because of Swift.[470] Publications describe her discography as a music ""universe"" analyzed by fans and media outlets.[471][472][448] Swift maintains an active presence on social media and a close relationship with fans, to which many journalists attribute her success.[473][474] The rising popularity of Swift-themed dance parties in clubs have been noted by various publications.[475][476] Economist Alan Krueger devised his concept ""rockonomics""—a microeconomic analysis of the music industry—using Swift, who he regarded an ""economic genius"".[477] Study of her music and career has been referred to as ""Swiftology"" in the media.[478]
Swift's fashion appeal has been picked up by publications such as People,[479]Elle,[480]Vogue,[481] and Maxim.[482] Her street style has received acclaim.[483][484]Vogue Australia regards her as an influential figure in sustainable fashion.[485] She co-chaired the 2016 Met Gala.[486] She has reinvented her image and style throughout her career, with each of her album cycles characterized by its own aesthetic and fashion.[487][488]Consequence opined that Swift's looks evolved from ""girl-next-door country act to pop star to woodsy poet over a decade"".[362] Swift further popularized Polaroid motifs with 1989,[489] and cottagecore with Folklore and Evermore.[490] She is also known for her love of cats. Her pet cats have appeared in some of her videos,[491] and one of them is the third richest pet animal in the world with an estimated $97 million net worth.[492]
As one of the leading music artists of the 21st century, Swift has influenced the music industry in many aspects.[493][474] Business journalist Greg Jericho describes her as a ""cultural vitality"".[494]Billboard noted only a few artists have had Swift's chart success, critical acclaim, and fan support, enabling her to have a wide-reaching impact.[495]
Swift helped shape the modern country music scene.[496] Rosen described Swift as the first country act whose fame has reached the world beyond the U.S.[304] Her chart success extends to Asia and the UK, where country music was not previously popular.[496][304] She is one of the first country acts to use the internet as a marketing tool, promoting her work through MySpace.[31][50] Following her rise to fame, country labels became interested in signing young singers who write their own music.[497] With her autobiographical songs about romance and heartbreak, Swift introduced the country genre to a younger generation who can relate.[493][304] Critics have since noted her musical style resonating in albums released by female country singers like Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini.[498]Rolling Stone listed Swift's country music as one of the biggest influences on 2010s pop music,[499] and ranked her 80th in their 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time list.[500]
Her onstage guitar performances contributed to the ""Taylor Swift factor"", a phenomenon to which upsurge in guitar sales to women, a previously ignored demographic, is attributed.[501][502]Pitchfork opined, Swift changed the contemporary music landscape forever with her ""unprecedented path from teenage country prodigy to global pop sensation"" and a ""singularly perceptive"" discography that accommodates both musical and cultural shifts.[503]Clash stated Swift's genre-spanning career encouraged her peers to experiment with diverse sounds.[313]Billboard credited her with influencing artists to take creative ownership of their music, as she ""has the power to pull any sound she wants into mainstream orbit"".[504] Music journalist Nick Catucci wrote, in being personal and vulnerable in her lyrics, Swift helped make space for later pop stars like Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, and Halsey to do the same.[505] According to The Guardian, Swift leads the rebirth of poptimism in the 21st century with her ambitious artistic vision.[506]
Publications consider Swift's million-selling albums an anomaly in the streaming-dominated industry following the end of the album era in the 2010s.[507][508] Hence, musicologists Mary Fogarty and Gina Arnold regard her as ""the last great rock star"".[509] Swift is the only artist in Luminate Data history to have five albums sell over a million copies in a week.[510] To New York magazine, her sales figures prove she is ""the one bending the music industry to her will"".[508]The Atlantic notes that Swift's ""reign"" defies the convention that the successful phase of an artist's career rarely lasts more than a few years.[511] She is regarded as a champion of independent record shops,[446][512] contributing to the 21st-century vinyl revival.[513][514]Variety dubbed Swift the ""Queen of Stream"" after she achieved multiple streaming feats as well.[515]
Swift has influenced numerous mainstream and indie music artists,[note 5] authors, screenwriters and filmmakers.[note 6] According to Billboard,[493]Business Insider,[519] and The New York Times, her albums have inspired an entire generation of singers and songwriters.[311] Journalists praise her ability to change industry practices, noting how her actions reformed policies of streaming platforms, prompted awareness of intellectual property among upcoming musicians,[562][563] and reshaped the concert ticketing model.[564] Various sources deem Swift's music a paradigm representing the millennial generation;[565]Vox called her the ""millennial Bruce Springsteen"",[566] and The Times named her ""the Bob Dylan of our age"".[567] Swift earned the title Woman of the Decade (2010s) from Billboard[568] and the Artist of the Decade (2010s) at the American Music Awards,[569] and received the Brit Global Icon Award ""in recognition of her immense impact on music across the world"".[570]
She is a subject of academic study;[571]The University of Texas at Austin,[572]New York University,[573] and Queen's University at Kingston offer courses on Swift's discography in literary and sociopolitical contexts.[574] Professor Elizabeth Scala said Swift bridges the gap between contemporary and historical fiction.[571]Conservation scientist Jeff Opperman opined in The New York Times that Swift's songs are ""filled with the language and images of the natural world"", reviving nature in popular culture after a reported decline in nature-themed words.[575] Her popular songs like ""Love Story"" are studied by evolutionary psychologists to understand the relationship between popular music and human mating strategies.[576][577] In 2022, entomologists named a new millipede species, Nannaria swiftae, in her honor.[258]
Swift has won 11 Grammy Awards (including three for Album of the Year—tying for the most by an artist),[578] an Emmy Award,[579] 40 American Music Awards (the most won by an artist),[580] 29 Billboard Music Awards (the most won by a woman),[581] 92 Guinness World Records,[582] 14 MTV Video Music Awards (including three Video of the Year wins—the most by an act),[256] 12 Country Music Association Awards (including the Pinnacle Award),[583] eight Academy of Country Music Awards,[584] and two Brit Awards.[168] As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association,[60][585] the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the National Music Publishers' Association and was the youngest person on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time in 2015.[586][587] At the 64th BMI Awards in 2016, Swift was the first woman to be honored with an award named after its recipient.[588]
From available data, Swift has amassed over 50 million album sales, 150 million single sales,[589][590][591] and 114 million units in album consumption globally, including 78 billion streams.[246][570] She has the most number-one albums in the United Kingdom and Ireland for a female artist this millennium,[592][593] and earned the highest income for an artist on Chinese digital music platforms—RMB 159,000,000.[594] Swift is the most streamed female act on Spotify,[595] and the only artist to have received more than 200 million streams in one day (228 million streams on October 21, 2022).[596]The most entries and the most simultaneous entries for an artist on the Billboard Global 200, with 94 and 31 songs, respectively, are among her feats.[597][598] Her Reputation Stadium Tour (2018) is the highest-grossing North American tour ever,[599] and she was the world's highest-grossing female touring act of the 2010s.[600] Beginning with Fearless, all of her studio albums sold over a million units globally in their opening weeks.[601]
In the US, Swift has sold over 37.3 million albums as of 2019,[591] when Billboard placed her eighth on its Greatest of All Time Artists Chart.[602] Nine of her songs have topped the Billboard Hot 100. She is the longest-reigning act of Billboard Artist 100 (63 weeks),[603] the soloist with the most cumulative weeks (56) atop the Billboard 200,[595] the woman with the most Hot 100 entries (188),[604] top-ten songs (40),[605] and weeks atop the Top Country Albums (98),[606] and the act with the most Digital Songs number-ones (23)[607][608] and consecutive number-one Billboard 200 debuts (11).[510] Swift is the second highest-certified female digital singles artist (and third overall) in the U.S., with 134 million total units certified by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),[609] and the first woman to have both an album (Fearless) and a song (""Shake It Off"") certified Diamond.[610]
Swift has appeared in various power listings. Time included her on its annual list of the 100 most influential people in 2010, 2015, and 2019.[611] She was one of the ""Silence Breakers"" honored as Time Person of the Year in 2017 for speaking up about sexual assault.[612] In 2014, she was named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in the music category[613] and again in 2017 in its ""All-Star Alumni"" category.[614] Swift became the youngest woman to be included on Forbes' list of the 100 most powerful women in 2015, ranked at number 64.[615] She was the most googled female musician in 2019 and most googled musician overall in 2022.[616][617] Swift received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from New York University and served as its commencement speaker on May 18, 2022.[265]
Swift's net worth is $570 million, per a 2022 estimate by Forbes. Additionally, her publication rights over her first six albums are valued at $200 million.[618] From 2011 to 2020, she appeared in the top three of the Forbes' Top-Earning Women in Music list, topping it in 2016 and 2019.[619][620] She was the highest-paid celebrity of 2016 with $170 million—a feat recognized by the Guinness World Records as the highest annual earnings ever for a female musician,[621] which she herself surpassed with $185 million in 2019.[622] Overall, Swift was the highest paid female artist of the 2010s decade, earning $825 million.[623] She has invested in a real estate portfolio worth $84 million,[624] including the Samuel Goldwyn Estate in Beverly Hills, California;[624] the High Watch in Watch Hill, Rhode Island;[625] and multiple adjacent purchases in Tribeca, Manhattan, nicknamed as ""Taybeca"" by local realtors.[626]

"
Miles_Davis;"Pages for logged out editors learn more

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musical directions in a five-decade career that kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.[1]
Born in Alton, Illinois, and raised in East St. Louis, Davis left to study at Juilliard in New York City, before dropping out and making his professional debut as a member of saxophonist Charlie Parker's bebop quintet from 1944 to 1948. Shortly after, he recorded the Birth of the Cool sessions for Capitol Records, which were instrumental to the development of cool jazz. In the early 1950s, Davis recorded some of the earliest hard bop music while on Prestige Records but did so haphazardly due to a heroin addiction. After a widely acclaimed comeback performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, he signed a long-term contract with Columbia Records and recorded the album 'Round About Midnight in 1955.[2] It was his first work with saxophonist John Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers, key members of the sextet he led into the early 1960s. During this period, he alternated between orchestral jazz collaborations with arranger Gil Evans, such as the Spanish music-influenced Sketches of Spain (1960), and band recordings, such as Milestones (1958) and Kind of Blue (1959).[3] The latter recording remains one of the most popular jazz albums of all time,[4] having sold over five million copies in the U.S.
Davis made several line-up changes while recording Someday My Prince Will Come (1961), his 1961 Blackhawk concerts, and Seven Steps to Heaven (1963), another mainstream success that introduced bassist Ron Carter, pianist Herbie Hancock, and drummer Tony Williams.[3] After adding saxophonist Wayne Shorter to his new quintet in 1964,[3] Davis led them on a series of more abstract recordings often composed by the band members, helping pioneer the post-bop genre with albums such as E.S.P (1965) and Miles Smiles (1967),[5] before transitioning into his electric period. During the 1970s, he experimented with rock, funk, African rhythms, emerging electronic music technology, and an ever-changing line-up of musicians, including keyboardist Joe Zawinul, drummer Al Foster, and guitarist John McLaughlin.[6] This period, beginning with Davis's 1969 studio album In a Silent Way and concluding with the 1975 concert recording Agharta, was the most controversial in his career, alienating and challenging many in jazz.[7] His million-selling 1970 record Bitches Brew helped spark a resurgence in the genre's commercial popularity with jazz fusion as the decade progressed.[8]
After a five-year retirement due to poor health, Davis resumed his career in the 1980s, employing younger musicians and pop sounds on albums such as The Man with the Horn (1981) and Tutu (1986). Critics were often unreceptive but the decade garnered Davis his highest level of commercial recognition. He performed sold-out concerts worldwide, while branching out into visual arts, film, and television work, before his death in 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure.[9] In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,[10] which recognized him as ""one of the key figures in the history of jazz"".[10]Rolling Stone described him as ""the most revered jazz trumpeter of all time, not to mention one of the most important musicians of the 20th century,""[9] while Gerald Early called him inarguably one of the most influential and innovative musicians of that period.[11]
Davis was born on May 26, 1926, to an affluent African-American family in Alton, Illinois, 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of St. Louis.[12][13] He had an older sister, Dorothy Mae (1925-1996), and a younger brother, Vernon (1929-1999). His mother, Cleota Mae Henry of Arkansas, was a music teacher and violinist, and his father, Miles Dewey Davis Jr., also of Arkansas, was a dentist. They owned a 200-acre (81 ha) estate near Pine Bluff, Arkansas with a profitable pig farm. In Pine Bluff, he and his siblings fished, hunted, and rode horses.[14][15] Davis's grandparents were the owners of an Arkansas farm where he would spend many summers.[16]
In 1927, the family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. They lived on the second floor of a commercial building behind a dental office in a predominantly white neighborhood. Davis's father would soon become distant to his children as the Great Depression caused him to become increasingly consumed by his job; typically working six days a week.[16] From 1932 to 1934, Davis attended John Robinson Elementary School, an all-black school,[13] then Crispus Attucks, where he performed well in mathematics, music, and sports.[15] Davis had previously attended Catholic school.[16] At an early age he liked music, especially blues, big bands, and gospel.[14]
In 1935, Davis received his first trumpet as a gift from John Eubanks, a friend of his father.[17] He took lessons from ""the biggest influence on my life,"" Elwood Buchanan, a teacher and musician who was a patient of his father.[12][18] His mother wanted him to play the violin instead.[19] Against the fashion of the time, Buchanan stressed the importance of playing without vibrato and encouraged him to use a clear, mid-range tone. Davis said that whenever he started playing with heavy vibrato, Buchanan slapped his knuckles.[19][12][20] In later years Davis said, ""I prefer a round sound with no attitude in it, like a round voice with not too much tremolo and not too much bass. Just right in the middle. If I can't get that sound I can't play anything.""[21] The family soon moved to 1701 Kansas Avenue in East St. Louis.[16]
According to Davis ""By the age of 12, music had become the most important thing in my life.""[18] On his thirteenth birthday his father bought him a new trumpet,[17] and Davis began to play in local bands. He took additional trumpet lessons from Joseph Gustat, principal trumpeter of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.[17] Davis would also play the trumpet in talent shows he and his siblings would put on.[16]
In 1941, the 15-year-old attended East St. Louis Lincoln High School, where he joined the marching band directed by Buchanan and entered music competitions. Years later, Davis said that he was discriminated against in these competitions due to his race, but he added that these experiences made him a better musician.[15] When a drummer asked him to play a certain passage of music, and he couldn't do it, he began to learn music theory. ""I went and got everything, every book I could get to learn about theory.""[22] At Lincoln, Davis met his first girlfriend, Irene Birth (later Cawthon).[23] He had a band that performed at the Elks Club.[24] Part of his earnings paid for his sister's education at Fisk University.[25] Davis befriended trumpeter Clark Terry, who suggested he play without vibrato, and performed with him for several years.[17][25]
With encouragement from his teacher and girlfriend, Davis filled a vacant spot in the Rhumboogie Orchestra, also known as the Blue Devils, led by Eddie Randle. He became the band's musical director, which involved hiring musicians and scheduling rehearsal.[26][25] Years later, Davis considered this job one of the most important of his career.[22]Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band, which was passing through town, but his mother insisted he finish high school before going on tour. He said later, ""I didn't talk to her for two weeks. And I didn't go with the band either.""[27] In January 1944, Davis finished high school and graduated in absentia in June. During the next month, his girlfriend gave birth to a daughter, Cheryl.[25]
In July 1944, Billy Eckstine visited St. Louis with a band that included Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker. Trumpeter Buddy Anderson was too sick to perform,[12] so Davis was invited to join. He played with the band for two weeks at Club Riviera.[25][28] After playing with these musicians, he was certain he should move to New York City, ""where the action was"".[29] His mother wanted him to go to Fisk University, like his sister, and study piano or violin. Davis had other interests.[27]
In September 1944, Davis accepted his father's idea of studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.[25] After passing the audition, he attended classes in music theory, piano and dictation.[30] Davis often skipped his classes.[31]
Much of Davis's time was spent in clubs seeking his idol, Charlie Parker. According to Davis, Coleman Hawkins told him ""finish your studies at Juilliard and forget Bird [Parker]"".[32][28] After finding Parker, he joined a cadre of regulars at Minton's and Monroe's in Harlem who held jam sessions every night. The other regulars included J. J. Johnson, Kenny Clarke, Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, and Freddie Webster. Davis reunited with Cawthon and their daughter when they moved to New York City. Parker became a roommate.[28][25] Around this time Davis was paid an allowance of $40 (equivalent to $620 in 2021[33]).[34]
In mid-1945, Davis failed to register for the year's autumn term at Juilliard and dropped out after three semesters[14][35][25] because he wanted to perform full-time.[36] Years later he criticized Juilliard for concentrating too much on classical European and ""white"" repertoire, but he praised the school for teaching him music theory and improving his trumpet technique.
He began performing at clubs on 52nd Street with Coleman Hawkins and Eddie ""Lockjaw"" Davis. He recorded for the first time on April 24, 1945, when he entered the studio as a sideman for Herbie Fields's band.[25][28] During the next year, he recorded as a leader for the first time with the Miles Davis Sextet plus Earl Coleman and Ann Baker, one of the few times he accompanied a singer.[37]
In 1945, he replaced Dizzy Gillespie in Charlie Parker's quintet. On November 26, Davis participated in several recording sessions as part of Parker's group Reboppers that also involved Gillespie and Max Roach,[25] displaying hints of the style he would become known for. On Parker's tune ""Now's the Time"", Davis played a solo that anticipated cool jazz. He next joined a big band led by Benny Carter, performing in St. Louis and remaining with the band in California. He again played with Parker and Gillespie.[38] In Los Angeles, Parker had a nervous breakdown that put him in the hospital for several months.[38][39] In March 1946, Davis played in studio sessions with Parker and began a collaboration with bassist Charles Mingus that summer. Cawthon gave birth to Davis's second child, Gregory, in East St. Louis before reuniting with Davis in New York City the following year.[38] Davis noted that by this time, ""I was still so much into the music that I was even ignoring Irene."" He had also turned to alcohol and cocaine.[40]
He was a member of Billy Eckstine's big band in 1946 and Gillespie's in 1947.[41] He joined a quintet led by Parker that also included Max Roach. Together they performed live with Duke Jordan and Tommy Potter for much of the year, including several studio sessions.[38] In one session that May, Davis wrote the tune ""Cheryl"", for his daughter. Davis's first session as a leader followed in August 1947, playing as the Miles Davis All Stars that included Parker, pianist John Lewis, and bassist Nelson Boyd; they recorded ""Milestones"", ""Half Nelson"", and ""Sippin' at Bells"".[42][38] After touring Chicago and Detroit with Parker's quintet, Davis returned to New York City in March 1948 and joined the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, which included a stop in St. Louis on April 30.[38]
In August 1948, Davis declined an offer to join Duke Ellington's orchestra as he had entered rehearsals with a nine-piece band featuring baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and arrangements by Gil Evans, taking an active role on what soon became his own project.[43][38] Evans' Manhattan apartment had become the meeting place for several young musicians and composers such as Davis, Roach, Lewis, and Mulligan who were unhappy with the increasingly virtuoso instrumental techniques that dominated bebop.[44] These gatherings led to the formation of the Miles Davis Nonet, which included atypical modern jazz instruments such as French horn and tuba, leading to a thickly textured, almost orchestral sound.[31] The intent was to imitate the human voice through carefully arranged compositions and a relaxed, melodic approach to improvisation. In September, the band completed their sole engagement as the opening band for Count Basie at the Royal Roost for two weeks. Davis had to persuade the venue's manager to write the sign ""Miles Davis Nonet. Arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan"". Davis returned to Parker's quintet, but relationships within the quintet were growing tense mainly due to Parker's erratic behavior caused by his drug addiction.[38] Early in his time with Parker, Davis abstained from drugs, chose a vegetarian diet, and spoke of the benefits of water and juice.[45]
In December 1948 Davis quit,[38] saying he was not being paid. His departure began a period when he worked mainly as a freelancer and sideman. His nonet remained active until the end of 1949. After signing a contract with Capitol Records, they recorded sessions in January and April 1949, which sold little but influenced the ""cool"" or ""west coast"" style of jazz.[38] The line-up changed throughout the year and included tuba player Bill Barber, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, pianist Al Haig, trombone players Mike Zwerin with Kai Winding, French horn players Junior Collins with Sandy Siegelstein and Gunther Schuller, and bassists Al McKibbon and Joe Shulman. One track featured singer Kenny Hagood. The presence of white musicians in the group angered some black players, many of whom were unemployed at the time, yet Davis rebuffed their criticisms.[46] Recording sessions with the nonet for Capitol continued until April 1950. The Nonet recorded a dozen tracks which were released as singles and subsequently compiled on the 1957 album Birth of the Cool.[31]
In May 1949, Davis performed with the Tadd Dameron Quintet with Kenny Clarke and James Moody at the Paris International Jazz Festival. On his first trip abroad Davis took a strong liking to Paris and its cultural environment, where he felt black jazz musicians and people of color in general were better respected than in the U.S. The trip, he said, ""changed the way I looked at things forever"".[47] He began an affair with singer and actress Juliette Gréco.[47]
After returning from Paris in mid-1949, he became depressed and found little work except a short engagement with Powell in October and guest spots in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit until January 1950.[48] He was falling behind in hotel rent and attempts were made to repossess his car. His heroin use became an expensive addiction, and Davis, not yet 24 years old, ""lost my sense of discipline, lost my sense of control over my life, and started to drift"".[49][38] In August 1950, Cawthon gave birth to Davis's second son, Miles IV. Davis befriended boxer Johnny Bratton which began his interest in the sport. Davis left Cawthon and his three children in New York City in the hands of his friend, jazz singer Betty Carter.[48] He toured with Eckstine and Billie Holiday and was arrested for heroin possession in Los Angeles. The story was reported in DownBeat magazine, which led to a further reduction in work, though he was acquitted weeks later.[50] By the 1950s, Davis had become more skilled and was experimenting with the middle register of the trumpet alongside harmonies and rhythms.[31]
In January 1951, Davis's fortunes improved when he signed a one-year contract with Prestige after owner Bob Weinstock became a fan of the nonet. [51] Davis chose Lewis, trombonist Bennie Green, bassist Percy Heath, saxophonist Sonny Rollins, and drummer Roy Haynes; they recorded what became part of Miles Davis and Horns (1956). Davis was hired for other studio dates in 1951[50] and began to transcribe scores for record labels to fund his heroin addiction. His second session for Prestige was released on The New Sounds (1951), Dig (1956), and Conception (1956).[52]
Davis supported his heroin habit by playing music and by living the life of a hustler, exploiting prostitutes, and receiving money from friends. By 1953, his addiction began to impair his playing. His drug habit became public in a DownBeat interview with Cab Calloway, whom he never forgave as it brought him ""all pain and suffering"".[53] He returned to St. Louis and stayed with his father for several months.[53] After a brief period with Roach and Mingus in September 1953,[54] he returned to his father's home, where he concentrated on addressing his addiction.[55]
Davis lived in Detroit for about six months, avoiding New York City, where it was easy to get drugs. Though he used heroin, he was still able to perform locally with Elvin Jones and Tommy Flanagan as part of Billy Mitchell's house band at the Blue Bird club. He was also ""pimping a little"".[56] However, he was able to end his addiction, and, in February 1954, Davis returned to New York City, feeling good ""for the first time in a long time"", mentally and physically stronger, and joined a gym.[57] He informed Weinstock and Blue Note that he was ready to record with a quintet, which he was granted. He considered the albums that resulted from these and earlier sessions – Miles Davis Quartet and Miles Davis Volume 2 – ""very important"" because he felt his performances were particularly strong.[58] He was paid roughly $750 (equivalent to $7,600 in 2021[33]) for each album and refused to give away his publishing rights.[59]
Davis abandoned the bebop style and turned to the music of pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose approach and use of space influenced him.[60] When he returned to the studio in June 1955 to record The Musings of Miles, he wanted a pianist like Jamal and chose Red Garland.[60]Blue Haze (1956), Bags' Groove (1957), Walkin' (1957), and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (1959) documented the evolution of his sound with the Harmon mute placed close to the microphone, and the use of more spacious and relaxed phrasing. He assumed a central role in hard bop, less radical in harmony and melody, and used popular songs and American standards as starting points for improvisation. Hard bop distanced itself from cool jazz with a harder beat and music inspired by the blues.[61] A few critics consider Walkin' (April 1954) the album that created the hard bop genre.[21]
Davis gained a reputation for being cold, distant, and easily angered. He wrote that in 1954 Sugar Ray Robinson ""was the most important thing in my life besides music"", and he adopted Robinson's ""arrogant attitude"".[62] He showed contempt for critics and the press.
Davis had an operation to remove polyps from his larynx in October 1955.[63] The doctors told him to remain silent after the operation, but he got into an argument that permanently damaged his vocal cords and gave him a raspy voice for the rest of his life.[64] He was called the ""prince of darkness"", adding a patina of mystery to his public persona.[a]
In July 1955, Davis's fortunes improved considerably when he played at the Newport Jazz Festival, with a line-up of Monk, Heath, drummer Connie Kay, and horn players Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan.[68][69] The performance was praised by critics and audiences alike, who considered it to be a highlight of the festival as well as helping Davis, the least well known musician in the group, to increase his popularity among affluent white audiences.[70][69] He tied with Dizzy Gillespie for best trumpeter in the 1955 DownBeat magazine Readers' Poll.[71]
George Avakian of Columbia Records heard Davis perform at Newport and wanted to sign him to the label. Davis had one year left on his contract with Prestige, which required him to release four more albums. He signed a contract with Columbia that included a $4,000 advance (equivalent to $40,460 in 2021[33]) and required that his recordings for Columbia remain unreleased until his agreement with Prestige expired.[72][73]
At the request of Avakian, he formed the Miles Davis Quintet for a performance at Café Bohemia. The quintet contained Sonny Rollins on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on double bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Rollins was replaced by John Coltrane, completing the membership of the first quintet. To fulfill Davis' contract with Prestige, this new group worked through two marathon sessions in May and October 1956 that were released by the label as four LPs: Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1957), Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1958), Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1960) and Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet (1961). Each album was critically acclaimed and helped establish Davis's quintet as one of the best.[74][75][76]
The style of the group was an extension of their experience playing with Davis. He played long, legato, melodic lines, while Coltrane contrasted with energetic solos. Their live repertoire was a mix of bebop, standards from the Great American Songbook and pre-bop eras, and traditional tunes. They appeared on 'Round About Midnight, Davis's first album for Columbia.
In 1956, he left his quintet temporarily to tour Europe as part of the Birdland All-Stars, which included the Modern Jazz Quartet and French and German musicians. In Paris, he reunited with Gréco and they ""were lovers for many years"".[77][78] He then returned home, reunited his quintet and toured the US for two months. Conflict arose on tour when he grew impatient with the drug habits of Jones and Coltrane. Davis was trying to live a healthier life by exercising and reducing his alcohol. But he continued to use cocaine.[79] At the end of the tour, he fired Jones and Coltrane and replaced them with Sonny Rollins and Art Taylor.[80]
In November 1957, Davis went to Paris and recorded the soundtrack to Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.[41] directed by Louis Malle and starring Jeanne Moreau. Consisting of French jazz musicians Barney Wilen, Pierre Michelot, and René Urtreger, and American drummer Kenny Clarke, the group avoided a written score and instead improvised while they watched the film in a recording studio.
After returning to New York, Davis revived his quintet with Adderley[41] and Coltrane, who was clean from his drug habit. Now a sextet, the group recorded material in early 1958 that was released on Milestones, an album that demonstrated Davis's interest in modal jazz. A performance by Les Ballets Africains drew him to slower, deliberate music that allowed the creation of solos from harmony rather than chords.[81]
By May 1958, he had replaced Jones with drummer Jimmy Cobb, and Garland left the group, leaving Davis to play piano on ""Sid's Ahead"" for Milestones.[82] He wanted someone who could play modal jazz, so he hired Bill Evans, a young pianist with a background in classical music.[83] Evans had an impressionistic approach to piano. His ideas greatly influenced Davis. But after eight months of touring, a tired Evans left. Wynton Kelly, his replacement, brought to the group a swinging style that contrasted with Evans's delicacy. The sextet made their recording debut on Jazz Track (1958).[83]
By early 1957, Davis was exhausted from recording and touring and wished to pursue new projects. In March, the 30-year-old Davis told journalists of his intention to retire soon and revealed offers he had received to teach at Harvard University and be a musical director at a record label.[84][85] Avakian agreed that it was time for Davis to explore something different, but Davis rejected his suggestion of returning to his nonet as he considered that a step backward.[85] Avakian then suggested that he work with a bigger ensemble, similar to Music for Brass (1957), an album of orchestral and brass-arranged music led by Gunther Schuller featuring Davis as a guest soloist.
Davis accepted and worked with Gil Evans in what became a five-album collaboration from 1957 to 1962.[86]Miles Ahead (1957) showcased Davis on flugelhorn and a rendition of ""The Maids of Cadiz"" by Léo Delibes, the first piece of classical music that Davis recorded. Evans devised orchestral passages as transitions, thus turning the album into one long piece of music.[87][88]Porgy and Bess (1959) includes arrangements of pieces from George Gershwin's opera. Sketches of Spain (1960) contained music by Joaquín Rodrigo and Manuel de Falla and originals by Evans. The classical musicians had trouble improvising, while the jazz musicians couldn't handle the difficult arrangements, but the album was a critical success, selling over 120,000 copies in the US.[89] Davis performed with an orchestra conducted by Evans at Carnegie Hall in May 1961 to raise money for charity.[90] The pair's final album was Quiet Nights (1963), a collection of bossa nova songs released against their wishes. Evans stated it was only half an album and blamed the record company; Davis blamed producer Teo Macero and refused to speak to him for more than two years.[91] The boxed set Miles Davis & Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings (1996) won the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes in 1997.
In March and April 1959, Davis recorded what some consider his greatest album, Kind of Blue. He named the album for its mood.[92] He called back Bill Evans, as the music had been planned around Evans's piano style.[93] Both Davis and Evans were familiar with George Russell's ideas about modal jazz.[94][95] But Davis neglected to tell pianist Wynton Kelly that Evans was returning, so Kelly appeared on only one song, ""Freddie Freeloader"". [93] The sextet had played ""So What"" and ""All Blues"" at performances, but the remaining three compositions they saw for the first time in the studio.
Released in August 1959, Kind of Blue was an instant success, with widespread radio airplay and rave reviews from critics.[92] It has remained a strong seller over the years. By November 2019, the album reached 5× platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of over five million copies in the US, making it one of the most successful jazz albums in history.[96] In 2009, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution that honored it as a national treasure.[97][98]
In August 1959, during a break in a recording session at the Birdland nightclub in New York City, Davis was escorting a blonde-haired woman to a taxi outside the club when policeman Gerald Kilduff told him to ""move on"".[99][100] Davis said that he was working at the club, and he refused to move.[101] Kilduff arrested and grabbed Davis as he tried to protect himself. Witnesses said the policeman hit Davis in the stomach with a nightstick without provocation. Two detectives held the crowd back, while a third approached Davis from behind and beat him over the head. Davis was taken to jail, charged with assaulting an officer, then taken to the hospital where he received five stitches.[100] By January 1960, he was acquitted of disorderly conduct and third-degree assault. He later stated the incident ""changed my whole life and whole attitude again, made me feel bitter and cynical again when I was starting to feel good about the things that had changed in this country"".[102]
Davis and his sextet toured to support Kind of Blue.[92] He persuaded Coltrane to play with the group on one final European tour in the spring of 1960. Coltrane then departed to form his quartet, though he returned for some tracks on Davis's album Someday My Prince Will Come (1961). Its front cover shows a photograph of his wife, Frances Taylor, after Davis demanded that Columbia depict black women on his album covers.[103]
In December 1962, Davis, Kelly, Chambers, Cobb, and Rollins played together for the last time as the first three wanted to leave and play as a trio. Rollins left them soon after, leaving Davis to pay over $25,000 (equivalent to $224,000 in 2021[33]) to cancel upcoming gigs and quickly assemble a new group. Following auditions, he found his new band in tenor saxophonist George Coleman, bassist Ron Carter, pianist Victor Feldman, and drummer Frank Butler.[104] By May 1963, Feldman and Butler were replaced by 23-year-old pianist Herbie Hancock and 17-year-old drummer Tony Williams who made Davis ""excited all over again"".[105] With this group, Davis completed the rest of what became Seven Steps to Heaven (1963) and recorded the live albums Miles Davis in Europe (1964), My Funny Valentine (1965), and Four & More (1966). The quintet played essentially the same bebop tunes and standards that Davis's previous bands had played, but they approached them with structural and rhythmic freedom and occasionally breakneck speed.
In 1964, Coleman was briefly replaced by saxophonist Sam Rivers (who recorded with Davis on Miles in Tokyo) until Wayne Shorter was persuaded to leave Art Blakey. The quintet with Shorter lasted through 1968, with the saxophonist becoming the group's principal composer. The album E.S.P. (1965) was named after his composition. While touring Europe, the group made its first album, Miles in Berlin (1965).[106]
Davis needed medical attention for hip pain, which had worsened since his Japanese tour during the previous year.[107] He underwent hip replacement surgery in April 1965, with bone taken from his shin, but it failed. After his third month in the hospital, he discharged himself due to boredom and went home. He returned to the hospital in August after a fall required the insertion of a plastic hip joint.[108] In November 1965, he had recovered enough to return to performing with his quintet, which included gigs at the Plugged Nickel in Chicago. Teo Macero returned as his record producer after their rift over Quiet Nights had healed.[109][110]
In January 1966, Davis spent three months in the hospital with a liver infection. When he resumed touring, he performed more at colleges because he had grown tired of the typical jazz venues.[111] Columbia president Clive Davis reported in 1966 his sales had declined to around 40,000–50,000 per album, compared to as many as 100,000 per release a few years before. Matters were not helped by the press reporting his apparent financial troubles and imminent demise.[112] After his appearance at the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival, he returned to the studio with his quintet for a series of sessions. He started a relationship with actress Cicely Tyson, who helped him reduce his alcohol consumption.[113]
Material from the 1966–1968 sessions was released on Miles Smiles (1966), Sorcerer (1967), Nefertiti (1967), Miles in the Sky (1968), and Filles de Kilimanjaro (1968). The quintet's approach to the new music became known as ""time no changes""—which referred to Davis's decision to depart from chordal sequences and adopt a more open approach, with the rhythm section responding to the soloists' melodies.[114] Through Nefertiti the studio recordings consisted primarily of originals composed by Shorter, with occasional compositions by the other sidemen. In 1967, the group began to play their concerts in continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next, with only the melody indicating any sort of change. His bands performed this way until his hiatus in 1975.
Miles in the Sky and Filles de Kilimanjaro—which tentatively introduced electric bass, electric piano, and electric guitar on some tracks—pointed the way to the fusion phase of Davis's career. He also began experimenting with more rock-oriented rhythms on these records. By the time the second half of Filles de Kilimanjaro was recorded, bassist Dave Holland and pianist Chick Corea had replaced Carter and Hancock. Davis soon took over the compositional duties of his sidemen.
In a Silent Way was recorded in a single studio session in February 1969, with Shorter, Hancock, Holland, and Williams alongside keyboardists Chick Corea and Josef Zawinul and guitarist John McLaughlin. The album contains two side-long tracks that Macero pieced together from different takes recorded at the session. When the album was released later that year, some critics accused him of ""selling out"" to the rock and roll audience. Nevertheless, it reached number 134 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart, his first album since My Funny Valentine to reach the chart. In a Silent Way was his entry into jazz fusion. The touring band of 1969–1970—with Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette—never completed a studio recording together, and became known as Davis's ""lost quintet"", though radio broadcasts from the band's European tour have been extensively bootlegged.[115][116]
For the double album Bitches Brew (1970), he hired Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and Bennie Maupin. The album contained long compositions, some over twenty minutes, that were never played in the studio but were constructed from several takes by Macero and Davis via splicing and tape loops amid epochal advances in multitrack recording technologies.[117]Bitches Brew peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard Album chart.[118] In 1976, it was certified gold for selling over 500,000 records. By 2003, it had sold one million copies.[96]
In March 1970, Davis began to perform as the opening act for rock bands, allowing Columbia to market Bitches Brew to a larger audience. He shared a Fillmore East bill with the Steve Miller Band and Neil Young with Crazy Horse on March 6 and 7.[119] Biographer Paul Tingen wrote, ""Miles' newcomer status in this environment"" led to ""mixed audience reactions, often having to play for dramatically reduced fees, and enduring the 'sell-out' accusations from the jazz world"", as well as being ""attacked by sections of the black press for supposedly genuflecting to white culture"".[120] The 1970 tours included the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival on August 29 when he performed to an estimated 600,000 people, the largest of his career.[121] Plans to record with Hendrix ended after the guitarist's death; his funeral was the last one that Davis attended.[122] Several live albums with a transitional sextet/septet including Corea, DeJohnette, Holland, Moreira, saxophonist Steve Grossman, and keyboardist Keith Jarrett were recorded during this period, including Miles Davis at Fillmore (1970) and Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West (1973).[10]
By 1971, Davis had signed a contract with Columbia that paid him $100,000 a year (equivalent to $669,100 in 2021[33]) for three years in addition to royalties.[123] He recorded a soundtrack album (Jack Johnson) for the 1970 documentary film about heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, containing two long pieces of 25 and 26 minutes in length with Hancock, McLaughlin, Sonny Sharrock, and Billy Cobham. He was committed to making music for African-Americans who liked more commercial, pop, groove-oriented music. By November 1971, DeJohnette and Moreira had been replaced in the touring ensemble by drummer Leon ""Ndugu"" Chancler and percussionists James Mtume and Don Alias.[124]Live-Evil was released in the same month. Showcasing bassist Michael Henderson, who had replaced Holland in 1970, the album demonstrated that Davis's ensemble had transformed into a funk-oriented group while retaining the exploratory imperative of Bitches Brew.
In 1972, composer-arranger Paul Buckmaster introduced Davis to the music of avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, leading to a period of creative exploration. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote, ""The effect of Davis' study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long ... Davis' own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally.""[125] His recordings and performances during this period were described as ""space music"" by fans, Feather, and Buckmaster, who described it as ""a lot of mood changes—heavy, dark, intense—definitely space music"".[126][127] The studio album On the Corner (1972) blended the influence of Stockhausen and Buckmaster with funk elements. Davis invited Buckmaster to New York City to oversee the writing and recording of the album with Macero.[128] The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard jazz chart but peaked at No. 156 on the more heterogeneous Top 200 Albums chart. Davis felt that Columbia marketed it to the wrong audience. ""The music was meant to be heard by young black people, but they just treated it like any other jazz album and advertised it that way, pushed it on the jazz radio stations. Young black kids don't listen to those stations; they listen to R&B stations and some rock stations.""[129] In October 1972, he broke his ankles in a car crash. He took painkillers and cocaine to cope with the pain.[130] Looking back at his career after the incident, he wrote, ""Everything started to blur.""[131]
After recording On the Corner, he assembled a group with Henderson, Mtume, Carlos Garnett, guitarist Reggie Lucas, organist Lonnie Liston Smith, tabla player Badal Roy, sitarist Khalil Balakrishna, and drummer Al Foster. Only Smith was a jazz instrumentalist; consequently, the music emphasized rhythmic density and shifting textures instead of solos. This group was recorded live in 1972 for In Concert, but Davis found it unsatisfactory, leading him to drop the tabla and sitar and play keyboards. He also added guitarist Pete Cosey. The compilation studio album Big Fun contains four long improvisations recorded between 1969 and 1972.
This was music that polarized audiences, provoking boos and walk-outs amid the ecstasy of others. The length, density, and unforgiving nature of it mocked those who said that Miles was interested only in being trendy and popular. Some have heard in this music the feel and shape of a musician's late work, an egoless music that precedes its creator's death. As Theodor Adorno said of the late Beethoven, the disappearance of the musician into the work is a bow to mortality. It was as if Miles were testifying to all that he had been witness to for the past thirty years, both terrifying and joyful.
— John Szwed on Agharta (1975) and Pangaea (1976)[132]
Studio sessions throughout 1973 and 1974 led to Get Up with It, an album which included four long pieces alongside four shorter recordings from 1970 and 1972. The track ""He Loved Him Madly"", a thirty-minute tribute to the recently deceased Duke Ellington, influenced Brian Eno's ambient music.[133] In the United States, it performed comparably to On the Corner, reaching number 8 on the jazz chart and number 141 on the pop chart. He then concentrated on live performance with a series of concerts that Columbia released on the double live albums Agharta (1975), Pangaea (1976), and Dark Magus (1977). The first two are recordings of two sets from February 1, 1975, in Osaka, by which time Davis was troubled by several physical ailments; he relied on alcohol, codeine, and morphine to get through the engagements. His shows were routinely panned by critics who mentioned his habit of performing with his back to the audience.[134] Cosey later asserted that ""the band really advanced after the Japanese tour"",[135] but Davis was again hospitalized, for his ulcers and a hernia, during a tour of the US while opening for Herbie Hancock.
After appearances at the 1975 Newport Jazz Festival in July and the Schaefer Music Festival in New York in September, Davis dropped out of music.[136][137]
In his autobiography, Davis wrote frankly about his life during his hiatus from music. He called his Upper West Side brownstone a wreck and chronicled his heavy use of alcohol and cocaine, in addition to sexual encounters with many women.[138] He also stated that ""Sex and drugs took the place music had occupied in my life."" Drummer Tony Williams recalled that by noon (on average) Davis would be sick from the previous night's intake.[139]
In December 1975, he had regained enough strength to undergo a much needed hip replacement operation.[140] In December 1976, Columbia was reluctant to renew his contract and pay his usual large advances. But after his lawyer started negotiating with United Artists, Columbia matched their offer, establishing the Miles Davis Fund to pay him regularly. Pianist Vladimir Horowitz was the only other musician with Columbia who had a similar status.[141]
In 1978, Davis asked fusion guitarist Larry Coryell to participate in sessions with keyboardists Masabumi Kikuchi and George Pavlis, bassist T. M. Stevens, and drummer Al Foster.[142] Davis played the arranged piece uptempo, abandoned his trumpet for the organ, and had Macero record the session without the band's knowledge. After Coryell declined a spot in a band that Davis was beginning to put together, Davis returned to his reclusive lifestyle in New York City.[143][144] Soon after, Marguerite Eskridge had Davis jailed for failing to pay child support for their son Erin, which cost him $10,000 (equivalent to $41,550 in 2021[33]) for release on bail.[142][140] A recording session that involved Buckmaster and Gil Evans was halted,[145] with Evans leaving after failing to receive the payment he was promised. In August 1978, Davis hired a new manager, Mark Rothbaum, who had worked with him since 1972.[146]
Having played the trumpet little throughout the previous three years, Davis found it difficult to reclaim his embouchure. His first post-hiatus studio appearance took place in May 1980.[147] A day later, Davis was hospitalized due to a leg infection.[148] He recorded The Man with the Horn from June 1980 to May 1981 with Macero producing. A large band was abandoned in favor of a combo with saxophonist Bill Evans and bassist Marcus Miller. Both would collaborate with him during the next decade.
The Man with the Horn received a poor critical reception despite selling well. In June 1981, Davis returned to the stage for the first time since 1975 in a ten-minute guest solo as part of Mel Lewis's band at the Village Vanguard.[149] This was followed by appearances with a new band.[150][151] Recordings from a mixture of dates from 1981, including from the Kix in Boston and Avery Fisher Hall, were released on We Want Miles,[152] which earned him a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance by a Soloist.[153]
In January 1982, while Tyson was working in Africa, Davis ""went a little wild"" with alcohol and suffered a stroke that temporarily paralyzed his right hand.[154][155] Tyson returned home and cared for him. After three months of treatment with a Chinese acupuncturist, he was able to play the trumpet again. He listened to his doctor's warnings and gave up alcohol and drugs. He credited Tyson with helping his recovery, which involved exercise, piano playing, and visits to spas. She encouraged him to draw, which he pursued for the rest of his life.[154]
Davis resumed touring in May 1982 with a line-up that included percussionist Mino Cinelu and guitarist John Scofield, with whom he worked closely on the album Star People (1983). In mid-1983, he worked on the tracks for Decoy, an album mixing soul music and electronica that was released in 1984. He brought in producer, composer, and keyboardist Robert Irving III, who had collaborated with him on The Man with the Horn. With a seven-piece band that included Scofield, Evans, Irving, Foster, and Darryl Jones, he played a series of European performances that were positively received. In December 1984, while in Denmark, he was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg had written ""Aura"", a contemporary classical piece, for the event which impressed Davis to the point of returning to Denmark in early 1985 to record his next studio album, Aura.[156] Columbia was dissatisfied with the recording and delayed its release.
In May 1985, one month into a tour, Davis signed a contract with Warner Bros. that required him to give up his publishing rights.[157][158]You're Under Arrest, his final album for Columbia, was released in September. It included cover versions of two pop songs: ""Time After Time"" by Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson's ""Human Nature"". He considered releasing an album of pop songs, and he recorded dozens of them, but the idea was rejected. He said that many of today's jazz standards had been pop songs in Broadway theater and that he was simply updating the standards repertoire.
Davis collaborated with a number of figures from the British post-punk and new wave movements during this period, including Scritti Politti.[159] This period also saw Davis move from his funk inspired sound of the early 1970s to a more melodic style.[34]
After taking part in the recording of the 1985 protest song ""Sun City"" as a member of Artists United Against Apartheid, Davis appeared on the instrumental ""Don't Stop Me Now"" by Toto for their album Fahrenheit (1986). Davis collaborated with Prince on a song titled ""Can I Play With U,"" which went unreleased until 2020.[160] Davis also collaborated with Zane Giles and Randy Hall on the Rubberband sessions in 1985 but those would remain unreleased until 2019.[161] Instead, he worked with Marcus Miller, and Tutu (1986) became the first time he used modern studio tools such as programmed synthesizers, sampling, and drum loops. Released in September 1986, its front cover is a photographic portrait of Davis by Irving Penn.[158] In 1987, he won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist. Also in 1987, Davis contacted American journalist Quincy Troupe to work with him on his autobiography.[162] The two men had met the previous year when Troupe conducted a two-day-long interview, which was published by Spin as a 45-page article.[162]
In 1988, Davis had a small part as a street musician in the Christmas comedy film Scrooged starring Bill Murray. He also collaborated with Zucchero Fornaciari in a version of Dune Mosse (Blue's), published in 2004 in Zu & Co. of the Italian bluesman. In November 1988 he was inducted into the Knights of Malta at a ceremony at the Alhambra Palace in Spain[163][164][165] (this was part of the reasoning for his daughter's decision to include the honorific ""Sir"" on his headstone).[166] Later that month, Davis cut his European tour short after he collapsed and fainted after a two-hour show in Madrid and flew home.[167] There were rumors of more poor health reported by the American magazine Star in its February 21, 1989, edition, which published a claim that Davis had contracted AIDS, prompting his manager Peter Shukat to issue a statement the following day. Shukat said Davis had been in the hospital for a mild case of pneumonia and the removal of a benign polyp on his vocal cords and was resting comfortably in preparation for his 1989 tours.[168] Davis later blamed one of his former wives or girlfriends for starting the rumor and decided against taking legal action.[169] He was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Harry Reasoner. In October 1989, he received a Grande Medaille de Vermeil from Paris mayor Jacques Chirac.[170] In 1990, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.[171] In early 1991, he appeared in the Rolf de Heer film Dingo as a jazz musician.
Davis followed Tutu with Amandla (1989) and soundtracks to four films: Street Smart, Siesta, The Hot Spot, and Dingo. His last albums were released posthumously: the hip hop-influenced Doo-Bop (1992) and Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux (1993), a collaboration with Quincy Jones from the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival where, for the first time in three decades, he performed songs from Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess, and Sketches of Spain.[172]
On July 8, 1991, Davis returned to performing material from his past at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival with a band and orchestra conducted by Quincy Jones.[173] The set consisted of arrangements from his albums recorded with Gil Evans.[174] The show was followed by a concert billed as ""Miles and Friends"" at the Grande halle de la Villette in Paris two days later, with guest performances by musicians from throughout his career, including John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul.[174] In Paris he was awarded a knighthood, the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by French Culture Minister, Jack Lang, who called him ""the Picasso of Jazz.""[171] After returning to America, he stopped in New York City to record material for Doo-Bop and then returned to California to play at the Hollywood Bowl on August 25, his final live performance.[173][175]
In 1957,[176] Davis began a relationship with Frances Taylor, a dancer he had met in 1953 at Ciro's in Los Angeles.[177][178] They married in December 1959 in Toledo, Ohio.[179] The relationship was marred by numerous incidents of domestic violence against Taylor. He later wrote, ""Every time I hit her, I felt bad because a lot of it really wasn't her fault but had to do with me being temperamental and jealous.""[180][181][182] One theory for his behavior was that in 1963 he had increased his use of alcohol and cocaine to alleviate joint pain caused by sickle cell anemia.[183][184] He hallucinated, ""looking for this imaginary person"" in his house while wielding a kitchen knife. Soon after the photograph for the album E.S.P. (1965) was taken, Taylor left him for the final time.[185] She filed for divorce in 1966; it was finalized in February 1968.[186][187]
In September 1968, Davis married 23-year-old model and songwriter Betty Mabry.[188] In his autobiography, Davis described her as a ""high-class groupie, who was very talented but who didn't believe in her own talent"".[189] Mabry, a familiar face in the New York City counterculture, introduced Davis to popular rock, soul, and funk musicians.[190] Jazz critic Leonard Feather visited Davis's apartment and was shocked to find him listening to albums by The Byrds, Aretha Franklin, and Dionne Warwick. He also liked James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix,[191] whose group Band of Gypsys particularly impressed Davis.[192] Davis filed for divorce from Mabry in 1969, after accusing her of having an affair with Hendrix.[189]
In October 1969, Davis was shot at five times while in his car with one of his two lovers, Marguerite Eskridge. The incident left him with a graze and Eskridge unharmed.[119] In 1970, Marguerite gave birth to their son Erin.
By 1979, Davis rekindled his relationship with actress Cicely Tyson, who helped him to overcome his cocaine addiction and regain his enthusiasm for music. The two married in November 1981,[193][194] but their tumultuous marriage ended with Tyson filing for divorce in 1988, which was finalized in 1989.[195]
In 1984, Davis met 34-year-old sculptor Jo Gelbard.[196] Gelbard would teach Davis how to paint; the two were frequent collaborators and were soon romantically involved.[196][162] By 1985, Davis was diabetic and required daily injections of insulin.[197] Davis became increasingly aggressive in his final year due in part to the medication he was taking.[196] His aggression manifested as violence towards his partner Jo Gelbard.[196]
In early September 1991, Davis checked into St. John's Hospital near his home in Santa Monica, California, for routine tests.[199] Doctors suggested he have a tracheal tube implanted to relieve his breathing after repeated bouts of bronchial pneumonia. The suggestion provoked an outburst from Davis that led to an intracerebral hemorrhage followed by a coma. According to Jo Gelbard, on September 26, Davis painted his final painting, composed of dark, ghostly figures, dripping blood and ""his imminent demise.""[139] After several days on life support, his machine was turned off and he died on September 28, 1991, in the arms of Gelbard.[200][162] He was 65 years old. His death was attributed to the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia, and respiratory failure.[10] According to Troupe, Davis was taking azidothymidine (AZT), a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of HIV and AIDS, during his treatments in the hospital.[201] A funeral service was held on October 5, 1991, at St. Peter's Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue in New York City[202][203] that was attended by around 500 friends, family members, and musical acquaintances, with many fans standing in the rain.[204] He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City, with one of his trumpets, near the site of Duke Ellington's grave.[205][204]
At the time of his death, Davis's estate was valued at more than $1 million (equivalent to roughly $2 million in 2021[33]). In his will, Davis left 20 percent to his daughter Cheryl Davis; 40 percent to his son Erin Davis; 10 percent to his nephew Vincent Wilburn Jr. and 15 percent each to his brother Vernon Davis and his sister Dorothy Wilburn. He excluded his two sons Gregory and Miles IV.[206]
Late in his life, from the ""electric period"" onwards, Davis repeatedly explained his reasons for not wishing to perform his earlier works, such as Birth of the Cool or Kind of Blue. In his view, remaining stylistically static was the wrong option.[207] He commented: ""'So What' or Kind of Blue, they were done in that era, the right hour, the right day, and it happened. It's over ... What I used to play with Bill Evans, all those different modes, and substitute chords, we had the energy then and we liked it. But I have no feel for it anymore, it's more like warmed-over turkey.""[208] When Shirley Horn insisted in 1990 that Miles reconsider playing the ballads and modal tunes of his Kind of Blue period, he said: ""Nah, it hurts my lip.""[208]Bill Evans, who played piano on Kind of Blue, said: ""I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience.""[208] Throughout his later career, Davis declined offers to reinstate his 1960s quintet.[139]
Many books and documentaries focus on his work before 1975.[139] According to an article by The Independent, from 1975 onwards a decline in critical praise for Davis's output began to form, with many viewing the era as ""worthless"": ""There is a surprisingly widespread view that, in terms of the merits of his musical output, Davis might as well have died in 1975.""[139] In a 1982 interview in DownBeat, Wynton Marsalis said: ""They call Miles's stuff jazz. That stuff is not jazz, man. Just because somebody played jazz at one time, that doesn't mean they're still playing it.""[139] Despite his contempt for Davis' later work, Marsalis' work is ""laden with ironic references to Davis' music of the '60s"".[34] Davis did not necessarily disagree; lambasting what he saw as Marsalis's stylistic conservatism, Davis said ""Jazz is dead ... it's finito! It's over and there's no point apeing the shit.""[209] Writer Stanley Crouch criticized Davis's work from In a Silent Way onwards.[139]
Miles Davis is considered one of the most innovative, influential, and respected figures in the history of music. Based on professional rankings of his albums and songs, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists him as the 16th most acclaimed recording artist in history.[210]The Guardian described him as ""a pioneer of 20th-century music, leading many of the key developments in the world of jazz.""[211] He has been called ""one of the great innovators in jazz"",[212] and had the titles Prince of Darkness and the Picasso of Jazz bestowed upon him.[213]The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll said, ""Miles Davis played a crucial and inevitably controversial role in every major development in jazz since the mid-'40s, and no other jazz musician has had so profound an effect on rock. Miles Davis was the most widely recognized jazz musician of his era, an outspoken social critic and an arbiter of style—in attitude and fashion—as well as music.""[214]
William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote, ""To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period ... It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward.""[1] Francis Davis of The Atlantic noted that Davis's career can be seen as ""an ongoing critique of bebop: the origins of 'cool' jazz..., hard bop, or 'funky'..., modal improvisation..., and jazz-rock fusion... can be traced to his efforts to tear bebop down to its essentials.""[215]
His approach, owing largely to the African-American performance tradition that focused on individual expression, emphatic interaction, and creative response to shifting contents, had a profound impact on generations of jazz musicians.[216] In 2016, digital publication The Pudding, in an article examining Davis's legacy, found that 2,452 Wikipedia pages mention Davis, with over 286 citing him as an influence.[217]
On November 5, 2009, U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the United States House of Representatives to commemorate Kind of Blue on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and ""encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music"".[218] It passed with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.[219] The trumpet Davis used on the recording is displayed on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was donated to the school by Arthur ""Buddy"" Gist, who met Davis in 1949 and became a close friend. The gift was the reason why the jazz program at UNCG is named the Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program.[220]
In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Davis an honorary doctorate for his contributions to music.[221] Since 1960 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) honored him with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
In 2001, The Miles Davis Story, a two-hour documentary film by Mike Dibb, won an International Emmy Award for arts documentary of the year.[222] Since 2005, the Miles Davis Jazz Committee has held an annual Miles Davis Jazz Festival.[223] Also in 2005, a London exhibition was held of his paintings, The Last Miles: The Music of Miles Davis, 1980-1991' was released detailing his final years and eight of his albums from the 1960s and 1970s were reissued in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his signing to Columbia Records.[139] In 2006, Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.[224] In 2012, the U.S. Postal Service issued commemorative stamps featuring Davis.[224]
Miles Ahead was a 2015 American music film directed by Don Cheadle, co-written by Cheadle with Steven Baigelman, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson, which interprets the life and compositions of Davis. It premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2015. The film stars Cheadle, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Frances Taylor, Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Lakeith Stanfield.[225] That same year a statue of him was erected in his home city, Alton, Illinois and listeners of BBC Radio and Jazz FM voted Davis the greatest jazz musician.[226][223] Publications such as The Guardian have also ranked Davis amongst the best of all jazz musicians.[227]
In 2018, American rapper Q-Tip played Miles Davis in a theatre production, My Funny Valentine.[228] Q-Tip had previously played Davis in 2010.[228] In 2019, the documentary Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, directed by Stanley Nelson, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.[229] It was later released on PBS' American Masters series.[230]
Davis has, however, been subject to criticism. In 1990, writer Stanley Crouch, a prominent critic of jazz fusion, labelled Davis ""the most brilliant sellout in the history of jazz,""[139] A 1993 essay by Robert Walser in The Musical Quarterly claims that ""Davis has long been infamous for missing more notes than any other major trumpet player.""[231] Also in the essay is a quote by music critic James Lincoln Collier who states that ""if his influence was profound, the ultimate value of his work is another matter,"" and calls Davis an ""adequate instrumentalist"" but ""not a great one.""[231] In 2013, The A.V. Club published an article titled ""Miles Davis beat his wives and made beautiful music"". In the article, writer Sonia Saraiya praises Davis as a musician, but criticizes him as a person, in particular, his abuse of his wives.[232] Others, such as Francis Davis, have criticized his treatment of women, describing it as ""contemptible"".[215]
Grammy Awards
Other awards
The following list intends to outline Davis' major works, particularly studio albums. A more comprehensive discography can be found at the main article.
"
Adele;"Pages for logged out editors learn more

Adele Laurie Blue Adkins MBE (/əˈdɛl/, [əˈdɛw];[3] born 5 May 1988) is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a record deal with XL Recordings. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 and spawned the UK top-five singles ""Chasing Pavements"" and ""Make You Feel My Love"".19 has sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK and was named in the top 20 best-selling debut albums of all time in the UK.[4][5] Adele was honoured with the Brit Award for Rising Star as well as the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. It became the world's best-selling album of the 21st century, with sales of over 31 million copies. It was certified 18× platinum in the UK (the highest by a solo artist of all time) and Diamond in the US. According to Billboard, 21 is the top-performing album in the US chart history, topping the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks (the longest for a female artist ever). She was the first female artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to have three simultaneous top-ten singles as a lead artist, with ""Rolling in the Deep"", ""Someone Like You"", and ""Set Fire to the Rain"", all of which also topped the chart. The album received a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and the Brit Award for British Album of the Year. The success of 21 earned Adele numerous mentions in the Guinness Book of Records. Rolling stone magazine placed her album 21 in their listing of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020).
In 2012, Adele released ""Skyfall"", a soundtrack single for the James Bond film of the same name, which won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Her third studio album, 25, was released in 2015 and became the year's best-selling album, also breaking first-week sales records in the UK and US, where it is the only album to sell over three million copies in a week. 25 was her second album to be certified Diamond in the US and earned her five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, and four Brit Awards, including British Album of the Year. The lead single, ""Hello"", became the first song in the US to sell over one million digital copies within a week of its release. Her fourth studio album 30, which contains the chart-topping single ""Easy on Me"", was released in 2021 and became the year's best-selling album worldwide including US and UK. 30 won the 2022 Brit Award for British Album of the Year.
Adele is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with sales of over 170 million records as of 2022. She was named as the best-selling album artist of the 2010s decade in the US and worldwide[6] as well as best-selling female artist of the 21st century in the UK.[7] Her accolades include fifteen Grammy Awards, twelve Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2011, 2012, and 2016, Billboard named her Artist of the Year. At the 2012 and 2016 Ivor Novello Awards, Adele was named Songwriter of the Year by The Ivors Academy. Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world in 2012, 2016, and 2022. She was appointed a MBE at the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours for services to music. Rolling Stone ranked her 22nd in their list of 200 Greatest Singers of all time (2023), whereas The Times named her the second best singer of the 21st century.[8][9]
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins[10] was born on 5 May 1988 in the Tottenham district of London, to an English mother, Penny Adkins, and a Welsh father, Marc Evans.[11] Evans left when Adele was 2, and she was brought up by her mother.[12][13] She began singing at age 4 and asserts that she became obsessed with voices.[14][15] In 1997, 9-year-old Adele and her mother, who by then had found work as a furniture maker and an adult-learning activities organiser, relocated to Brighton on the south coast of England.[16]
In 1999, she and her mother moved back to London; first to Brixton, then to the neighbouring district of West Norwood in south London, which is the subject of her first song ""Hometown Glory"".[17] She spent much of her youth in Brockwell Park where she would play the guitar and sing to friends, which she recalled in her 2015 song ""Million Years Ago"". She stated, ""It has quite monumental moments of my life that I've spent there, and I drove past it [in 2015] and I just literally burst into tears. I really missed it.""[18] Adele graduated from the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon in May 2006,[19] where she was a classmate of Leona Lewis and Jessie J.[10][20] Adele credits the school with nurturing her talent[21] even though, at the time, she was more interested in going into artists and repertoire (A&R) and hoped to launch other people's careers.[10]
Four months after graduation, Adele published two songs on the fourth issue of the online arts publication PlatformsMagazine.com.[22] She had recorded a three-song demo for a class project and given it to a friend.[10] The friend posted the demo on Myspace, where it became very successful and led to a phone call from Richard Russell, boss of the music label XL Recordings. She doubted if the offer was real because the only record company she knew was Virgin Records, and she took a friend with her to the meeting.[20][23] Around this time, Adele collaborated with Ricsta on ""Be Divine"", a song described as an ""electronic club-ready"" track.[24]
Nick Huggett, at XL, recommended Adele to manager Jonathan Dickins at September Management, and in June 2006, Dickins became her official representative.[25] September was managing Jamie T at the time and this proved a major draw for Adele, a big fan of the British singer-songwriter. Huggett then signed Adele to XL in September 2006.[25] Adele provided vocals for Jack Peñate's song, ""My Yvonne,"" for his debut album, and it was during this session she first met producer Jim Abbiss, who would go on to produce both the majority of her debut album, 19, and tracks on 21.[26] In June 2007, Adele made her television debut, performing ""Daydreamer"" on the BBC's Later... with Jools Holland.[27] Adele's breakthrough song, ""Hometown Glory"", written when she was 16, was released in October 2007.[25]
By 2008, Adele had become the headliner and performed an acoustic set, in which she was supported by Damien Rice.[28] She became the first recipient of the Brit Awards Critics' Choice and was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2008 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2008.[29][30] She released her second single, ""Chasing Pavements"", on 14 January 2008, two weeks ahead of her debut album. The song reached number two on the UK Chart, and stayed there for four weeks.[31] The album 19, named for her age at the time she wrote and composed many of its songs, entered the British charts at number one. The Times Encyclopedia of Modern Music named 19 an ""essential"" blue-eyed soul recording.[32] Adele was nominated for a 2008 Mercury Prize award for 19.[33] She also won an Urban Music Award for ""Best Jazz Act,""[34] and a Music of Black Origin (MOBO) nomination in the category of Best UK Female.[35] In March 2008, Adele signed a deal with Columbia Records and XL Recordings for her foray into the United States.[36] She embarked on a short North American tour in the same month,[36] and 19 was released in the US in June.[21]Billboard magazine stated of it: ""Adele truly has potential to become among the most respected and inspiring international artists of her generation.""[37] The An Evening with Adele world tour began in May 2008 and ended in June 2009.[38]
She later cancelled the 2008 US tour dates to be with a former boyfriend.[39] She said in Nylon magazine in June 2009, ""I'm like, 'I can't believe I did that.' It seems so ungrateful.... I was drinking far too much and that was kind of the basis of my relationship with this boy. I couldn't bear to be without him, so I was like, 'Well, I'll just cancel my stuff then.'""[39] She referred to this period as her ""early life crisis"".[39] She is also known for her dislike of flying and bouts of homesickness when away from her native London.[40] By the middle of October 2008, Adele's attempt to break in America appeared to have failed.[41] But then she was booked as the musical guest on 18 October 2008 episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live. The episode, which included an expected appearance by then US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, earned the program its best ratings in 14 years with 17 million viewers. Adele performed ""Chasing Pavements"" and ""Cold Shoulder,""[42] and the following day, 19 topped the iTunes charts and ranked at number five at Amazon.com while ""Chasing Pavements"" rose into the top 25.[43] The album reached number 11 on the Billboard 200 as a result, a jump of 35 places over the previous week.[44] In November 2008, Adele moved to Notting Hill, London after leaving her mother's house, a move that prompted her to give up drinking.[45] The album was certified gold in early 2009, by the RIAA.[46] By July 2009, the album had sold 2.2 million copies worldwide.[47]
At the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in February 2009, Adele won the award for Best New Artist, in addition to the award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for ""Chasing Pavements"", which was also nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.[48] Adele performed ""Chasing Pavements"" at the ceremony in a duet with Jennifer Nettles. In 2010, Adele received a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for ""Hometown Glory.""[49] In April her song ""My Same"" entered the German Singles Chart after it had been performed by Lena Meyer-Landrut in the talent show contest Unser Star für Oslo, or Our Star for Oslo, in which the German entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 was determined.[50][51] In late September, after being featured on The X Factor, Adele's version of Bob Dylan's ""Make You Feel My Love"" re-entered the UK singles chart at number 4.[52] During the 2010 CMT Artists of the Year special, Adele performed a widely publicised duet of Lady Antebellum's ""Need You Now"" with Darius Rucker.[53] This performance was later nominated for a CMT Music Award.[54]
Adele released her second studio album, 21, on 24 January 2011 in the UK and 22 February in the US.[55][56] She said the album was inspired by the breakup with her former partner.[13] The album's sound is described as classic and contemporary country and roots music. The change in sound from her debut album was the result of her bus driver playing contemporary music from Nashville when she was touring the American South, and the title reflected the growth she had experienced in the prior two years.[56] Adele told Spin Magazine: ""It was really exciting for me because I never grew up around [that music].""[57]21 topped the charts in 30 countries, including the UK and the US.[58][59][60]
In a 2011 Rolling Stone cover story, Adele said she dealt with onstage anxiety by creating the alter ego ""Sasha Carter"", derived from Beyoncé's ""Sasha Fierce"" and June Carter. During one episode after she met Beyoncé, Adele said, she asked ""What would Sasha Fierce do?"" and that helped.[61][62]
An emotional performance of ""Someone Like You"" at the 31st Brit Awards on 15 February propelled the song to number one in the UK.[63] Her first album, 19, re-entered the UK album chart alongside 21, while first and second singles ""Rolling in the Deep"" and ""Someone Like You"" were in the top 5 of the UK singles chart, making Adele the first living artist to achieve the feat of two top-five hits in both the Official Singles Chart and the Official Albums Chart simultaneously since the Beatles in 1964.[64] Both songs topped the charts in multiple markets and broke numerous sales performance records. Following her performance of ""Someone Like You"" at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards, it became Adele's second number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100.[65] By December 2011, 21 sold over 3.4 million copies in the UK, and became the biggest-selling album of the 21st century, overtaking Amy Winehouse's Back to Black,[66][67] with Adele becoming the first artist ever to sell three million albums in the UK in one calendar year.[68][69] ""Set Fire to the Rain"" became Adele's third number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100, as Adele became the first artist ever to have an album, 21, hold the number-one position on the Billboard 200 concurrently with three number-one singles.[70] Moreover, 21 had the most weeks on the Billboard 200 chart of any album by a female artist.[71]
To promote the album, Adele embarked upon the ""Adele Live"" tour, which sold out its North American leg.[72] In October 2011, Adele was forced to cancel two tours because of a vocal-cord haemorrhage. She released a statement saying she needed an extended period of rest to avoid permanent damage to her voice.[73] In the first week of November 2011 Steven M. Zeitels, director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, performed laser microsurgery on Adele's vocal cords to remove a benign polyp.[74][75][76] A recording of her tour, Live at the Royal Albert Hall, was released in November 2011, debuting at number one in the US with 96,000 copies sold, the highest one-week tally for a music DVD in four years, becoming the best-selling music DVD of 2011.[77] Adele is the first artist in Nielsen SoundScan history to have the year's number-one album (21), number-one single (""Rolling in the Deep""), and number-one music video (Live at the Royal Albert Hall).[78] At the 2011 American Music Awards on 20 November, Adele won three awards; Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist, Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist, and Favorite Pop/Rock Album for 21.[79] On 9 December, Billboard named Adele Artist of the Year, Billboard 200 Album of the Year (21), and the Billboard Hot 100 Song of the Year (""Rolling in the Deep""), becoming the first woman ever to top all three categories.[80][81]
Following the throat microsurgery, she made her live comeback at the 2012 Grammy Awards in February.[82] She won in all six categories for which she was nominated, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, making her the second female artist in Grammy history, after Beyoncé, to win that many awards in a single night.[83] Following that success, 21 achieved the biggest weekly sales increase following a Grammy win since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991.[84][85] Adele received the Brit Award for British Female Solo Artist, and British Album of the Year presented to her by George Michael.[86][87] Following the Brit Awards, 21 reached number one for the 21st non-consecutive week in the UK.[88] The album has sold over 4.5 million copies in the UK where it is the fourth-best-selling album.[89] In October, the album's sales surpassed 4.5 million in the UK, and in November it surpassed 10 million sales in the US.[90][91][92] The best-selling album worldwide of 2011 and 2012, as of 2016[update], the album has sold over 31 million copies.[93][94][95] By the end of 2014, she had sold an estimated 40 million albums and 50 million singles worldwide.[96] Adele is the only artist or band in the last decade in the US to earn an RIAA diamond certification for a one disc album in less than two years.[91]
In October 2012, Adele confirmed that she had been writing, composing and recording the theme song for Skyfall, the twenty-third James Bond film.[97][98] The song ""Skyfall,"" written and composed in collaboration with producer Paul Epworth, was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, and features orchestrations by J. A. C. Redford.[99] Adele stated recording ""Skyfall"" was ""one of the proudest moments of my life."" On 14 October, ""Skyfall"" rose to number 2 on the UK Singles Chart with sales of 92,000 copies bringing its overall sales to 176,000, and ""Skyfall"" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 8, selling 261,000 copies in the US in its first three days.[100] This tied ""Skyfall"" with Duran Duran's ""A View to a Kill"" as the highest-charting James Bond theme song on the UK Singles Chart;[101] a record surpassed in 2015 by Sam Smith's ""Writing's on the Wall"".[102]
""Skyfall"" has sold more than five million copies worldwide[103] and earned Adele the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song[104] and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.[105] In December 2012, Adele was named Billboard Artist of the Year, and 21 was named Album of the Year, making her the first artist to receive both accolades two years in a row.[106][107] Adele was also named top female artist.[107] The Associated Press named Adele Entertainer of the Year for 2012.[108] The 2013 Grammy Awards saw Adele's live version of ""Set Fire to the Rain"" win the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance, bringing her total wins to nine.[109]
On 3 April 2012, Adele confirmed that her third album would likely be at least two years away, stating, ""I have to take time and live a little bit. There were a good two years between my first and second albums, so it'll be the same this time."" She stated that she would continue writing and composing her own material.[110] At the 2013 Grammy Awards, she confirmed that she was in the very early stages of her third album.[111][112] She also stated that she will most likely work with Paul Epworth again.[111]
In September 2013, Wiz Khalifa confirmed that he and Adele had collaborated on a song for his fifth studio album, Blacc Hollywood, though the collaboration did not make the final track listing.[113] In January 2014, Adele received her tenth Grammy Award with ""Skyfall"" winning Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.[114]
On the eve of her 26th birthday in May 2014, Adele posted a cryptic message via her Twitter account which prompted media discussion about her next album. The message, ""Bye bye 25... See you again later in the year,"" was interpreted by some in the media, including Capital FM, as meaning that her next album would be titled 25 and released later in the year.[115] In 2014, Adele was nominated for nine World Music Awards. In early August, Paul Moss suggested that an album would be released in 2014 or 2015.[116] However, in the October 2014 accounts filed with Companies House by XL Recordings, they ruled out a 2014 release.[117]
On 27 August 2015, Billboard reported that Adele's label, XL Recordings, had intentions of releasing her third studio album sometime in November 2015.[120]Danger Mouse was revealed to have contributed a song, while Tobias Jesso Jr. had written a track, and Ryan Tedder was ""back in the mix after producing and co-writing 'Rumour Has It' on 21.""[120] At the 72nd Venice International Film Festival in early September 2015, Sia announced that her new single ""Alive"" was co-written by Adele, and had originally been intended for Adele's third album.[121] On 18 October, a 30-second clip of new material from Adele was shown on UK television during a commercial break on The X Factor. The commercial teases a snippet from a new song from her third album, with viewers hearing a voice singing accompanied by lyrics on a black screen.[122]
In a statement released three days later, Adele confirmed the album's title to be 25, with her stating, ""My last record was a break-up record, and if I had to label this one, I would call it a make-up record. Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did. 25 is about getting to know who I've become without realising. And I'm sorry it took so long but, you know, life happened.""[123] At the time, Adele said 25 would be her last album titled after her age, believing it would be the end to a trilogy.[124] On 22 October, Adele confirmed that 25 would be released on 20 November, while the lead single from the album, ""Hello"" would be released on 23 October.[125] The song was first played on Nick Grimshaw's Radio 1 Breakfast Show on the BBC on the morning of 23 October with Adele interviewed live.[126]
The video of ""Hello"", released on 22 October, was viewed over 27.7 million times on YouTube in its first 24 hours, breaking the Vevo record for the most views in a day, surpassing the 20.1 million views for ""Bad Blood"" by Taylor Swift.[127] On 28 October, BBC News reported that ""Hello"" was being viewed on YouTube an average one million times an hour.[128] ""Hello"" went on to become the fastest video to hit one billion views on YouTube, which it achieved after 88 days.[129] The video for ""Hello"" captured iconic British elements such as a red telephone box and a cup of tea.[130] The song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on 30 October, with first week sales of 330,000 copies, making it the biggest-selling number one single in three years.[131] ""Hello"" also debuted at number one in many countries around the world, including Australia, France, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland and Germany, and on 2 November, the song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first song in the US to sell at least one million downloads in a week, setting the record at 1.11 million.[132] By the end of 2015, it had sold 12.3 million units globally and was the year's 7th-best-selling single despite being released in late October.[133]
On 27 October, BBC One announced plans for Adele at the BBC, a one-hour special presented by Graham Norton, in which Adele talks about her new album and performs new songs.[134] This was her first television appearance since performing at the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony, and the show was recorded before a live audience on 2 November for broadcast on 20 November, coinciding with the release of 25.[135] On 27 October it was also announced that Adele would appear on the US entertainment series Saturday Night Live on 21 November.[134][136] On 30 October, Adele confirmed that she would be performing a one-night-only concert titled Adele Live in New York City at the Radio City Music Hall on 17 November. Subsequently, NBC aired the concert special on 14 December.[137][138]
On 27 November, 25 debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and became the fastest selling album in UK chart history with over 800,000 copies sold in its first week.[139] The album debuted at number one in the US where it sold a record-breaking 3.38 million copies in its first week, the largest single sales week for an album since Nielsen began monitoring sales in 1991.[140]25 also broke first week sales records in Canada and New Zealand.[141][142]25 became the best-selling album of 2015 in a number of countries, including Australia, the UK and the US, spending seven consecutive weeks at number one in each country, before being displaced by David Bowie's Blackstar.[143][144][145] It was the best-selling album worldwide of 2015 with 17.4 million copies sold.[133]25 has since sold 20 million copies globally.[146] Adele's seven weeks at the top of the UK Albums Chart took her total to 31 weeks at number one in the UK with her three albums, surpassing Madonna's previous record of most weeks at number one for a female act.[147] As the best-selling artist worldwide for 2015 the IFPI named Adele the Global Recording Artist of the Year.[148]
In November 2015, Adele's 2016 tour was announced, her first tour since 2011.[150] Beginning in Europe, Adele Live 2016 included four dates at the Manchester Arena in March 2016, six dates at the O2 Arena, London, with further dates in Ireland, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands among others.[151] Her North American Tour began on 5 July in St. Paul, Minnesota.[152] The leg included six nights at Madison Square Garden in New York City, eight nights at Staples Center in Los Angeles, and four nights at Air Canada Centre in Toronto.[153] Adele broke Taylor Swift's five-show record for most consecutive sold-out shows at the Staples Center.[154]
At the 36th Brit Awards in London on 24 February, Adele received the awards for British Female Solo Artist, British Album of the Year for 25, British Single of the Year for ""Hello"", and British Global Success, bringing her Brit Award wins to eight.[155] She closed the ceremony by performing ""When We Were Young"", the second single from 25.[155] Two more singles from 25 were released in 2016: ""Send My Love (To Your New Lover)"" and ""Water Under the Bridge"". While on stage at London's O2 Arena on 17 March, Adele announced that she would be headlining on the Pyramid Stage at the 2016 Glastonbury Festival, which was later confirmed by the festival's organisers.[156] She appeared for a 90-minute fifteen song set at the festival on 25 June in front of 150,000 people, and described the experience as ""by far, the best moment of my life so far"".[157][158]
In an interview with Jo Whiley on BBC Radio 2 around 30-minutes before going on stage, Adele had said she had been going to Glastonbury since she was a child and that the festival had meant a lot to her, before she broke down. Whiley recalls, ""She was really scared, really, really scared. We were doing the interview and at one point she had to stop as she was in tears. It was amazing to see somebody like that, then to witness her walking out on stage and doing the most incredible set. To know that half an hour before she'd been in tears at the thought of walking out there.""[149]
In 2016, Vanity Fair magazine published a cover story which referred to Adele as the ""Queen of Hearts"".[159]
As part of her world tour, in February and March 2017, Adele performed in Australia for the first time, playing outdoor stadiums around the country.[160] Her first two shows in New Zealand sold out in a record-breaking 23 minutes, and a third show was announced, with all tickets sold in under 30 minutes.[161] Adele sold over 600,000 tickets for her record-breaking eight date Australian tour, setting stadium records throughout the country; her Sydney show at ANZ Stadium on 10 March was seen by 95,000 people, the biggest single concert in Australian history, a record she broke the following night with more than 100,000 fans.[162] Adele completed her world tour with two concerts, dubbed ""The Finale"", at Wembley Stadium, London on 28 and 29 June.[163] She announced the shows at ""the home of football"" by singing the England football team's ""Three Lions"" anthem and also the theme song to the BBC's weekly Premier League football show Match of the Day.[163] Adele had added another two concerts at Wembley after the first two dates sold out,[164] however she cancelled the last two dates of the tour after damaging her vocal cords.[165] As a show of support, fans instead gathered outside Wembley Stadium to perform renditions of her songs, in an event titled ""Sing for Adele"".[166]
At the end of 2016, Billboard named Adele Artist of the Year for the third time,[167] and also received the Top Billboard 200 album.[168]25 was the best-selling album for a second consecutive year in the US.[169] With 235 million views, Adele's Carpool Karaoke through the streets of London with James Corden, a sketch which featured on Corden's talk show The Late Late Show with James Corden in January 2016, was the biggest YouTube viral video of 2016.[170] At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2017, Adele won all five of her nominations, bringing her number of awards to fifteen. She won Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for 25, and Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance for ""Hello"".[171] She also performed a tribute to the late George Michael singing the rendition of his song ""Fastlove""; due to technical difficulties which occurred during the performance, Adele decided to stop and restart, explaining ""I can't mess this up for him"".[172] As announced on 31 July 2017, Adele switched performance rights management in the US from BMI to SESAC.[173]
Adele was reportedly working on her fourth studio album by 2018.[174] On 5 May 2019, her 31st birthday, Adele posted several black-and-white pictures of herself on her Instagram account celebrating the occasion along with a message reflecting on the preceding year. The message ended with, ""30 will be a drum n bass record to spite you"". Media outlets took the post as an indication that a new album was on the way.[175][176] On 15 February 2020, Adele announced at a friend's wedding that her fourth studio album would be out by September 2020.[177] However, she later confirmed that the album's production and release had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[178] Adele made her first television appearance in almost four years by hosting the 24 October 2020 episode of Saturday Night Live, with musical guest H.E.R.[179]
On 1 October 2021, projections and billboards of the number ""30"" appeared on significant landmarks and buildings in different cities around the world, fuelling speculation that Adele was responsible, and that 30 would be the title of her fourth album.[180] Soon after, Adele's website and social media accounts matched the aesthetic of the projections and billboards, hinting that her new album would be titled 30,[181] which was subsequently confirmed.[182] On 5 October 2021, Adele announced her single ""Easy on Me"" for release on 15 October.[183] A release date of 19 November 2021 was announced for the album shortly thereafter.[184] On 7 October, Adele was announced to be the November cover star on both Vogue and British Vogue, the first person to simultaneously cover both publications at the same time.[185][186] On 15 October, Adele released ""Easy on Me"" to a positive reception, breaking Spotify and Amazon Music records for most streams for a song in a day.[187] The song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart, Adele's third UK number one, and had the highest first-week sales for a single since January 2017.[188] Reaching the top of the Billboard Hot 100, it is her fifth US number-one single.[189] On 28 October 2021, pre-sale tickets for her two concerts in Hyde Park, London, scheduled for 1 and 2 July 2022, sold out in less than an hour.[190][191] The total number of tickets sold were 130,000, without prior promotion.[192] More than 1,3 million people attempted to buy tickets for these two concerts.[193] Jim King, CEO of the European Festivals division at AEG stated that Adele ""could have sold several million tickets to the shows, such is the demand for her"".[194]
30 was released on 19 November 2021 and became a global success, reaching number one in 24 territories.[195] In the UK, the album debuted at number one on the Official Albums Chart with 261,000 copies sold, garnering the largest opening week for an album since Ed Sheeran's Divide in 2017, and also has the highest first-week sales for an album by a female artist since Adele's own 25,[196] becoming the best-selling album of 2021 in the country. In the US, it was Adele's third consecutive Billboard 200 number-one album and the year's best-seller as well. 30 was the best-selling album of 2021 worldwide, topping the Global Album All-Format Chart, Global Album Sales Chart, and the newly created Global Vinyl Album Chart. The album sold over 5.5 million pure copies within two months of its release.[197] It was her first album to be marketed globally by Columbia Records instead of being split between XL Recordings and Beggars Group's regional distribution partners in most of the world and Columbia in North America.[198] On 30 November 2021, Adele announced a Las Vegas residency titled Weekends with Adele at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace that would have run from 21 January 2022 until 16 April 2022.[199]
On 20 January 2022, she announced the Las Vegas residency was postponed due to ""delivery delays and COVID"".[200] On 8 February 2022, 30 won British Album of the Year at the 42nd Brit Awards, making Adele the first solo artist in history to win the honour three times.[201] On 25 July, it was announced the Las Vegas residency will run from 18 November 2022 to 25 March 2023, with eight more dates than initially planned, for a total of 32 concerts.[202] On 3 September, Adele received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) for her television special Adele One Night Only.[203] Weekends with Adele received widespread critical acclaim, In their review, Billboard called the performance ""utterly and breathlessly spectacular"" adding: ""It was remarkable to see a performer at her level be so present and take in all she had accomplished in arriving at this moment.""[204]The New York Times explained how Adele cried several times throughout the show and described the setup: ""Adele’s stage is breathtaking, full of drama and elegance befitting her voice.""[205] In their four star review of the show, The Times said the performances were ""spectacular, intimate and worth the wait"".[206]
Adele has cited the Spice Girls as a major influence in regard to her love and passion for music, stating that ""they made me what I am today"".[207] During childhood, she impersonated the Spice Girls at dinner parties.[208] She says she was ""heartbroken"" when her favourite Spice Girls member, Geri Halliwell aka ""Ginger Spice"", departed from the group.[209][210]Lauryn Hill is also one of her major influences.[211][212] In a 2011 interview, Adele deemed Hill's record The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as her favourite album, while also stating ""I was analyzing the record for about a month at the age of 8, I was constantly wondering when I would be that passionate about something, to write a record about it, even though I didn't know I was going to make a record when I was older"";[213] while also thanking Hill ""for existing"" in a penned letter, that she dedicated in honour of the 20th anniversary of Hill's album.[214][215] Growing up she also listened to Sinéad O'Connor,[216]the Cranberries,[217]Bob Marley,[218]the Cure,[219]Dusty Springfield,[220]Whitney Houston,[221]Aretha Franklin,[222]Celine Dion,[223]Jeff Buckley,[224] and Annie Lennox.[225]Gabrielle was an early influence, whom Adele has admired since age five. During Adele's school years, her mother made her an eye patch with sequins which she used to perform as the Hackney-born star in a school talent contest.[226]
After moving to south London, she became interested in R&B acts such as Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, Mary J. Blige,[227] and Alicia Keys.[216] Adele has stated that one of the most defining moments in her life was when she saw Pink perform at Brixton Academy in London. She says: ""It was the Missundaztood record, so I was about 13 or 14. I had never heard, being in the room, someone sing like that live [...] I remember sort of feeling like I was in a wind tunnel, her voice just hitting me. It was incredible.""[228][224]
In 2002, 14-year-old Adele discovered Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald as she stumbled on the artists' CDs in the jazz section of her local music store. She was struck by their appearance on the album covers.[229] Adele states she then ""started listening to Etta James every night for an hour,"" and in the process was getting ""to know my own voice.""[229] She has credited Amy Winehouse and her 2003 album Frank with inspiring her to take up the guitar, saying: ""If it wasn't for Amy and Frank, one hundred per cent I wouldn't have picked up a guitar, I wouldn't have written 'Daydreamer' or 'Hometown [Glory]' and I wrote 'Someone Like You' on the guitar too.""[230]
She has also expressed admiration for Lana Del Rey, Grimes, Chvrches, FKA Twigs, Alabama Shakes, Kanye West, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Frank Ocean, Queen, and Stevie Nicks.[231][232] In 2017, she described Beyoncé as a particular inspiration, calling her ""[the] artist of my life"" and added ""the other artists who mean that much to me are all dead.""[233] Adele cited Madonna's 1998 album Ray of Light as a ""chief inspiration"" for her album 25.[234] She stated that the release of 25 and her own comeback was inspired by the enigmatic Kate Bush who in 2014 made a comeback to the stage 35 years after her last live shows from her only tour in 1979.[235] Adele mentioned that Max Martin's work on Taylor Swift's ""I Knew You Were Trouble"" was the inspiration behind her song ""Send My Love (To Your New Lover)"", saying: ""I was like, 'Who did this?' I knew it was Taylor, and I've always loved her, but this is a totally other side – like, 'I want to know who brought that out in her.' I was unaware that I knew who Max Martin was. I Googled him, and I was like, 'He's literally written every massive soundtrack of my life.' So I got my management to reach out. They came to London, and I took my guitar along and was like, 'I've got this riff,' and then 'Send My Love' happened really quickly.""[236]
Adele's debut album, 19, is of the soul genre, with lyrics addressing heartbreak and relationship.[21] Her success occurred simultaneously with several other British female soul singers, with the British press dubbing her a new Amy Winehouse.[10] This was described as a third British Musical Invasion of the US.[20] However, Adele called the comparisons between her and other female soul singers lazy, noting ""we're a gender, not a genre"".[21][237][238] AllMusic wrote that ""Adele is simply too magical to compare her to anyone.""[229]
Her second album, 21, shares the folk and soul influences of her debut album, but was further inspired by American country and Southern blues music to which she had been exposed during her 2008–09 tour An Evening with Adele in North America.[239][240] Conceived in the aftermath of Adele's breakup with a partner, the album typifies the near dormant tradition of the confessional singer-songwriter in its exploration of heartbreak, self-examination, and forgiveness. Having referred to 21 as a ""break-up record"", Adele labelled her third studio album, 25, a ""make-up record"", adding it is about ""Making up for lost time. Making up for everything I ever did and never did.""[123] Her yearning for her old self, her nostalgia, and melancholy about the passage of time, is a feature of 25, with Adele stating, ""I've had a lot of regrets since I turned 25. And sadness hits me in different ways than it used to. There's a lot of things I don't think I'll ever get 'round to doing.""[241]
""Clutching a Brits Critics' Choice Award before she'd even released her debut album, Adele had what seems like pre-ordained success, but it never would have happened without her extraordinary voice. Appropriately, her big, smoky pipes enter tonight before she does – singing from the wings, before she suddenly emerges, cackling ""Awright Leeds."" These first few seconds encapsulate her special connection with the public. A peculiar mixture of the sublime and the mundane. One minute she's adding an eerie tremor to the lyric ""Of my world"", the next she's explaining to the people pondering aloud just how one might Set Fire to the Rain, that the song was inspired ""when mah lightah stopped workin'"" in the wet.""
—Dave Simpson of The Guardian on Adele's voice and down to earth persona.[242]
Adele is a mezzo-soprano, with a range spanning from B2 to C6. However Classic FM states she is often mistaken for a contralto due to the application of a tense chest mix to reach the lower notes, while also noting that her voice becomes its clearest as she ascends the register, particularly from C4 to C5.[243][244][245][246]Rolling Stone reported that following throat surgery her voice had become ""palpably bigger and purer-toned"", and that she had added a further four notes to the top of her range.[241] Initially, critics suggested that her vocals were more developed and intriguing than her songwriting, a sentiment with which Adele agreed.[247] She has stated: ""I taught myself how to sing by listening to Ella Fitzgerald for acrobatics and scales, Etta James for passion and Roberta Flack for control.""[248]
Adele's singing has received acclaim from music critics. In a review of 19, The Observer stated, ""The way she stretched the vowels, her wonderful soulful phrasing, the sheer unadulterated pleasure of her voice, stood out all the more; little doubt that she's a rare singer"".[249] BBC Music wrote, ""Her melodies exude warmth, her singing is occasionally stunning and, ...she has tracks that make Lily Allen and Kate Nash sound every bit as ordinary as they are.""[250] Also in 2008, Sylvia Patterson of The Guardian wrote, ""Of all the gobby new girls, only Adele's bewitching singing voice has the enigmatic quality which causes tears of involuntary emotion to splash down your face in the way Eva Cassidy's did before her.""[251] For their reviews of 21, The New York Times' chief music critic Jon Pareles commended Adele's emotive timbre, likening her to Dusty Springfield, Petula Clark, and Annie Lennox: ""[Adele] can seethe, sob, rasp, swoop, lilt and belt, in ways that draw more attention to the song than to the singer"".[252] Ryan Reed of Paste magazine regarded her voice as ""a raspy, aged-beyond-its-years thing of full-blooded beauty"",[253] while MSN Music's Tom Townshend called her ""the finest singer of [our] generation"".[254] Adele has also been dubbed a ""vocal goddess"".[255]
In 2011, Adele began a relationship with charity entrepreneur Simon Konecki.[256] Their son was born on 19 October 2012.[257] On the topic of becoming a parent, Adele said she ""felt like I was truly living. I had a purpose, where before I didn't"".[258] Adele and Konecki brought a privacy case against a UK-based photo agency that published intrusive paparazzi images of their son taken during family outings in 2013.[259] Lawyers working on their behalf accepted damages from the company in July 2014.[260] Adele has also opened up about suffering from postnatal depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.[261][262]
In early 2017, tabloids started speculating that Adele and Konecki had secretly married when they were spotted wearing matching rings on their ring fingers.[263] During her acceptance speech at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Adele seemed to have confirmed these reports by referring to Konecki as ""my husband"" when thanking him.[264] She repeated this in March 2017, telling the audience at a concert in Brisbane, Australia, ""I'm married now"".[265] However, in a 2021 interview with British Vogue, she revealed that they actually married in 2018, and separated the same year.[266] During this time, Adele became a stay-at-home mother.[267] In April 2019, Adele's representatives confirmed the separation via Associated Press, and affirmed that she and Konecki would continue to raise their son together.[268][269] On 13 September 2019, it was reported that Adele had filed for divorce from Konecki in the US.[270] Their divorce was finalised on 4 March 2021.[271] In 2021, Adele entered a relationship with American sports agent Rich Paul.[266][272]
Politically, she is a supporter of the Labour Party, saying in 2011 that she was a ""Labour girl through and through"", and in the same interview was critical of the Conservative Party.[273] Despite this declared political alignment, Adele received backlash for her comments on paying taxes during a 2011 interview with Q magazine. She said, ""I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more, doing what I do, I went to state school, I'm mortified to have to pay 50 percent! Trains are always late, most state schools are shit and I've gotta give you like four million quid, are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from 19 I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.""[274][275]
Born in the North London district of Tottenham, Adele supports local football club Tottenham Hotspur.[276]
In 2015, Adele said, ""I'm a feminist, I believe that everyone should be treated the same, including race and sexuality"".[234] Supportive of the LGBT community, on 12 June 2016, an emotional Adele dedicated her show in Antwerp, Belgium, to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States, earlier that day, adding, ""The LGBTQ community, they're like my soul mates since I was really young, so I'm very moved by it.""[277][278]
In April 2018, it was widely reported that Adele had become an ordained minister in order to officiate at close friend comedian Alan Carr's wedding to Paul Drayton, something which Adele herself subsequently confirmed. The wedding, held in January 2018, took place in the garden of her house in Los Angeles, California.[279] Adele's close friends include Nicole Richie,[280]Jennifer Lawrence, Cameron Diaz, Emma Stone,[281]Laura Dockrill,[282]Lauren and Aaron Paul,[283]James Corden,[284] and Elton John, among others.[285]Drake called Adele ""One of [his] best friends in the world"".[286]
In 2012, Adele topped the List of Richest Young Musicians under 30 in the UK, included on the Sunday Times Rich List.[287] In July 2012, she was listed at number six in Forbes list of the world's highest-paid celebrities under the age of 30, having earned £23 million between May 2011 and May 2012.[288] For six consecutive years, from 2013 to 2018, Adele topped the List of Richest Young Musicians under 30 in the UK and Ireland as part of the Sunday Times' annual Rich List.[289] In 2015, Adele said she declined all sorts of lucrative endorsement offers out of personal choice.[290] In 2015, she reported paying £4 million tax in the UK.[291] In July 2016, Adele was ranked number nine on the Forbes list of the 100 highest-paid celebrities in the world.[292] In November 2016 and November 2017, she was in second place on the Forbes list of the world's highest-paid women in music, earning US$80.5 million and $69 million, respectively.[293] The Sunday Times Rich List valued her wealth at £125 million in 2017, and she was ranked the 19th UK's richest musician overall whilst being the only woman in the top 20.[294] Adele owns and operates two companies, Melted Stone Ltd and Melted Stone Publishing.[295] In 2017, she earned $11.2 million in royalties from record sales, after taxes, according to official documents from her companies, without any new album release at the time, and whilst spending her time off.[296] On the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List, Adele was valued at £150 million (US$180.5 million) as the 22nd richest musician in the UK, despite not having toured since 2017.[297]
In 2012, Adele and then-partner Konecki purchased a $3.4 million Art Deco villa in Portslade, on the outskirts of Brighton and Hove, which she sold for $3.7 million in 2016. That same year, she bought two houses built side-by-side in Kensington for $7.7 million and $7.3 million, respectively, with the intention of combining them. Adele also bought a home for her mother in West London for around $817,000.[298] In 2013, she temporarily rented Paul McCartney's 12,000 square foot (1,100 m2) former mansion for an undisclosed price. In 2015, Adele purchased a $5.2 million Mediterranean-style vacation mansion in Malibu, California, and sold it in 2017 for less than its original purchase price, $4.8 million.[298] She envisioned buying several properties on the same street in a Beverly Hills gated community, beginning with the first home purchased for $9.5 million from Don Mischer in 2016.[299][300] During her Madison Square Garden tour in September 2016, Adele rented NBA player Deron Williams' Tribeca apartment for three weeks at a monthly rent of $60,000.[301][298] In 2017, she and Konecki purchased a $5.3 million Tudor mansion called Ridge Hill Manor, located in the English countryside on the outskirts of East Grinstead.[298] In 2019 and 2021, Adele bought two more Beverly Hills mansions for $10.65 million and $10 million, respectively; the latter was purchased from Richie and her husband, Joel Madden.[302][303] In February 2022, it was reported she bought Sylvester Stallone's 21,000 square foot (2,000 m2) former mansion in Beverly Park, Los Angeles, for $58 million.[304][305]
Adele has performed in numerous charity concerts throughout her career. In 2007 and 2008, she performed at the Little Noise Sessions held at London's Union Chapel, with proceeds from the concerts donated to Mencap which works with people with learning disabilities.[40] In July and November 2008, Adele performed at the Keep a Child Alive Black Ball in London and New York City respectively.[306][307][308] On 17 September 2009, she performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, for the VH1 Divas event, a concert to raise money for the Save The Music Foundation charity.[309][310] On 6 December, Adele opened with a 40-minute set at John Mayer's 2nd Annual Holiday Charity Revue held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.[311] In 2011, Adele gave a free concert for Pride London, a registered charity which arranges LGBT events in London.[312] The same year, Adele took part in the UK charity telethon Comic Relief for Red Nose Day 2011, performing ""Someone like You"".[313]
Adele has been a major contributor to MusiCares, a charity organisation founded by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for musicians in need. In February 2009, Adele performed at the 2009 MusiCares charity concert in Los Angeles. In 2011 and 2012, Adele donated autographed items for auctions to support MusiCares.[314][315][316] Adele required all backstage visitors to the North American leg of her Adele Live tour to donate a minimum charitable contribution of US$20 for the UK charity SANDS, an organisation dedicated to ""supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby and promoting research to reduce the loss of babies' lives"".[317]
On 15 June 2017, Adele attended a vigil in west London for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire where, keeping a low profile, she was only spotted by a handful of fans.[318] Four days later she appeared at Chelsea fire station and brought cakes for the firefighters.[319] Station manager Ben King stated ""She came in, came up to the mess and had a cup of tea with the watch and then she joined us for the minute's silence.""[319] Paying tribute to the victims at her first Wembley show on 28 June, Adele encouraged fans to donate money to help the victims of the blaze rather than waste the money on ""overpriced wine"".[320]
Adele has been referred to as the ""Queen of Hearts"" by publications such as Vogue and Vanity Fair,[321][322] while the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has called her ""Queen of Soul"" for her early success as a soul singer-songwriter.[323] In 2014, Adele was already being regarded as a British cultural icon, with young adults from abroad naming her among a group of people whom they most associated with UK culture, which included William Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth II, David Beckham, J. K. Rowling, The Beatles, Charlie Chaplin and Elton John.[324][325]
Richard Russell, the founder of record label XL Recordings, complimented Adele that she had the potential to change the way women were seen in the music industry by focusing on music rather than sexuality.[326]The New Yorker called her ""the most popular living soul singer in the world"" at 27-years-old.[327] Writing for Vulture, Jillian Mapes opined that Adele is ""among the first plus-size female cultural icons to reach the highest echelons of commercial success without having to make herself the butt of fat jokes along the way"".[328]Time journalist Sam Lansky described her as ""a voice for every generation"" and further stated that ""Adele bridges pop music's past and its future"". Lansky wrote that Adele, by choosing to sound like the past, goes in an opposite direction in mainstream music when her contemporaries ""try to sound simultaneously like each other"" and follow trends.[329]Billboard credited Adele for reviving the music industry in 2011, the year of 21's release, and wrote: ""She was a unique presence not only in 2011, but in all of 21st century pop: a preternaturally gifted singer and songwriter with a leave-it-all-on-the-floor approach to recording and performing — and also an earthy, relatable, and strangely unassuming personality both on and off the stage"".[330]Junkee and Consequence of Sound credited her for revitalizing pop music and heralding ""a new era of relatable pop"" due to the critical and commercial success of 21.[331][332] In an article about how music from 2011 defined pop music, Junkee also credited Adele for reviving the breakup ballad music, paving the way for young artists like Olivia Rodrigo to utilize some elements of pop ballads that she did into their own music.[333] In a 2021 article from The Daily Telegraph, James Hall wrote that ""a new Adele album isn't just a release − it's a global cultural event"".[334]Rolling Stone writers observed that ""She has written more modern pop standards than anyone else in her generation, each single becoming an instant classic.""[335]
Rolling Stone has listed her at 22nd in their list of 200 Greatest Singers of all time (2023) while The Times named her as 2nd best singer of the 21st century in their list of 20 best solo singers.[8][9]Consequence of Sound ranked Adele at number 34 on its list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, describing her voice as ""athletic and authentic"" and ""an unapologetic powerhouse with a knack for tone and an ability to imbue her performances with genuine emotion"".[336] In 2019, Insider listed her among the top artists of the decade, and wrote: ""Her artistry and style broke through in a time of ultra club-happy pop music, and paved the way for other artists to break the mold"".[337] In 2022, she has been ranked number 8 on Yardbarker's The Greatest Singing Voices of All Time list.[338] Adele and her work have influenced numerous recording artists, including Beyoncé,[339]Lauren Daigle,[340]Billie Eilish,[341]Rebecca Ferguson,[342]Jess Glynne,[343]Conan Gray,[344]Freya Ridings,[345]Sigrid,[346]Sam Smith,[347] and Tom Walker.[348]
Adele has sold more than 170 million records worldwide with 70 million in album sales and over 100 million in single sales as of 2022, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists.[349] She is one of the artists who bring the most revenue to the music industry per day.[334]
At the 51st Annual Grammy Awards in 2009, 21-year-old Adele won awards in the categories of Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.[350] She was also nominated in the categories of Record of the Year and Song of the Year.[351] The success of her debut album 19 saw Adele nominated for three Brit Awards in the categories of British Female Solo Artist, British Single of the Year and British Breakthrough Act.[352] Then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sent a thank-you letter to Adele that stated ""with the troubles that the country's in financially, you're a light at the end of the tunnel"".[353]
Adele's second album, 21, earned her a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year; two Brit Awards, including British Album of the Year. Adele was the second artist and first female, preceded by Christopher Cross, to have won all four of the general field awards throughout her career.[354] The success of the album saw her receive numerous mentions in the Guinness Book of World Records.[355] With 21 non-consecutive weeks at number 1 in the US, Adele broke the record for the longest number-1 album by a woman in Billboard history, beating the record formerly held by Whitney Houston's soundtrack The Bodyguard.[85]21 spent its 23rd week at number one in March 2012, making it the longest-running album at number one since 1985,[356] and it became the fourth-best-selling album of the past 10 years in the US.[357] The best selling album in the UK of the 21st century, and the best selling album by a female in UK chart history, 21 is also the second-best-selling album in the UK of all time.[358][359]21 was her first album certified diamond in the US.[360] On 6 March, 21 reached 30 non-consecutive weeks at number one on the Australian ARIA Chart, making it the longest-running number one album in Australia in the 21st century, and the second longest-running number one ever.[361]
In May 2011, ""Team Adele"" was ranked number one on The Guardian's ""Music Power 100"" list: ""the 100 most influential people in the music industry"".[362] In February 2012, Adele was listed at number five on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music.[363] In April 2012, Time magazine named Adele one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[364][365]People named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.[366] On 30 April 2012, a tribute to Adele was held at New York City's (Le) Poisson Rouge called Broadway Sings Adele, starring various Broadway actors such as Matt Doyle.[367]
In the week ending 3 March 2012, Adele became the first solo female artist to have three singles in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time with ""Rolling in the Deep"", ""Someone Like You"", and ""Set Fire to the Rain"" as well as the first female artist to have two albums in the top 5 of the Billboard 200 and two singles in the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously.[368] Adele topped the 2012 Sunday Times Rich List of musicians in the UK under 30,[369] and made the Top 10 of Billboard magazine's ""Top 40 Money Makers"".[370]Billboard also announced the same day that Adele's ""Rolling in the Deep"" is the biggest crossover hit of the past 25 years, topping pop, adult pop and adult contemporary charts and that Adele is one of four female artists to have an album chart at number one for more than 13 weeks (the other three artists being Judy Garland, Carole King, and Whitney Houston).[370]
At the 2012 Ivor Novello Awards in May, Adele was named Songwriter of the Year, and ""Rolling in the Deep"" won the award for Most Performed Work of 2011.[371] At the 2012 BMI Awards held in London in October, Adele won Song of the Year (for ""Rolling in the Deep"") in recognition of the song being the most played on US television and radio in 2011.[372] In 2013, Adele won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the James Bond theme ""Skyfall"". This is the first James Bond song to win and the fifth to be nominated—after ""For Your Eyes Only"" (1981), ""Nobody Does It Better"" (1977), ""Live and Let Die"" (1973), and ""The Look of Love"" (1967).[373][374] ""Skyfall"" won the Brit Award for Best British Single at the 33rd Brit Awards.[375]
In June 2013, Adele was appointed a MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for services to music, and she received the award from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on 19 December 2013.[376][377] In February 2013 she was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.[378]
Released in 2015, Adele's third album, 25, became the year's best-selling album and broke first week sales records in a number of markets, including the UK and the US.[379]25 was her second album to be certified diamond in the US and earned her five Grammy Awards, including her second Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and four Brit Awards, including her second Brit Award for British Album.[155] Adele became the only artist in history to, on two separate occasions, win the three general categories Grammys in the same ceremony.[380] With 15 awards from 18 nominations, Adele won more Grammys than any other female who was born outside the US.[381] Adele's seven weeks at the top of the UK Albums Chart took her total to 31 weeks at number one in the UK with her three albums, surpassing Madonna's previous record of most weeks at number one for a female act in the UK.[147] The lead single, ""Hello"", became the first song in the US to sell over one million digital copies within a week of its release.[132]
At the 2016 Ivor Novello Awards Adele was named Songwriter of the Year for the second time by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.[382] In April 2016 she appeared for the second time on the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people.[383] Adele was inducted into the Royal Albert Hall's Walk of Fame in 2018, making her one of the first eleven recipients of a star on the walk.[384] Despite releasing just two albums in the decade (21 and 25), at 36 weeks she had the second most weeks at number one in the UK Album Charts in the 2010s, five weeks behind Ed Sheeran (who released four albums).[385][386] In December 2019, Israel's largest TV and radio stations named her singer of the 2010s.[387]
In 2021, Adele was named the UK's best-selling female album artist of the 21st century, based on Official Charts Company data.[388] In May 2022, Time magazine named her for the third time among the 100 most influential people in the world in the ""icons"" category.[389] As Adele has won Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar Awards, it makes her a Tony Award away from achieving EGOT status as of 2022.[390]"
Stevie_Wonder;"Pages for logged out editors learn more

Stevland Hardaway Morris (né Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder.
Wonder's single ""Fingertips"" was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, at the age of 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. Wonder's critical success was at its peak in the 1970s. His ""classic period"" began in 1972 with the releases of Music of My Mind and Talking Book, the latter featuring ""Superstition"", which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner Clavinet keyboard. His works Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) and Songs in the Key of Life (1976) all won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, making him the tied-record holder for the most Album of the Year wins, with three. He is also the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases. Wonder began his ""commercial period"" in the 1980s; he achieved his biggest hits and highest level of fame, had increased album sales, charity participation, high-profile collaborations (including Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson), political impact, and television appearances. Wonder has continued to remain active in music and political causes.
Wonder is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales of over 100 million records worldwide. He has won 25 Grammy Awards (the most by a solo artist) and one Academy Award (Best Original Song, for the 1984 film The Woman in Red). Wonder has been inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday in the U.S. In 2009, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2014, he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Wonder was born Stevland Hardaway Judkins in Saginaw, Michigan, on May 13, 1950, the third of five children born to Lula Mae Hardaway,[7] and the second of Hardaway's two children with Calvin Judkins.[8] He was born six weeks premature which, along with the oxygen-rich atmosphere in the hospital incubator, resulted in retinopathy of prematurity, a condition in which the growth of the eyes is aborted and causes the retinas to detach, so he became blind.[9][10]
When Wonder was four, his mother divorced his father and moved with her three children to Detroit, Michigan, where Wonder sang as a child in a choir at the Whitestone Baptist Church.[11] She later rekindled her relationship with her first child's father (whose surname was also coincidentally Hardaway)[8] and changed her own name back to Lula Hardaway, going on to have two more children.
When Stevie was signed by Motown in 1961, his surname was legally changed to Morris, which (according to Lula Mae Hardaway's authorized biography) was an old family name. Berry Gordy was responsible for creating the stage name of ""Little Stevie Wonder"".[12]
He began playing instruments at an early age, including piano, harmonica, and drums. He formed a singing partnership with a friend; calling themselves Stevie and John, they played on street corners and occasionally at parties and dances.[13]
As a child, Wonder attended Fitzgerald Elementary School in Detroit.[14] After his first album was released, The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie (1962), he enrolled in Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan.[15][16]
In 1961, at the age of 11, Wonder sang his own composition, ""Lonely Boy"", to Ronnie White of the Miracles;[17][18] White then took Wonder and his mother to an audition at Motown, where CEO Berry Gordy signed Wonder to Motown's Tamla label.[7] Before signing, producer Clarence Paul gave him the name Little Stevie Wonder.[9] Because of Wonder's age, the label drew up a rolling five-year contract in which royalties would be held in trust until Wonder was 21. He and his mother would be paid a weekly stipend to cover their expenses: Wonder received $2.50 (equivalent to $22.67 in 2021) per week, and a private tutor was provided when Wonder was on tour.[18]
Wonder was put in the care of producer and songwriter Clarence Paul, and for a year they worked together on two albums. Tribute to Uncle Ray was recorded first, when Wonder was still 11 years old. Mainly covers of Ray Charles's songs, the album included a Wonder and Paul composition, ""Sunset"". The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie was recorded next, an instrumental album consisting mainly of Paul's compositions, two of which, ""Wondering"" and ""Session Number 112"", were co-written with Wonder.[19] Feeling Wonder was now ready, a song, ""Mother Thank You"", was recorded for release as a single, but then pulled and replaced by the Berry Gordy song ""I Call It Pretty Music, But the Old People Call It the Blues"" as his début single;[20] released summer 1962,[21] it almost broke into the Billboard 100, spending one week of August at 101.[22] Two follow-up singles, ""Little Water Boy"" and ""Contract on Love"", both had no success, and the two albums, released in reverse order of recording—The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie in September 1962 and Tribute to Uncle Ray in October 1962—also met with little success.[19][23]
Most of these songs hit the charts in a big way before Stevie turned twenty-one [in 1971]. Because he's grown up fast, the love lyrics are less teen-specific than a lot of early Smokey, say, but the music is pure puberty. Stevie's rockers are always one step ahead of themselves—their gawky groove is so disorienting it makes you pay attention, like a voice that's perpetually changing. The ballads conceive coming of age more conventionally, and less felicitously. But he sure covered Tony Bennett better than the Supremes or the Tempts could have, now didn't he?
–Review of Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)[24]
At the end of 1962, when Wonder was 12 years old, he joined the Motortown Revue, touring the ""Chitlin' Circuit"" of theatres across America that accepted black artists. At the Regal Theater, Chicago, his 20-minute performance was recorded and released in May 1963 as the album Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius.[19] A single, ""Fingertips"", from the album was also released in May, and became a major hit.[25] The song, featuring a confident and enthusiastic Wonder returning for a spontaneous encore that catches out the replacement bass player, who is heard to call out ""What key? What key?"",[25][26] was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 when Wonder was aged 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart.[27] The single was simultaneously No. 1 on the R&B chart, the first time that had occurred.[28] His next few recordings, however, were not successful; his voice was changing as he got older, and some Motown executives were considering cancelling his recording contract.[28] During 1964, Wonder appeared in two films as himself, Muscle Beach Party and Bikini Beach, but these were not successful either.[29]Sylvia Moy persuaded label owner Berry Gordy to give Wonder another chance.[28]
Dropping the ""Little"" from his name, Moy and Wonder worked together to create the hit ""Uptight (Everything's Alright)"",[28] and Wonder went on to have a number of other hits during the mid-1960s, including ""With a Child's Heart"", and ""Blowin' in the Wind"",[26] a Bob Dylan song, co-sung by his mentor, producer Clarence Paul.[30] He also began to work in the Motown songwriting department, composing songs both for himself and his label mates, including ""The Tears of a Clown"", a No. 1 hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (it was first released in 1967, mostly unnoticed as the last track of their Make It Happen LP, but eventually became a major success when re-released as a single in 1970, which prompted Robinson to reconsider his intention of leaving the group).[31]
In 1968, he recorded an album of instrumental soul/jazz tracks, mostly harmonica solos, under the title Eivets Rednow, which is ""Stevie Wonder"" spelled backward.[32] The album failed to get much attention, and its only single, a cover of Burt Bacharach's and Hal David's ""Alfie"", only reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts and number 11 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. Nonetheless, he managed to score several hits between 1968 and 1970 such as ""I Was Made to Love Her"",[30] ""For Once in My Life"" and ""Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours"". A number of Wonder's early hits, including ""My Cherie Amour"", ""I Was Made to Love Her"", and ""Uptight (Everything's Alright)"", were co-written with Henry Cosby. The hit single ""Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours"" was his first-ever self-produced song.[33]
In 1969, Wonder participated in the Sanremo Music Festival with the song ""Se tu ragazza mia"", in conjunction with Gabriella Ferri. Between 1967 and 1970, he recorded four 45 rpm singles[34][35][36][37] and an Italian LP.[38]
Wonder's appearance at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival opens the 2021 music documentary, Summer of Soul.[39] Wonder plays a drum solo during his set.
In September 1970, at the age of 20, Wonder married Syreeta Wright, a songwriter and former Motown secretary. Wright and Wonder worked together on the next album, Where I'm Coming From (1971), Wonder writing the music, and Wright helping with the lyrics.[40] Around this time, Wonder became interested in utilizing synthesizers after hearing albums by electronic group Tonto's Expanding Head Band.[41] Wonder and Wright wanted to ""touch on the social problems of the world"", and for the lyrics ""to mean something"".[40] The album was released at around the same time as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. As both albums had similar ambitions and themes, they have been compared; in a contemporaneous review by Vince Aletti in Rolling Stone, Gaye's was seen as successful, while Wonder's was seen as failing due to ""self-indulgent and cluttered"" production, ""undistinguished"" and ""pretentious"" lyrics, and an overall lack of unity and flow.[42] Also in 1970, Wonder co-wrote, and played numerous instruments on the hit ""It's a Shame"" for fellow Motown act the Spinners. His contribution was meant to be a showcase of his talent and thus a weapon in his ongoing negotiations with Gordy about creative autonomy.[43] Reaching his 21st birthday on May 13, 1971, Wonder allowed his Motown contract to expire.[44]
During this period, he independently recorded two albums and signed a new contract with Motown Records. The 120-page contract was a precedent at Motown and gave Wonder a much higher royalty rate.[45] He returned to Motown in March 1972 with Music of My Mind. Unlike most previous albums on Motown, which usually consisted of a collection of singles, B-sides and covers, Music of My Mind was a full-length artistic statement with songs flowing together thematically.[45] Wonder's lyrics dealt with social, political, and mystical themes as well as standard romantic ones, while musically he began exploring overdubbing and recording most of the instrumental parts himself.[45]Music of My Mind marked the beginning of a long collaboration with Tonto's Expanding Head Band (Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil),[46][47] and with lyricist Yvonne Wright.[48]
Released in late 1972, Wonder's album Talking Book featured the No. 1 hit ""Superstition"",[49] which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner Clavinet keyboard.[50]Talking Book also featured ""You Are the Sunshine of My Life"", which also peaked at No. 1. During the same time as the album's release, Wonder began touring with the Rolling Stones to alleviate the negative effects from pigeonholing as a result of being an R&B artist in America.[17] Wonder's touring with the Stones was also a factor behind the success of both ""Superstition"" and ""You Are the Sunshine of My Life"".[45][51] Between them, the two songs won three Grammy Awards.[52] On an episode of the children's television show Sesame Street that aired in April 1973,[53] Wonder and his band performed ""Superstition"", as well as an original called ""Sesame Street Song"", which demonstrated his abilities with television.
Innervisions, released in 1973, featured ""Higher Ground"" (No. 4 on the pop charts) as well as the trenchant ""Living for the City"" (No. 8).[49] Both songs reached No. 1 on the R&B charts. Popular ballads such as ""Golden Lady"" and ""All in Love Is Fair"" were also present, in a mixture of moods that nevertheless held together as a unified whole.[54]Innervisions generated three more Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.[52] The album is ranked No. 34 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[55] Wonder had become the most influential and acclaimed black musician of the early 1970s.[45]
On August 6, 1973, Wonder was injured in a serious automobile accident while on tour in North Carolina, when a car in which he was riding hit the back of a truck.[45][56] This left him in a coma for four days and resulted in a partial loss of his sense of smell and a temporary loss of sense of taste.[57] Despite orders from his doctor to refrain from performing, Wonder performed at a homecoming benefit for Shaw University in Raleigh in November 1973.[58] Shaw was facing financial difficulties, so Wonder, who was a member of the university's board of trustees, rallied other acts such as Exuma, LaBelle, and the Chambers Brothers to join the concert, which raised over $10,000 for the school's scholarship fund.[59]
Wonder embarked on a European tour in early 1974, performing at the Midem convention in Cannes, at the Rainbow Theatre in London, and on the German television show Musikladen.[60] On his return from Europe, he played a sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden in March 1974, highlighting both up-tempo material and long, building improvisations on mid-tempo songs such as ""Living for the City"".[45] The album Fulfillingness' First Finale appeared in July 1974 and set two hits high on the pop charts: the No. 1 ""You Haven't Done Nothin'"" and the Top Ten ""Boogie on Reggae Woman"". The Album of the Year was again one of three Grammys won.[52]
The same year, Wonder took part in a Los Angeles jam session with ex-Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that would become known as the bootleg album A Toot and a Snore in '74.[61][62] He also co-wrote and produced the 1974 Syreeta Wright album Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta.[63][64]
On October 4, 1975, Wonder performed at the historic ""Wonder Dream Concert"" in Kingston, Jamaica, a benefit for the Jamaican Institute for the Blind.[65] In 1975, he played harmonica on two tracks on Billy Preston's album It's My Pleasure.
By 1975, at the age of 25, Wonder had won two consecutive Grammy Awards: in 1974 for Innervisions and in 1975 for Fulfillingness' First Finale.[66] In 1976, when Paul Simon won the Album of the Year Grammy for his Still Crazy After All These Years, he wryly noted, ""I'd like to thank Stevie Wonder, who didn't make an album this year.""[67][68]
The double album-with-extra-EP, Songs in the Key of Life, was released in September 1976. Sprawling in style and sometimes lyrically difficult to fathom, the album was hard for some listeners to assimilate, yet is regarded by many as Wonder's crowning achievement and one of the most recognizable and accomplished albums in pop music history.[45][49][69] The album became the first by an American artist to debut straight at No. 1 in the Billboard charts, where it stood for 14 non-consecutive weeks.[70] Two tracks became No. 1 Pop/R&B hits: ""I Wish"" and ""Sir Duke"". The baby-celebratory ""Isn't She Lovely?"" was written about his newborn daughter Aisha, while songs such as ""Love's in Need of Love Today"" and ""Village Ghetto Land"" reflected a far more pensive mood. Songs in the Key of Life won Album of the Year and two other Grammys.[52] The album ranks 4th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[71]
Until 1979's Stevie Wonder's Journey Through ""The Secret Life of Plants"", his only further 1970s release was the retrospective three-disc album Looking Back (1977), an anthology of his early Motown period.
The mainly instrumental soundtrack album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through ""The Secret Life of Plants"" (1979), was composed using an early music sampler called a Computer Music Melodian.[72] It was also his first digital recording, and one of the earliest popular albums to use the technology, which Wonder used for all subsequent recordings. Wonder toured briefly with an orchestra in support of the album, and used a Fairlight CMI sampler onstage.[73] In this year Wonder also wrote and produced the dance hit ""Let's Get Serious"", performed by Jermaine Jackson and ranked by Billboard as the No. 1 R&B single of 1980.
Hotter than July (1980) became Wonder's first platinum-selling single album, and its single ""Happy Birthday"" was a successful vehicle for his campaign to establish Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday. The album also included ""Master Blaster (Jammin')"", ""I Ain't Gonna Stand for It"", and the sentimental ballad, ""Lately"".
In 1982, Wonder released a retrospective of his 1970s work with Stevie Wonder's Original Musiquarium, which included four new songs: the ten-minute funk classic ""Do I Do"" (which featured Dizzy Gillespie), ""That Girl"" (one of the year's biggest singles to chart on the R&B side), ""Front Line"", a narrative about a soldier in the Vietnam War that Wonder wrote and sang in the first person, and ""Ribbon in the Sky"", one of his many classic compositions. He also gained a No. 1 hit that year in collaboration with Paul McCartney in their paean to racial harmony, ""Ebony and Ivory"".
In 1983, Wonder performed the song ""Stay Gold"", the theme to Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of S. E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders. Wonder wrote the lyrics. In 1983, he scheduled an album to be entitled People Work, Human Play. The album never surfaced and instead 1984 saw the release of Wonder's soundtrack album for The Woman in Red. The lead single, ""I Just Called to Say I Love You"", was a No. 1 pop and R&B hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom, where it was placed 13th in the list of best-selling singles in the UK published in 2002. It went on to win an Academy award for best song in 1985. Wonder accepted the award in the name of Nelson Mandela and was subsequently banned from all South African radio by the Government of South Africa.[74]
Incidentally, on the occasion of his 35th birthday, Stevie Wonder was honored by the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid for his stance against racism in South Africa that same year (1985).[75] The album also featured a guest appearance by Dionne Warwick, singing the duet ""It's You"" with Stevie and a few songs of her own. Following the success of the album and its lead single, Wonder made an appearance on The Cosby Show, in the episode ""A Touch of Wonder"", where he demonstrated his ability to sample.
The following year's In Square Circle featured the No. 1 pop hit ""Part-Time Lover"". The album also has a Top 10 Hit with ""Go Home"". It also featured the ballad ""Overjoyed"", which was originally written for Journey Through ""The Secret Life of Plants"", but did not make the album. He performed ""Overjoyed"" on Saturday Night Live when he was the host. He was also featured in Chaka Khan's cover of Prince's ""I Feel For You"", alongside Melle Mel, playing his signature harmonica. In roughly the same period he was also featured on harmonica on Eurythmics' single, ""There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)"" and Elton John's ""I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"".
Wonder was in a featured duet with Bruce Springsteen on the all-star charity single for African Famine Relief, ""We Are the World"", and he was part of another charity single the following year (1986), the AIDS-inspired ""That's What Friends Are For"". He played harmonica on the album Dreamland Express by John Denver in the song ""If Ever"", a song Wonder co-wrote with Stephanie Andrews; wrote the track ""I Do Love You"" for the Beach Boys' 1985 self-titled album; and played harmonica on ""Can't Help Lovin' That Man"" on The Broadway Album by Barbra Streisand.
In 1987, Wonder appeared on Michael Jackson's Bad album, on the duet ""Just Good Friends"". Jackson also sang a duet with him entitled ""Get It"" on Wonder's 1987 album Characters. This was a minor hit single, as were ""Skeletons"" and ""You Will Know"". Wonder played harmonica on a remake of his own song, ""Have a Talk with God"" (from Songs in the Key of Life in 1976), on Jon Gibson's album Body & Soul (1989).[76][77]
In the 1990s, Wonder continued to release new material, but at a slower pace. He recorded a soundtrack album for Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever in 1991. From this album, singles and videos were released for ""Gotta Have You"", ""Fun Day"" (remix only), ""These Three Words"" and ""Jungle Fever"". The B-side to the ""Gotta Have You"" single was ""Feeding Off The Love of the Land"", which was played during the end credits of the movie Jungle Fever but was not included on the soundtrack. A piano and vocal version of ""Feeding Off The Love of the Land"" was also released on the Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal compilation. Conversation Peace and the live album Natural Wonder were released in the 1990s.[78]
In 1992, Wonder went to perform at Panafest, a new international festival of music held biennially in Ghana; it was during this trip that he composed many of the songs featured on Conversation Peace, and he would describe in a 1995 interview the powerful impact his visit to that country had: ""I'd only been there for 18 hours when I decided I'd eventually move there permanently.""[78][79] In 1994, as co-chair of Panafest that year,[80] he headlined a concert at the National Theatre in Accra.[81]
Among his other activities, Wonder played harmonica on one track for the 1994 tribute album Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved;[82] sang at the 1996 Summer Olympics closing ceremony;[83] collaborated in 1997 with Babyface on ""How Come, How Long"", a song about domestic violence that was nominated for a Grammy award;[84] and played harmonica on Sting's 1999 ""Brand New Day"".[85] In early 1999, Wonder performed in the Super Bowl XXXIII halftime show.[86]
In May 1999, Rutgers University presented Wonder with an honorary doctorate degree in fine arts.[87] In December 1999, Wonder announced that he was interested in pursuing an intraocular retinal prosthesis to partially restore his sight.[88]
Into the 21st century, Wonder contributed two new songs to the soundtrack for Spike Lee's Bamboozled album (""Misrepresented People"" and ""Some Years Ago"").[89] Wonder continues to record and perform; though mainly occasional appearances and guest performances, he did do two tours, and released one album of new material, 2005's A Time to Love. In June 2006, Wonder made a guest appearance on Busta Rhymes' album The Big Bang, on the track ""Been through the Storm"". He sings the refrain and plays the piano on the Dr. Dre- and Sha Money XL–produced track. He appeared again on the last track of Snoop Dogg's album Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, ""Conversations"". The song is a remake of ""Have a Talk with God"" from Songs in the Key of Life. In 2006, Wonder staged a duet with Andrea Bocelli on the latter's album Amore, offering harmonica and additional vocals on ""Canzoni Stonate"". Wonder also performed at Washington, D.C.'s 2006 ""A Capitol Fourth"" celebration. His key appearances include performing at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Paralympics in Salt Lake City,[90] the 2005 Live 8 concert in Philadelphia,[91] the pre-game show for Super Bowl XL in 2006, the Obama Inaugural Celebration in 2009, and the opening ceremony of the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Athens, Greece.[92]
Wonder's first new album in ten years, A Time to Love, was released in October 2005 to lower sales than previous albums, and lukewarm reviews—most reviewers appearing frustrated at the end of the long delay to get an album that mainly copied the style of Wonder's ""classic period"" without doing anything new.[93] The first single, ""So What the Fuss"", was released in April. A second single, ""From the Bottom of My Heart"", was a hit on adult-contemporary R&B radio. The album also featured a duet with India Arie on the title track ""A Time to Love"".
Wonder did a 13-date tour of North America in 2007, starting in San Diego on August 23; this was his first U.S. tour in more than 10 years.[94] On September 8, 2008, he started the European leg of his Wonder Summer's Night Tour, the first time he had toured Europe in over a decade. His opening show was at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham in the English Midlands. During the tour, he played eight UK gigs; four at the O2 Arena in London (filmed in HD and subsequently released as a live-in-concert release on DVD and Blu-Ray, Live At Last[95]), two in Birmingham and two at the M.E.N. Arena in Manchester.[96]
Wonder's other stop in the tour's European leg also found him performing in the Netherlands (Rotterdam), Sweden (Stockholm), Germany (Cologne, Mannheim and Munich), Norway (Hamar), France (Paris), Italy (Milan) and Denmark (Aalborg). Wonder also toured Australia (Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane) and New Zealand (Christchurch, Auckland and New Plymouth) in October and November.[96] His 2010 tour included a two-hour set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, a stop at London's Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park, and appearances at England's Glastonbury Festival, Rotterdam's North Sea Jazz Festival, and a concert in Bergen, Norway, and a concert in Dublin, Ireland, at the O2 Arena on June 24.[96]
Wonder's harmonica playing can be heard on the 2009 Grammy-nominated ""Never Give You Up"", featuring CJ Hilton and Raphael Saadiq.[97]
Wonder sang at the Michael Jackson memorial service in 2009,[98] at Etta James' funeral, in 2012,[99] a month later at Whitney Houston's memorial service,[100] and at the funeral of Aretha Franklin in 2018.[101][102]
Wonder appeared on singer Celine Dion's studio album Loved Me Back to Life, performing a cover of his 1985 song ""Overjoyed"".[103] The album was released in October 2013. He was also featured on two tracks on Mark Ronson's 2015 album Uptown Special.
In October 2020, Wonder announced that he had a new vanity label released via Republic Records, So What the Fuss Records, marking the first time his music was not released through Motown Records. The announcement was paired with the release of two singles: ""Can't Put It in the Hands of Fate"", a ""socially-conscious"" funk track, and ""Where Is Our Love Song"", whose proceeds will go towards the organization Feeding America.[104][105][106]
In June of 2021, Wonder appeared in the documentary Summer of Soul, directed by Ahmir ""Questlove"" Thompson, showing the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. In never before seen footage, a young 19 year old Stevie Wonder is seen performing in front of thousands of people in Harlem. Wonder's performance shown in the documentary included “It’s Your Thing” by The Isley Brothers and a drum solo. Wonder talks about the turning point made in his career during this time and how this helped him get out of being seen as just a child star.[107]
In October of 2022, Wonder celebrated his 50th anniversary of his project Talking Book. After 50 years the album is still being recognized for its timeless hits such as the No. 1 hit ""Superstition"" and ""You Are the Sunshine of My Life"".[108]
By June 2008, Wonder was working on two projects simultaneously: a new album called The Gospel Inspired by Lula, which will deal with the various spiritual and cultural crises facing the world, and Through the Eyes of Wonder, an album he has described as a performance piece that will reflect his experience as a blind man. Wonder was also keeping the door open for a collaboration with Tony Bennett and Quincy Jones concerning a rumored jazz album.[109] If Wonder were to join forces with Bennett, it would not be for the first time: their rendition of ""For Once in My Life"" earned them a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals in 2006.[52]
In 2013, Wonder revealed that he had been recording new material for two albums, When the World Began and Ten Billion Hearts, in collaboration with producer David Foster, to be released in 2014.[110] The albums have not seen release.
In October 2020, while promoting his two recent singles, Wonder mentioned both Through the Eyes of Wonder and The Gospel Inspired by Lula as projects in development (the former as an album that may feature both singles, and the latter as a future album he may record with his former label Motown).[111]
Wonder is one of the most notable popular music figures of the second half of the 20th century. He is one of the most successful songwriters and musicians.[112] Virtually a one-man band during his peak years, his use of synthesizers and further electronic musical instruments during the 1970s helped expand the sound of R&B.[113] He is also credited as one of the artists who helped drive R&B into the album era, by crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent statements with complex sounds.[113] His ""classic period"", which culminated in 1976, was marked by his funky keyboard style, personal control of production, and use of integrated series of songs to make concept albums. In 1979, Wonder used Computer Music Inc.'s early music sampler, the Melodian, on his soundtrack album Stevie Wonder's Journey Through ""The Secret Life of Plants"". This was his first digital recording and one of the earliest popular albums to use the technology, which Wonder used for all subsequent recordings.
He recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and also wrote and produced songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as well. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. He also plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bongos, organ, melodica and Clavinet. Wonder has been credited as a pioneer and influence to musicians of various genres including pop, rhythm and blues, soul, funk and rock.[114]
Wonder's ""classic period"" is generally agreed to be between 1972 and 1976.[115][116][117] Some observers see aspects of 1971's Where I'm Coming From as certain indications of the beginning of Wonder's ""classic period"", such as its new funky keyboard style that Wonder used throughout the classic period.[117] Some determine Wonder's first ""classic"" album to be 1972's Music of My Mind, on which he attained personal control of production, and on which he programmed a series of songs integrated with one another to make a concept album.[117] Others skip over early 1972 and determine the beginning of the classic period to be in late 1972 with Talking Book,[118] the album on which Wonder ""hit his stride"".[117]
Let me put it this way: Wherever I go in the world, I always take a copy of Songs in the Key of Life. For me, it's the best album ever made, and I'm always left in awe after I listen to it. When people in decades and centuries to come talk about the history of music, they will talk about Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder [...] he [Wonder] evolved into an amazing songwriter and a genuine musical force of nature. He's so multitalented that it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that makes him one of the greatest ever. But first, there's that voice. Along with Ray Charles, he's the greatest R&B singer who ever lived.
Elton John on Stevie Wonder.[119]
Wonder's albums during his ""classic period"" were considered very influential in the music world: the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide said they ""pioneered stylistic approaches that helped to determine the shape of pop music for the next decade"";[49] In 2005, American recording artist Kanye West said of his own work: ""I'm not trying to compete with what's out there now. I'm really trying to compete with Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. It sounds musically blasphemous to say something like that, but why not set that as your bar?""[120]Slate magazine's pop critic, Jack Hamilton, said: ""Most Americans follow up their 21st birthdays with a hangover; Stevie Wonder opted for arguably the greatest sustained run of creativity in the history of popular music. Wonder's ""classic period""—the polite phrase for when Stevie spent five years ferociously dunking on the entire history of popular music with the releases of Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life [...] We've never heard anything like it since, and barring another reincarnation, we never will again.""[121]
Wonder has recorded more than 30 U.S. top-ten hits, including ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts, well as 20 R&B number one hits. He has sold over 100 million records, 19.5 million of which are albums;[122] he is one of the top 60 best-selling music artists with combined sales of singles and albums.[123] Wonder was the first Motown artist and second African-American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song, which he won for his 1984 hit single ""I Just Called to Say I Love You"" from the movie The Woman in Red. Wonder won 25 Grammy Awards[52] (the most ever won by a solo artist), as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award. His albums of the ""classic period"", Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) and Songs in the Key of Life (1976), all won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, making him the tied-record holder for the most Album of the Year wins, with three. He is also the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases. He has been inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame, Rock and Rock Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame, and has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[124][125][126] He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize.[127]Rolling Stone named him the ninth greatest singer and fifteenth greatest artist of all time.[128][129] In June 2009, he became the fourth artist to receive the Montreal Jazz Festival Spirit Award.[130]
In 2003, Rolling Stone's ""500 Greatest Albums of All Time"" list included Innervisions at number 23,[131]Songs in the Key of Life at number 56,[132]Talking Book at number 90,[133] and Music of My Mind at number 284.[134] In 2004, on their ""500 Greatest Songs of All Time"" list, Rolling Stone included ""Superstition"" at number 74, ""Living for the City"" at number 104, ""Higher Ground"" at number 261, and ""You Are the Sunshine of My Life"" at number 281.[135]
Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday in the United States.[136] On October 21, 1974, with the Boston busing desegregation underway, Wonder spoke and led students in song at a lounge at the University of Massachusetts Boston the day after he performed at the Boston Garden.[137]
Wonder has been married three times. He was married to Motown singer-songwriter and frequent collaborator Syreeta Wright from 1970 until their amicable divorce in 1972. From 2001 until 2012 he was married to fashion designer Kai Millard.[138] In October 2009, Wonder and Millard separated; Wonder filed for divorce in August 2012.[139] In 2017 he married Tomeeka Bracy.[140]
Wonder has nine children with five women.[141] The mother of Wonder's first child is Yolanda Simmons, whom Wonder met when she applied for a job as secretary for his publishing company.[142] Simmons gave birth to Wonder's daughter Aisha Morris on February 2, 1975.[143][144] After Aisha was born, Wonder said ""she was the one thing that I needed in my life and in my music for a long time"".[142] Aisha was the inspiration for Wonder's hit single ""Isn't She Lovely?"" She is now a singer who has toured with her father and accompanied him on recordings, including his 2005 album A Time to Love. Wonder and Simmons also had a son, Keita, in 1977.[145]
In 1983, Wonder had a son named Mumtaz Morris with Melody McCulley.[146][147] Wonder also has a daughter, Sophia, and a son, Kwame, with a woman whose identity has not been publicly disclosed.[145] Wonder has two sons with second wife Kai Millard Morris. The elder is named Kailand, and he occasionally performs as a drummer on stage with his father. The younger son, Mandla Kadjay Carl Stevland Morris, was born on May 13, 2005 (his father's 55th birthday).[138]
Wonder's ninth child, his second with Tomeeka Robyn Bracy, was born in December 2014, amid rumors that he would be the father to triplets.[148] This turned out not to be the case, and the couple's new daughter was given the name Nia,[149] meaning ""purpose"" (one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa).[148]
The name of Wonder's first child with Bracy is not publicly known.
On May 31, 2006, Wonder's mother Lula Mae Hardaway died in Los Angeles at the age of 76.[150] During his September 8, 2008, UK concert in Birmingham, he spoke of his decision to begin touring again following his loss: ""I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around.""[151]
At a concert in London's Hyde Park on July 6, 2019, Wonder announced that he would be undergoing a kidney transplant in September.[1]
Wonder was introduced to Transcendental Meditation through his marriage to Syreeta Wright.[152] Consistent with that spiritual vision, Wonder became vegetarian, and later a vegan, singing about it in October 2015 on The Late Late Show with James Corden during the show's ""Carpool Karaoke"" segment.[153][154][155]
Wonder joined Twitter on April 4, 2018, and his first tweet was a five-minute video honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Dozens of famous personalities were rounded up in the video, which was titled ""The Dream Still Lives"". Each person involved shared their dream, calling back to King's popular speech in 1963. Wonder's first tweet took the Internet by storm, and he also encouraged viewers to share their own videos about their dreams with the hashtag #DreamStillLives.[156]
Wonder has been a longtime Baptist affiliated with black churches.[157][158][159]
On August 31, 2018, Wonder performed at the funeral of Aretha Franklin at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple. He closed the ceremony with a rendition of the Lord's Prayer and his song ""As"".[160]
Wonder has won 25 Grammy Awards,[52] as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.[161] He is one of only two artists and groups who have won the Grammy for Album of the Year three times as the main credited artist, along with Frank Sinatra. Wonder is the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases.
Wonder has been given a range of awards, both for his music and for his civil rights work, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, being named one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace, and earning a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014, presented at a ceremony in the White House on November 24 that year.[163][164]
In December 2016, the City of Detroit recognized Wonder's legacy by renaming a portion of his childhood street, Milwaukee Avenue West, between Woodward Avenue and Brush Street, as ""Stevie Wonder Avenue"". He was also awarded an honorary key to the city, presented by Mayor Mike Duggan.[165]
Stevie Wonder has received many honorary degrees in recognition of his music career. These include:"
Aretha_Franklin;"Pages for logged out editors learn more

Aretha Louise Franklin (/əˈriːθə/ ə-REE-thə; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist.[2] Referred to as the ""Queen of Soul"", she has twice been placed ninth in Rolling Stone's ""100 Greatest Artists of All Time"". With global sales of over 75 million records, Franklin is one of the world's best-selling music artists.[3]
As a child, Franklin was noticed for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan, where her father C. L. Franklin was a minister. At the age of 18, she was signed as a recording artist for Columbia Records. While her career did not immediately flourish, Franklin found acclaim and commercial success once she signed with Atlantic Records in 1966. Hit songs such as ""I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)"", ""Respect"", ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"", ""Chain of Fools"", ""Think"", and ""I Say a Little Prayer"", propelled Franklin past her musical peers.
Franklin continued to record acclaimed albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967), Lady Soul (1968), Spirit in the Dark (1970), Young, Gifted and Black (1972), Amazing Grace (1972), and Sparkle (1976), before experiencing problems with the record company. Franklin left Atlantic in 1979 and signed with Arista Records. The singer appeared in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers before releasing the successful albums Jump to It (1982), Who's Zoomin' Who? (1985) and Aretha (1986) on the Arista label. In 1998, Franklin returned to the Top 40 with the Lauryn Hill-produced song ""A Rose Is Still a Rose""; later, she released an album with the same name.
Franklin recorded 112 charted singles on the US Billboard charts, including 73 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries and 20 number-one R&B singles. Besides the foregoing, the singer's well-known hits also include ""Ain't No Way"", ""Call Me"", ""Don't Play That Song (You Lied)"", ""Spanish Harlem"", ""Rock Steady"", ""Day Dreaming"", ""Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)"", ""Something He Can Feel"", ""Jump to It"", ""Freeway of Love"", ""Who's Zoomin' Who"" and ""I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)"" (a duet with George Michael). Franklin won 18 Grammy Awards (out of 44 nominations),[4][5] including the first eight awards given for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance (1968–1975), a Grammy Awards Living Legend honor and Lifetime Achievement Award.
Franklin received numerous honors throughout her career. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1987, she became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She also was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012.[6] In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked Franklin number one on its list of the ""100 Greatest Singers of All Time"".[7] In 2019, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded the singer a posthumous special citation ""for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades"". In 2020, Franklin was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[8] In 2022, Rolling Stone ranked Franklin number one on its list of the ""200 Greatest Singers of All Time"".[9]
Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, to Barbara (née Siggers) and Clarence LaVaughn ""C. L."" Franklin. She was delivered at her family's home located at 406 Lucy Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist.[11] Both Mr. and Mrs. Franklin had children from prior relationships in addition to the four children they had together. When Aretha was two, the family relocated to Buffalo, New York.[12] By the time Aretha turned five, C. L. Franklin had permanently relocated the family to Detroit, where he took over the pastorship of the New Bethel Baptist Church.[13]
The Franklins had a troubled marriage due to Mr. Franklin's infidelities, and they separated in 1948.[14] At that time, Barbara Franklin returned to Buffalo with Aretha's half-brother, Vaughn.[15] After the separation, Aretha recalled seeing her mother in Buffalo during the summer, and Barbara Franklin frequently visited her children in Detroit.[16][15] Aretha's mother died of a heart attack on March 7, 1952, before Aretha's 10th birthday.[17] Several women, including Aretha's grandmother, Rachel, and Mahalia Jackson, took turns helping with the children at the Franklin home.[18] During this time, Aretha learned how to play piano by ear.[19] She also attended public school in Detroit, going through her freshman year at Northern High School, but dropping out during her sophomore year.[20]
Aretha's father's emotionally driven sermons resulted in his being known as the man with the ""million-dollar voice"". He earned thousands of dollars for sermons in various churches across the country.[21][22] His fame led to his home being visited by various celebrities. Among the visitors were gospel musicians Clara Ward, James Cleveland, and early Caravans members Albertina Walker and Inez Andrews. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke all became friends of C. L. Franklin, as well.[23][24] Ward was romantically involved with Aretha's father from around 1949 to Ward's death in 1973, though Aretha ""preferred to view them strictly as friends"".[25] Ward also served as a role model to the young Aretha.[26][27]
Just after her mother's death, Franklin began singing solos at New Bethel, debuting with the hymn ""Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me"".[18][28] When Franklin was 12, her father began managing her; he would take her on the road with him, during his ""gospel caravan"" tours for her to perform in various churches.[29] He also helped her sign her first recording deal with J.V.B. Records. Recording equipment was installed inside New Bethel Baptist Church and nine tracks were recorded.[when?] Franklin was featured on vocals and piano.[30] In 1956, J.V.B. released Franklin's first single, ""Never Grow Old"", backed with ""You Grow Closer"". ""Precious Lord (Part One)"" backed with ""Precious Lord (Part Two)"" followed in 1959. These four tracks, with the addition of ""There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood"", were released on side one of the 1956 album, Spirituals. This was reissued by Battle Records in 1962, under the same title.[31] In 1965, Checker Records released Songs of Faith, featuring the five tracks from the 1956 Spirituals album, with the addition of four previously unreleased recordings. Aretha was only 14 when Songs of Faith was recorded.[32]
During this time, Franklin would occasionally travel with the Soul Stirrers.[33] As a young gospel singer, Franklin spent summers on the gospel circuit in Chicago and stayed with Mavis Staples' family.[34] According to music producer Quincy Jones, while Franklin was still young, Dinah Washington let him know that ""Aretha was the 'next one'"".[35]
Franklin and her father traveled to California, where she met singer Sam Cooke.[36] At the age of 16, Franklin went on tour with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she would ultimately sing at his funeral in 1968.[37] Other influences in her youth included Marvin Gaye (who was a boyfriend of her sister), as well as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, ""two of Franklin's greatest influences"".[38] Also important was James Cleveland, known as the King of Gospel music, ""who helped to focus her early career as a gospel singer""; Cleveland had been recruited by her father as a pianist for the Southern California Community Choir.[39][40]
After turning 18, Franklin confided to her father that she aspired to follow Sam Cooke in recording pop music, and moved to New York.[24] Serving as her manager, C. L. Franklin agreed to the move and helped to produce a two-song demo that soon was brought to the attention of Columbia Records, who agreed to sign her in 1960, as a ""five-percent artist"".[41] During this period, Franklin would be coached by choreographer Cholly Atkins to prepare for her pop performances. Before signing with Columbia, Sam Cooke tried to persuade Franklin's father to sign her with his label, RCA, but his request was denied since she had decided to go with Columbia.[32] Record label owner Berry Gordy had also asked Franklin and her elder sister Erma to sign with his Tamla label. However, C.L. Franklin felt the label was not yet established enough, and he turned Gordy down.[42] Franklin's first Columbia single, ""Today I Sing the Blues"",[43] was issued in September 1960 and later reached the top 10 of the Hot Rhythm & Blues Sellers chart.[44]
In January 1961, Columbia issued Franklin's first album, Aretha: With The Ray Bryant Combo. The album featured her first single to chart the Billboard Hot 100, ""Won't Be Long"", which also peaked at number 7 on the R&B chart.[45] Mostly produced by Clyde Otis, Franklin's Columbia recordings saw her performing in diverse genres, such as standards, vocal jazz, blues, doo-wop and rhythm and blues. Before the year was out, Franklin scored her first with her hit-single rendition of the standard ""Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody"".[46] By the end of 1961, Franklin was named as a ""new-star female vocalist"" in DownBeat magazine.[47] In 1962, Columbia issued two more albums, The Electrifying Aretha Franklin and The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin,[48][49] the latter of which reached number 69 on the Billboard chart.[50]
In the 1960s, during a performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago, WVON radio personality Pervis Spann announced that Franklin should be crowned ""the Queen of Soul"".[51][34] Spann ceremonially placed a crown on her head.[52] By 1964, Franklin began recording more pop music, reaching the top 10 on the R&B chart with the ballad ""Runnin' Out of Fools"", in early 1965. She had two R&B charted singles in 1965 and 1966, with the songs ""One Step Ahead"" and ""Cry Like a Baby"", while also reaching the Easy Listening charts with the ballads ""You Made Me Love You"" and ""(No, No) I'm Losing You"". By the mid-1960s, Franklin was making $100,000 per year from countless performances in nightclubs and theaters.[47] Also during that period, she appeared on rock-and-roll shows, such as Hollywood a Go-Go and Shindig! However, she struggled with commercial success while at Columbia. Label executive John H. Hammond later said he felt Columbia did not understand Franklin's early gospel background and failed to bring that aspect out further during her period there.[43]
In November 1966, Franklin's Columbia recording contract expired; at that time, she owed the company money because record sales had not met expectations.[53]
Producer Jerry Wexler convinced her to move to Atlantic Records.[54][55] Wexler decided that he wanted to take advantage of her gospel background; his philosophy in general was to encourage a ""tenacious form of rhythm & blues that became increasingly identified as soul"".[40] The Atlantic days would lead to a series of hits for Aretha Franklin from 1967 to early 1972; her rapport with Wexler helped in the creation of the majority of her peak recordings with Atlantic. The next seven years' achievements were less impressive. However, according to Rolling Stone, ""they weren't as terrible as some claimed, they were pro forma and never reached for new heights"".[56]
In January 1967, Franklin traveled to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record at FAME Studios and recorded the song ""I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)"", backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Franklin only spent one day recording at FAME, as an altercation broke out between her manager and husband Ted White, studio owner Rick Hall, and a horn player, and sessions were abandoned.[43][57] The song was released the following month and reached number one on the R&B chart, while also peaking at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, giving Franklin her first top-ten pop single. The song's B-side, ""Do Right Woman, Do Right Man"", reached the R&B top 40, peaking at number 37. ""Respect"" was Otis Redding's song but Aretha modified it with a ""supercharged interlude featuring the emphatic spelling-out of the song's title"".[39] Her frenetic version was released in April and reached number one on both the R&B and pop charts. ""Respect"" became her signature song and was later hailed as a civil rights and feminist anthem.[43][58] Upon hearing her version, Otis Redding said admiringly: ""That little girl done took my song away from me.""[59] Franklin's debut Atlantic album, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, also became commercially successful, later going gold. According to National Geographic, this recording ""would catapult Franklin to fame"".[56] Franklin scored two additional top-ten singles in 1967, ""Baby I Love You"" and ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"".[citation needed]
Working with Wexler and Atlantic, Franklin had become ""the most successful singer in the nation"" by 1968.[60] In 1968, Franklin issued the top-selling albums Lady Soul and Aretha Now, which included some of her most popular hit singles, including ""Chain of Fools"", ""Ain't No Way"", ""Think"", and ""I Say a Little Prayer"". That February, Franklin earned the first two of her Grammys, including the debut category for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.[61] On February 16, Franklin was honored with a day named for her and was greeted by longtime friend Martin Luther King Jr., who gave her the SCLC Drum Beat Award for Musicians two months before his death.[62][63][64] Franklin toured outside the US for the first time in May, including an appearance at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, where she played to a near-hysterical audience who covered the stage with flower petals.[65] She appeared on the cover of Time magazine in June.[66]
In March 1969, Franklin was unanimously voted winner of Académie du Jazz's R&B award, Prix Otis Redding, for her albums Lady Soul, Aretha Now, and Aretha in Paris.[67] That year, Franklin was the subject of a criminal impersonation scheme. Another woman performed at several Florida venues under the name Aretha Franklin. Suspicion was drawn when the fake Franklin charged only a fraction of the expected rate to perform. Franklin's lawyers contacted Florida authorities and uncovered a coercive scheme in which the singer, Vickie Jones, had been threatened with violence and constrained into impersonating her idol, whom she resembled closely both in voice and looks.[68] After being cleared of wrongdoing, Jones subsequently enjoyed a brief career of her own, during which she was herself the subject of an impersonation.
Franklin's success expanded during the early 1970s, during which she recorded the multi-week R&B number one ""Don't Play That Song (You Lied)"", as well as the top-ten singles ""Spanish Harlem"", ""Rock Steady"", and ""Day Dreaming"". Some of these releases were from the acclaimed albums Spirit in the Dark and Young, Gifted and Black. In 1971, Franklin became the first R&B performer to headline Fillmore West, later that year releasing the live album Aretha Live at Fillmore West.[69]
In January 1972, she returned to Gospel music in a two-night, live-church recording, with the album Amazing Grace, in which she reinterpreted standards such as Mahalia Jackson's ""How I Got Over"".[70] Originally released in June 1972, Amazing Grace sold more than two million copies,[71] and is one of best-selling gospel albums of all time.[72] The live performances were filmed for a concert film directed by Sydney Pollack, but due to synching problems and Franklin's own attempts to prevent the film's distribution after Hollywood refused to promote a dark-skinned black woman as a movie star at the time, the film's release was only realized by producer Alan Elliott in November 2018.[73]
Franklin's career began to experience problems while recording the album Hey Now Hey, which featured production from Quincy Jones. Despite the success of the single ""Angel"", the album bombed[citation needed] upon its release in 1973. Franklin continued having R&B success with songs such as ""Until You Come Back to Me"" and ""I'm in Love"", but by 1975 her albums and songs were no longer top sellers.[citation needed] After Jerry Wexler left Atlantic for Warner Bros. Records in 1976, Franklin worked on the soundtrack to the film Sparkle with Curtis Mayfield. The album yielded Franklin's final top-40 hit of the decade, ""Something He Can Feel"", which also peaked at number one on the R&B chart. Franklin's follow-up albums for Atlantic, including Sweet Passion (1977), Almighty Fire (1978) and La Diva (1979), bombed on the charts,[citation needed] and in 1979 Franklin left the company.[74] On November 7, 1979, she guested The Mike Douglas Show with her yellow costume from her La Diva album, and sang ""Ladies Only"", ""What If I Should Ever Need You"" and ""Yesterday"" by the Beatles.[citation needed]
In 1980, after leaving Atlantic Records,[75] Franklin signed with Clive Davis's Arista Records.[76] ""Davis was beguiling and had the golden touch"", according to Rolling Stone. ""If anybody could rejuvenate Franklin's puzzlingly stuck career, it was Davis.""[40]
Also in 1980, Franklin gave a command performance at London's Royal Albert Hall in front of Queen Elizabeth. Franklin also had an acclaimed guest role as a soul food restaurant proprietor and wife of Matt ""Guitar"" Murphy in the 1980 comedy musical The Blues Brothers.[77][78] Franklin's first Arista album, Aretha (1980), featured the number-three R&B hit ""United Together"" and her Grammy-nominated cover of Redding's ""I Can't Turn You Loose"". The follow-up, 1981's Love All the Hurt Away, included her famed duet of the title track with George Benson, while the album also included her Grammy-winning cover of Sam & Dave's ""Hold On, I'm Comin'"". Franklin achieved a gold record—for the first time in seven years—with the 1982 album Jump to It. The album's title track was her first top-40 single on the pop charts in six years.[79] The following year, she released ""Get It Right"", produced by Luther Vandross.[80]
In 1985, inspired by a desire to have a ""younger sound"" in her music, Who's Zoomin' Who? became her first Arista album to be certified platinum. The album sold well over a million copies thanks to the hits ""Freeway of Love"", the title track, and ""Another Night"".[81] The next year's Aretha album nearly matched this success with the hit singles ""Jumpin' Jack Flash"", ""Jimmy Lee"" and ""I Knew You Were Waiting for Me"", her international number-one duet with George Michael. During that period, Franklin provided vocals to the theme songs of the TV shows A Different World and Together.[82] In 1987, she issued her third gospel album, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, which was recorded at her late father's New Bethel church, followed by Through the Storm in 1989.
In 1987, Franklin performed ""America the Beautiful"" at WWE's Wrestlemania III; one source states that ""to this day her WrestleMania III performance might be the most memorable"" of the event openers by many artists.[83]
After 1988, ""Franklin never again had huge hits"", according to Rolling Stone.[40] The 1991 album What You See is What You Sweat flopped on the charts. She returned to the charts in 1993 with the dance song ""A Deeper Love"" and returned to the top 40 with the song ""Willing to Forgive"" in 1994.[84] That recording reached number 26 on the Hot 100 and number five on the R&B chart.
In 1989, Franklin filmed a music video for a remake of ""Think"".[85] In 1990, she sang ""I Want to Be Happy"", ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"", and ""Someone Else's Eyes"" at the MDA Labor Day Telethon.[86][87]
In 1995, she was selected to play Aunt Em in the Apollo Theater revival of The Wiz. Franklin's final top 40 single was 1998's ""A Rose Is Still a Rose"". The album of the same name was released after the single. It sold over 500,000 copies, earning gold certification.[88]
That same year, Franklin received global praise after her 1998 Grammy Awards performance. She had initially been asked to perform in honor of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, in which she appeared with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. That evening, after the show had already begun, another performer, opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti became too ill to perform the aria ""Nessun dorma"" as planned. The show's producers, desperate to fill the time slot, approached Franklin with their dilemma. She was a friend of Pavarotti and had sung the aria two nights prior at the annual MusiCares event. She asked to hear Pavarotti's rehearsal recording, and after listening, agreed that she could sing it in the tenor range that the orchestra was prepared to play in. Over one billion people worldwide saw the performance, and she received an immediate standing ovation. She would go on to record the selection and perform it live several more times in the years to come. The last time she sang the aria live was for Pope Francis at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in September 2015. A small boy was so touched by her performance that he came onto the stage and embraced her while Franklin was still singing.[89][90]
Her final Arista album, So Damn Happy, was released in 2003 and featured the Grammy-winning song ""Wonderful"". In 2004, Franklin announced that she was leaving Arista after more than 20 years with the label.[91] To complete her Arista obligations, Franklin issued the duets compilation album Jewels in the Crown: All-Star Duets with the Queen in 2007.[92] In February 2006 she performed ""The Star-Spangled Banner"" with Aaron Neville and Dr. John for Super Bowl XL, held in her hometown of Detroit.[93]
In 2008, Franklin issued the holiday album This Christmas, Aretha on DMI Records.[94] On February 8, 2008, Franklin was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year, and performed ""Never Gonna Break My Faith"", which had won her the Grammy for best Gospel performance[95] the year before. Twelve years later, an unheard performance of ""Never Gonna Break My Faith"" was released in June 2020 to commemorate Juneteenth with a new video visualizing the American human rights movement. This caused the song to enter the Billboard gospel charts at number one, giving Franklin the distinction of having had a number one record in every decade since the 1960s. On November 18, 2008, she performed ""Respect"" and ""Chain of Fools"" at Dancing with the Stars.
On January 20, 2009, Franklin made international headlines for performing ""My Country, 'Tis of Thee"" at President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony with her church hat becoming a popular topic online. In 2010, Franklin accepted an honorary degree from Yale University.[93] In 2011, under her own label, Aretha's Records, she issued the album Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love.
In 2014, Franklin was signed under RCA Records, controller of the Arista catalog and a sister label to Columbia via Sony Music Entertainment, and worked with Clive Davis. There were plans for her to record an album produced by Danger Mouse, who was replaced with Babyface and Don Was when Danger Mouse left the project.[96] On September 29, 2014, Franklin performed to a standing ovation, with Cissy Houston as backup, a compilation of Adele's ""Rolling in the Deep"" and ""Ain't No Mountain High Enough"" on the Late Show with David Letterman. Franklin's cover of ""Rolling in the Deep"" was featured among nine other songs in her first RCA release, Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics, released in October 2014.[97] In doing so, she became the first woman to have 100 songs on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart with the success of her cover of Adele's ""Rolling in the Deep"", which debuted at number 47 on the chart.[98]
In December 2015, Franklin gave an acclaimed performance of ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"" at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors during the section for honoree Carole King, who co-wrote the song.[99][100][101][102] During the bridge of the song, Franklin dropped her fur coat to the stage, for which the audience rewarded her with a mid-performance standing ovation.[103][104] Dropping the coat was symbolic according to ""Rolling Stone"": it ""echoed back to those times when gospel queens would toss their furs on top of the coffins of other gospel queens — a gesture that honored the dead but castigated death itself"".[40]
She returned to Detroit's Ford Field on Thanksgiving Day 2016 to once again perform the national anthem before the game between the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions. Seated behind the piano, wearing a black fur coat and Lions stocking cap, Franklin gave a rendition of ""The Star-Spangled Banner"" that lasted more than four minutes and featured a host of improvisations.[105] Franklin released the album A Brand New Me in November 2017 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which uses archived recordings from Franklin.[106] It peaked at number five on the Billboard Top Classical Albums chart before her death and rose to number two after her death.[citation needed]
While Franklin canceled some concerts in 2017 due to health reasons, and during an outdoor Detroit show, she asked the audience to ""keep me in your prayers"", she was still garnering highly favorable reviews for her skill and showmanship.[107][108][109] At the Ravinia Festival on September 3, 2017, she gave her last full concert.[110][111] Franklin's final public performance was at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City during Elton John's 25th anniversary gala for the Elton John AIDS Foundation on November 7, 2017.[112]
According to Richie Unterberger, Franklin was ""one of the giants of soul music, and indeed of American pop as a whole. More than any other performer, she epitomized soul at its most gospel-charged"".[1] She had often been described as a great singer and musician due to ""vocal flexibility, interpretive intelligence, skillful piano-playing, her ear, her experience"".[113] Franklin's voice was described as being a ""powerful mezzo-soprano voice"". She was praised for her arrangements and interpretations of other artists' hit songs.[114] According to David Remnick, what ""distinguishes her is not merely the breadth of her catalog or the cataract force of her vocal instrument; it's her musical intelligence, her way of singing behind the beat, of spraying a wash of notes over a single word or syllable, of constructing, moment by moment, the emotional power of a three-minute song. 'Respect' is as precise an artifact as a Ming vase.""[104] Describing Franklin's voice on her first album, Songs of Faith, released in 1956 when she was just 14, Jerry Wexler explained that it ""was not that of a child but rather of an ecstatic hierophant"".[115] Critic Randy Lewis assessed her skills as a pianist as ""magic"" and ""inspirational"". Musicians and professionals alike such as Elton John, Keith Richards, Carole King, and Clive Davis were fans of her piano performances.[116]
In 2015, President Barack Obama wrote the following regarding Franklin:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}
Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R. & B., rock and roll—the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope. American history wells up when Aretha sings. That's why, when she sits down at a piano and sings 'A Natural Woman,' she can move me to tears—the same way that Ray Charles's version of 'America the Beautiful' will always be in my view the most patriotic piece of music ever performed—because it captures the fullness of the American experience, the view from the bottom as well as the top, the good and the bad, and the possibility of synthesis, reconciliation, transcendence.[117]
From her time growing up in the home of a prominent African-American preacher to the end of her life, Franklin was immersed and involved in the struggle for civil rights and women's rights. She provided money for civil rights groups, at times covering payroll, and performed at benefits and protests.[118] When Angela Davis was jailed in 1970, Franklin told Jet: ""Angela Davis must go free ... Black people will be free. I've been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can't get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I'm going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she's a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people.""[118] Her songs ""Respect"" and ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"" became anthems of these movements for social change.[119][120] Franklin and several other American icons declined to take part in performing at President Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration as a mass act of musical protest.[121]
Franklin was also a strong supporter of Native American rights.[122] She quietly and without fanfare supported Indigenous peoples' struggles worldwide, and numerous movements that supported Native American and First Nation cultural rights.[122]
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Franklin moved to New York City in the 1960s where she lived until relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. She eventually settled in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino, where she lived until 1982. She then returned to the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills to be close to her ailing father and siblings. Franklin maintained a residence there until her death. Following an incident in 1984, she cited a fear of flying that prevented her from traveling overseas; she performed only in North America afterwards.[51]
Franklin was the mother of four sons. She first became pregnant at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, named Clarence after her father,[123] on January 28, 1955. In one of her handwritten wills, discovered in 2019, Franklin revealed that the father was Edward Jordan.[124] On August 31, 1957, at the age of 15, Franklin had a second child fathered by Jordan, named Edward Derone Franklin[citation needed] after his father.[125] Franklin did not like to discuss her early pregnancies with interviewers.[126] Both children took her family name. While Franklin was pursuing her singing career and ""hanging out with [friends]"", her grandmother Rachel and sister Erma took turns raising her children.[127] Franklin would visit them often.[128] Her third child, Ted White Jr., was born to Franklin and her husband Theodore ""Ted"" White in February 1964 and is known professionally as Teddy Richards.[129] He provided guitar backing for his mother's band during live concerts.[130] Her youngest son, Kecalf Cunningham, was born in April 1970 and is the child of her road manager Ken Cunningham.[131]
Franklin was married twice. Her first husband was Ted White, whom she married in 1961 at the age of 18.[132][133] She had actually seen White the first time at a party held at her house in 1954.[134] After a contentious marriage that was marred by domestic abuse, Franklin separated from White in 1968 and divorced him in 1969.[135] She married actor Glynn Turman, on April 11, 1978, at her father's church. By marrying Turman, Franklin became stepmother of Turman's three children. Franklin and Turman separated in 1982 after she returned to Michigan from California and they divorced in 1984.
Franklin's sisters, Erma and Carolyn, were professional musicians and spent years performing background vocals on Franklin's recordings. Following Franklin's divorce from Ted White, her brother Cecil became her manager and maintained that position until his death from lung cancer on December 26, 1989. Her sister Carolyn died in April 1988 from breast cancer and her eldest sister Erma died from throat cancer in September 2002. Franklin's half-brother Vaughn died in late 2002.[136] Her half-sister, Carol Ellan Kelley (née Jennings; 1940–2019), is C. L. Franklin's daughter by Mildred Jennings, a 12-year-old member of New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis where C. L. was pastor.[136] Franklin’s father and idol, described as “unorthodox on every level,” knowingly preyed on his pre-teen congregants.[137]
Franklin was performing at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 10, 1979, when her father, C. L., was shot twice at point-blank range in his Detroit home.[138] After six months at Henry Ford Hospital while still in a coma, C. L. was moved back to his home with 24-hour nursing care. Aretha moved back to Detroit in late 1982 to assist with the care of her father, who died at Detroit's New Light Nursing Home on July 27, 1984.[139]
Franklin had a long friendship with Willie Wilkerson, a Vietnam War veteran and Detroit firefighter, who also helped in her work and cared for her when ill.[140] In 2012 she announced plans to marry Wilkerson[141][142] but the engagement was quickly called off.[143]
Franklin's music business friends included Dionne Warwick, Mavis Staples, and Cissy Houston, who began singing with Franklin as members of the Sweet Inspirations. Houston sang background on Franklin's hit ""Ain't No Way"". Franklin first met Cissy's young daughter, Whitney Houston, in the early 1970s. She was made Whitney's honorary aunt (not a godmother as has been occasionally reported) and Whitney often referred to her as ""Auntie Ree"".[144] Franklin had to cancel plans to perform at Whitney Houston's memorial service on February 18, 2012, due to a leg spasm.[145]
Franklin was a Christian and was a registered Democrat.[146][147][148][149]
Franklin had weight issues for many years. In 1974, she lost 40 pounds (18 kg) on a very-low-calorie diet[150] and maintained her new weight until the end of the decade.[151] She again lost weight in the early 1990s, before gaining some back.[152] A former chain smoker who struggled with alcoholism, she quit smoking in 1992.[153] She admitted in 1994 that her smoking was ""messing with my voice"",[154] but after quitting smoking she said later, in 2003, that her weight ""ballooned"".[155]
In 2010, Franklin canceled a number of concerts to have surgery for an undisclosed tumor.[152] Discussing the surgery in 2011, she quoted her doctor as saying that it would ""add 15 to 20 years"" to her life. She denied that the ailment had anything to do with pancreatic cancer, as had been reported.[156] Franklin added, ""I don't have to talk about my health with anybody other than my doctors ... The problem has been resolved"". Following the surgery, Franklin lost 85 lbs.; however, she denied that she had undergone weight-loss surgery.[157] On May 19, 2011, Franklin had her comeback show at the Chicago Theatre.[158]
In May 2013, Franklin canceled two performances because of an undisclosed medical treatment.[159] Further concert cancellations in the summer[160][161][162] and fall[163] followed. During a phone interview with the Associated Press in late August 2013, Franklin stated that she had had a ""miraculous"" recovery from her undisclosed illness but had to cancel shows and appearances until her health was at 100%, estimating she was about ""85% healed"".[164] Franklin later returned to live performing, including a 2013 Christmas concert at Detroit's MotorCity Casino Hotel. She launched a multi-city tour in mid-2014, starting with a performance on June 14 in New York at Radio City Music Hall.[165]
In February 2017, Franklin announced in an interview with local Detroit television anchor Evrod Cassimy, that 2017 would be her final year touring.[166] However, she scheduled some 2018 concert dates before canceling them based on her physician's advice.[117]
On August 13, 2018, Franklin was reported to be gravely ill at her home in Riverfront Towers, Detroit.[167][168] She was under hospice care and surrounded by friends and family. Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson and former husband Glynn Turman visited her on her deathbed.[169] Franklin died at her home on August 16, 2018, aged 76.[170] She was initially thought to have died without a will.[171][172] The cause of death was a malignant pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET),[173][174] which is distinct from the most common form of pancreatic cancer.[175][176] Numerous celebrities in the entertainment industry and politicians paid tribute to Franklin, including former U.S. President Barack Obama who said she ""helped define the American experience"".[177] Civil rights activist and minister Al Sharpton called her a ""civil rights and humanitarian icon"".[178]
A memorial service was held at New Bethel Baptist Church on August 19.[179] Thousands then paid their respects during the public lying-in-repose at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.[180] The August 31 Homegoing Service held at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit, included multiple tributes by celebrities, politicians, friends and family members and was streamed by some news agencies[181] such as Fox News, CNN, The Word Network, BET and MSNBC.[182] Among those who paid tribute to Aretha at the service were Ariana Grande, Bill Clinton, Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, Faith Hill, Fantasia, the Clark Sisters, Ronald Isley, Angie Stone, Chaka Khan, Jennifer Holliday, Loretta Devine, Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, Shirley Caesar,[183]Shirma Rouse,[184]Stevie Wonder, Eric Holder, Gladys Knight, Cedric the Entertainer, Tyler Perry, Smokey Robinson, Yolanda Adams, and Rev. Dr. William Barber II.[185][186] At Franklin's request she was eulogized by Rev. Jasper Williams Jr. of Salem Baptist Church in Atlanta, as he had eulogized her father as well as speaking at other family memorials.[187] Williams's eulogy was criticized for being ""a political address that described children being in a home without a father as 'abortion after birth' and said black lives do not matter unless blacks stop killing each other"". Franklin's nephew Vaughan complained of Williams: ""He spoke for 50 minutes and at no time did he properly eulogize her.""[188][189] Following a telecast procession up Seven Mile Road, Franklin was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit.[190][191]
Franklin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979, had her voice declared a Michigan ""natural resource"" in 1985,[192] and became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.[193] The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded her a Grammy Legend Award in 1991, then the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. Franklin was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1994, recipient of the National Medal of Arts in 1999, recipient of the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award presented by Awards Council member Coretta Scott King,[194][195][196] and was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by then President George W. Bush.[24] She was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame in 2005,[197] and the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2015.[198] Franklin became the second woman inducted to the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. She was the 2008 MusiCares Person of the Year, performing at the Grammys days later. In 2019 she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation ""[f]or her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades"".[199] Franklin was the first individual woman to receive a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation.[200]
In 2010 Franklin was ranked first on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the ""100 Greatest Singers of All Time""[7] and ninth on their list of ""100 Greatest Artists of All Time"".[201] Following news of Franklin's surgery and recovery in February 2011, the Grammys ceremony paid tribute to the singer with a medley of her classics performed by Christina Aguilera, Florence Welch, Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride, and Yolanda Adams.[202] That same year, she was ranked 19th among the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time top artists.[203][204]
When Rolling Stone listed the ""Women in Rock: 50 Essential Albums"" in 2002 and again 2012, it listed Franklin's 1967, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, number one.[205] Inducted to the GMA Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2012, Franklin was described as ""the voice of the civil rights movement, the voice of black America"".[206][207] Asteroid 249516 Aretha was named in her honor in 2014.[208] The next year, Billboard named her the greatest female R&B artist of all time.[209] In 2018, Franklin was inducted in to the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
""American history wells up when Aretha sings"", President Obama explained in response to her performance of ""A Natural Woman"" at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors. ""Nobody embodies more fully the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R&B, rock and roll—the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope.""[104] Franklin later recalled the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors as one of the best nights of her life.[104] On June 8, 2017, the City of Detroit honored Franklin's legacy by renaming a portion of Madison Street, between Brush and Witherell Streets, Aretha Franklin Way.[210] The Aretha Franklin Post Office Building was named in 2021, and is located at 12711 East Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.[211]
Rolling Stone called Franklin ""the greatest singer of her generation"".[40]
In April 2021, Aretha Franklin was featured in National Geographic magazine and in the previous month, the society began airing the third season of the television series Genius about her life and career.[212][213] After working with the artist for nearly four decades, Clive Davis, said that Aretha ""understood the essence of both language and melody and was able to take it to a place very few—if any—could"". According to National Geographic, ""she was a musical genius unmatched in her range, power, and soul"".[213]
Franklin received honorary degrees from Harvard University and New York University in 2014,[214] as well as honorary doctorates in music from Princeton University, 2012;[215]Yale University, 2010;[216]Brown University, 2009;[217]University of Pennsylvania, 2007;[218]Berklee College of Music, 2006;[219]New England Conservatory of Music, 1997;[220] and University of Michigan, 1987.[221] She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Case Western Reserve University 2011[222] and Wayne State University in 1990 and an honorary Doctor of Law degree by Bethune–Cookman University in 1975.[223]
After Franklin's death, fans added unofficial tributes to two New York City Subway stations: the Franklin Street station in Manhattan, served by the 1 train, and the Franklin Avenue station in Brooklyn, served by the C​ and S trains. Both stations were originally named after other people. Although the fan tributes were later taken down, the subway system's operator, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, placed permanent black-and-white stickers with the word ""Respect"" next to the ""Franklin"" name signs in each station.[224][225]
During the American Music Awards on October 9, 2018, the show was closed by bringing Gladys Knight, Donnie McClurkin, Ledisi, Cece Winans, and Mary Mary together to pay tribute to Aretha Franklin. The ""all-star"" group performed gospel songs, including renditions from Franklin's 1972 album, Amazing Grace.[226][227]
A tribute concert, ""Aretha! A Grammy Celebration for the Queen of Soul"", was organized by CBS and the Recording Academy[228] on January 13, 2019, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The concert included performances by Smokey Robinson, Janelle Monáe, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Celine Dion, Alessia Cara, Patti LaBelle, Jennifer Hudson, Chloe x Halle, H.E.R., SZA, Brandi Carlile, Yolanda Adams and Shirley Caesar,[229][230] and was recorded for television, airing on March 10.[231][232]
At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, the ceremony was ended with a memorial tribute to the life and career of Franklin. The tribute concluded with a rendition of her 1968 hit, ""A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like)"", performed by Fantasia Barrino-Taylor, Andra Day and Yolanda Adams.[233]
On January 29, 2018, Gary Graff confirmed that Jennifer Hudson would play Franklin in an upcoming biopic.[234] Franklin's biopic Respect was released in August 2021 in various countries.[235][236]
On February 10, 2019, it was announced that the subject of the third season of the American National Geographic anthology television series Genius would be Franklin, in the ""first-ever, definitive scripted miniseries on the life of the universally acclaimed Queen of Soul"".[237] The season, starring Cynthia Erivo as Franklin, was aired in March 2021. However, Franklin's family denounced the series, claiming to be uninvolved with the production process, despite the production team stating that the series had been endorsed by the Franklin estate.[238]
Studio albums"