He’s won a whopping 17 Grammy Awards throughout his illustrious career of masterful music.
This weekend, Sting will rock Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia, on Friday, Sept. 1 and Saturday, Sept. 2.
“It’s nice to be back in D.C.,” Sting told back WTOP in 2019. “I was actually at the National Theatre in ’88 in ‘The Three Penny Opera’ playing Mack the Knife, so it’s been quite the pilgrimage. I had a lovely time here. We were here — for I think — two weeks. I remember George Pisegna coming to see the show and he remembered it when I met him years later. Very fond memories of being here in this town.”
Born in Wallsend, England in 1951, Sting founded his iconic new-wave rock band The Police in 1977. Their debut album, “Outlandos d’Amour” (1978), featured the breakthrough tango-style hit “Roxanne,” which has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and was ranked one of VH1’s 100 Greatest Rock Songs.
Their second album, “Reggatta de Blanc” (1978), featured a Grammy-winning title track, as well as other hits like “Walking on the Moon” and “Message in a Bottle” with the refrain, “I’ll send an S.O.S. to the world.”
The Police’s third album, “Zenyatta Mondatta” (1980), won two more Grammys for “Behind My Camel” and the killer opening track, “Don’t Stand So Close To Me,” while the flip side featured the catchy ditty “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da,” its verses sporting some of Sting’s most adventurous vocal runs and inflections.
The band’s fourth album, “Ghost in the Machine” (1981), climbed all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, thanks to memorable hits like “Invisible Sun” and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” the latter of which is sure to have folks dancing at Wolf Trap more than any other in his catalog.
Their fifth and final album, “Synchronicity” (1983), was their biggest, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a Grammy nod for Album of the Year, losing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
From “King of Pain” to “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” its biggest hit was “Every Breath You Take,” winning the Grammy for Song of the Year with an immortal bass line later sampled in Puff Daddy’s Notorious B.I.G. tribute “I’ll Be Missing You.”
After the breakup of The Police, Sting proved he was a global superstar on his own with his first solo album, “The Dream of the Blue Turtles” (1985), earning a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year with songs like “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” “Love is the Seventh Wave,” “Fortress Around Your Heart” and “Russians.”
His second solo album, ” … Nothing Like the Sun” (1988), included “Be Still My Beating Heart,” which was nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys.
Still, nothing could have prepared the music world for the power of Sting’s acclaimed third solo album “The Soul Cages” (1991), which featured songs like “All This Time” and “Mad About You.” The title track won the very first Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1992.
His fourth solo album, “Ten Summoner’s Tales” (1993), was nominated for Album of the Year with beautiful melodies like “Fields of Gold” and “Shape of My Heart.”
My personal favorite remains 1993’s “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You,” which earned Grammy nods for Song of the Year and Record of the Year, losing the former to “A Whole New World” from Disney’s “Aladdin” and the latter to Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
That same year, Sting teamed with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart for the chart-topping hit “All for Love” on the film soundtrack of “The Three Musketeers” (1993), teeing up four Oscar nominations for “My Funny Friend and Me” in “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000), “Until …” in “Kate & Leopold” (2001), “You Will Be My Ain True Love” in “Cold Mountain” (2003) and “The Empty Chair” in “Jim: The James Foley Story” (2016).
His fifth solo album, “Mercury Falling” (1996), included songs like “Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot” and “You Still Touch Me,” before closing out the millennium with a powerful sixth solo album, “Brand New Day” (1999). That record featured the smash radio hit “Desert Rose,” an exotic collaboration with of Algerian raï singer Cheb Mami, teeing up his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
His seventh solo album, “Sacred Love” (2003), featured the Mary J. Blige collaboration “Whenever I Say Your Name”; his eighth solo album, “Songs from the Labyrinth” (2006), was a collaboration with Bosnian lutenist Edin Karamazov; and his ninth solo album, “If on a Winter’s Night …” (2009), was a collection of Christmas and winter-themed songs — like his definitive cover of “I Saw Three Ships” on “A Very Special Christmas 3” (1997).
Rather than release another Greatest Hits album like he did in the mid ’90s, Sting cleverly reinterpreted his past hits as classical symphonic compositions for his tenth solo album, “Symphonicities” (2010), recording with the Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London.
His 11th solo album, “The Last Ship” (2013), hearkened back to his childhood in the shipbuilding town of Wallsend. It would later become the inspiration for his 2014 Broadway play of the same name.
After his 12th solo album, “57th & 9th” (2016), Sting teamed with reggae icon Shaggy for the duet album “44/876” (2018), winning the Grammy for Best Reggae Album and even performing together outside the Verizon Center (now Capital One Arena) during the Washington Capitals’ run to the Stanley Cup.
Between his two most recent albums, “My Songs” (2019) and “The Bridge” (2021), Sting brought his stage musical “The Last Ship” to National Theatre in D.C., strumming an acoustic guitar during our interview.
He was also in D.C. as a recipient at the 2014 Kennedy Center Honors where Lady Gaga performed a surprise piano rendition of “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You,” declaring, “Let’s make this one sting!”
Find ticket information for Sting’s Wolf Trap show here.
Listen to the 2019 interview with Sting on WTOP’s podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.”
