name	David Gilmour
background	solo_singer
birth name	David Jon Gilmour
alias	Dave Gilmour
birth date	March 06, 1946
Birth place	Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, saxophone, harmonica, slide guitar, programming
genre	Rock, progressive rock, psychedelic rock, art rock, blues rock, experimental rock
occupation	Musician, Songwriter, Producer
years active	1963–present
label	Capitol, Columbia, Sony, EMI
associated acts	Pink Floyd, Jokers Wild, Deep End, Richard Wright
website
notable instruments	}}

David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. (born 6 March 1946) is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It is estimated that as of 2011, the group has sold over 230 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.

In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charities over the course of his career.

In 2003, he was appointed CBE for his charity work and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards. In 2011, ''Rolling Stone Magazine'' ranked him No. 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Early life

Gilmour was born in Cambridge, England. His father, Douglas Gilmour, was a senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Cambridge and his mother, Sylvia (née Wilson), was a teacher and film editor who raised her family at Grantchester Meadows, later immortalised by a Roger Waters song on Pink Floyd's ''Ummagumma''. He has a younger brother who is also a musician.

Gilmour attended The Perse School on Hills Road, Cambridge, and met future Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist Syd Barrett, along with bassist and vocalist Roger Waters who attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys, also situated on Hills Road. He studied modern languages to A-Level and, along with Barrett, spent his lunchtime learning to play the guitar. They were not yet bandmates however, and Gilmour started playing in the band Joker's Wild in 1962. Gilmour left Joker's Wild in 1966 and busked around Spain and France with some friends. However, they were not very successful, living virtually a hand-to-mouth existence. In July 1992, Gilmour stated in an interview with Nicky Horne on BBC radio that he ended up being treated for malnutrition in a hospital. In 1967, they returned to England.

Pink Floyd

Gilmour was approached in late December 1967 by drummer Nick Mason, who asked if he would be interested in joining Pink Floyd, which he did in January 1968, making Pink Floyd briefly a five-piece band. He filled in for Syd Barrett's guitar parts when the frontman was unable to take a consistent part in Floyd's live performances. Syd Barrett "left" the group due to his erratic behaviour—commonly believed to have been caused by excessive use of LSD—when the band chose not to pick Barrett up one night for a gig; and Gilmour by default assumed the role of the band's lead guitarist. He took over most of the band's lead vocal duties with bassist Roger Waters and keyboard player Richard Wright also occasionally singing in Barrett's stead. However, after the back-to-back successes of ''The Dark Side of the Moon'' and then ''Wish You Were Here'', Waters took more control over the band, writing much of ''Animals'' and ''The Wall'' by himself. Wright was fired during ''The Wall'' sessions and the relationship between Gilmour and Waters would further deteriorate during the making of ''The Wall'' film and the 1983 Pink Floyd album ''The Final Cut''.

After recording ''Animals'', Gilmour thought that his musical talents were being underused, and channelled his ideas into his self-titled first solo album (1978), which showcases his signature guitar style, as well as underscoring his songwriting skills. A tune written during the finishing stages of this album, but too late to be used, became "Comfortably Numb" on ''The Wall''.

The negative atmosphere surrounding the creation of ''The Wall'' album and subsequent film, compounded by ''The Final Cut''s virtually being a Roger Waters solo album, led Gilmour to produce his second solo album ''About Face'' in 1984. He used it to express his feelings about a range of topics, from the murder of John Lennon, to his relationship with Waters. He has since admitted that he also used the album to distance himself from Pink Floyd. He toured Europe and the US along with support act The Television Personalities, who were promptly dropped from the line-up after revealing Syd Barrett's address on stage. Mason also made a guest appearance on the UK leg of the tour, which despite some cancellations eventually turned a profit. When he returned from touring, Gilmour played guitar with a range of artists, and also produced The Dream Academy, who had a top ten hit with "Life in a Northern Town".

In 1985, Waters declared that Pink Floyd were "a spent force creatively". In 1986, Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason issued a press release stating that Waters had quit the band and they intended to continue without him. Gilmour assumed full control of the group and produced ''A Momentary Lapse of Reason'' in 1987 with some contributions from Mason and Richard Wright. Wright officially rejoined the band after the release of the album for a lengthy world tour and helped create 1994's ''The Division Bell''. Gilmour explained:

In 1986, Gilmour purchased the houseboat ''Astoria'' which is moored on the River Thames near Hampton Court, and transformed it into a recording studio. The majority of the two most recent Pink Floyd albums, as well as Gilmour's 2006 solo release ''On an Island'', were recorded there.

On 2 July 2005, Gilmour played with Pink Floyd—including Roger Waters—at Live 8. The performance caused a temporary 1343% sales increase of Pink Floyd's album ''Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd''. Gilmour donated all of his resulting profits to charities that reflect the goals of Live 8 saying:

Shortly after, he called upon all artists experiencing a surge in sales from Live 8 performances to donate the extra revenue to Live 8 fund-raising. After the Live 8 concert, Pink Floyd were offered £150 million to tour the United States, but the band turned down the offer.

On 3 February 2006, he announced in an interview with the Italian newspaper ''La Repubblica'' that Pink Floyd would most likely never tour or write material together again. He said:

He said that by agreeing to Live 8, he had ensured the story of Floyd would not end on a sour note.

"

On 20 February 2006, Gilmour commented again on Pink Floyd's future when he was interviewed by Billboard.com, stating, "Who knows? I have no plans at all to do that. My plans are to do my concerts and put my solo record out."

In December 2006, Gilmour released a tribute to Syd Barrett, who had died on 7 July of that year, in the form of his own version of Pink Floyd's first single "Arnold Layne". Recorded live at London's Royal Albert Hall, the CD single featured versions of the song performed by Pink Floyd's keyboard player (and Gilmour's band member) Richard Wright and special guest artist David Bowie. The single entered the UK Top 75 charts at number nineteen and remained steady for three weeks.

Since their Live 8 appearance in 2005, Gilmour has repeatedly said that there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. With the death of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in September 2008, another reunion of the core group members became impossible. Gilmour said of Wright

}}

In May 2010 Roger Waters told the Associated Press that Gilmour "is completely disinterested in anything like [another reunion]. After Live 8, I could have probably gone for doing some more stuff, but he's not interested, so it is what it is."

Solo projects

David has recorded four solo albums, all four of which charted in the US Top 40 (2006's ''On an Island'' peaked at No. 6 in 2006, 2008's ''Live in Gdansk'' peaked at No. 26, his 1978 self-titled solo debut peaked at No. 29 in 1978 and 1984's About Face peaked at No. 32 in 1984).

The 1970s & 1980s

Taking time off from Pink Floyd's schedule, Gilmour also took up various roles as a producer, sideman and even concert sound engineer for a wide variety of acts which included former bandmate Syd Barrett, Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Berlin, Grace Jones, Tom Jones, Elton John, Eric Clapton, B. B. King, Seal, Sam Brown, Jools Holland, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Who, Supertramp, Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Alan Parsons, and various charity groups among others.

In 1985, Gilmour was a member of Bryan Ferry's band. He played on Ferry's album ''Boys and Girls'', as well as the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" for the US release of the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film ''Legend''. A music video for the latter was created, incorporating Ferry and Gilmour into footage from the film (released as a bonus on the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release). Later that year, Gilmour played with Ferry at the London Live Aid concert; his first meeting with Ferry's keyboard player Jon Carin, later to tour with Pink Floyd.

David Gilmour also took part in a comedy skit titled "The Easy Guitar Book Sketch" with comedian Rowland Rivron and fellow British musicians Mark Knopfler, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mark King from Level 42, and Gary Moore. Guitar tech Phil Taylor explained in an interview that Knopfler used Gilmour's guitar rig and managed to sound like himself when performing in the skit.

The 1990s

In 1994, Gilmour played guitar for the video game ''Tuneland'', along with the additional saxophonist for Pink Floyd, Scott Page.

On 14 December 1999, Gilmour played a show at the Cavern Club in Liverpool with Paul McCartney, Mick Green, Ian Paice & Pete Wingfield.

The 2000s

In 2001 and 2002, he performed a small number of acoustic solo concerts in London and Paris, along with a small band and choir, which was documented on the ''In Concert'' release. In 2003, ''Rolling Stone'' placed Gilmour at number 82 in a list of the hundred greatest guitarists of all time.

On 24 September 2004, Gilmour performed a three song set (tracks 28–30) at The Strat Pack concert at London's Wembley Arena, marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

On 6 March 2006, his 60th birthday, he released his third solo album, ''On an Island'', and a day later it was released in the US; it debuted at No. 1 in the UK charts. The album reached the top five in Germany and Sweden, and the top six in Billboard 200. Produced by Gilmour along with Phil Manzanera and Chris Thomas, the album features orchestrations by renowned Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner. The album features David Crosby and Graham Nash performing background vocals on the title track, Robert Wyatt on cornet and percussion, and Richard Wright on Hammond organ and vocals. Other contributors include Jools Holland, Phil Manzanera, Georgie Fame, Andy Newmark, B. J. Cole, Chris Stainton, Willie Wilson, Rado ‘Bob’ Klose on guitar and Leszek Możdżer on piano. The album also features Gilmour's debut with the saxophone.

Gilmour toured Europe, US and Canada from 10 March to 31 May 2006 to promote ''On an Island''. There were 10 shows in the US and Canadian leg of the tour. Pink Floyd alumnus Richard Wright, and frequent Floyd collaborators Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin, also accompanied him on the tour. More shows took place in Europe from July to August in 2006.

In a press release to promote the tour, David Gilmour stated:

''On an Island'' reached number one on the UK charts. On 10 April 2006, the album was certified platinum in Canada, with sales of over 100,000 copies. The album also gave Gilmour his first US Top 10 album as a solo artist.

A video recording of a show from Gilmour's solo tour, titled ''Remember That Night – Live At The Royal Albert Hall'' was released on 17 September 2007. The double DVD, directed by David Mallet, contains over five hours of footage, including an on-the-road documentary and guest appearances by David Bowie and Robert Wyatt. The two and a half hour concert features band members Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, Steve DiStanislao on drums, and various Pink Floyd regulars such as Dick Parry, Guy Pratt and Jon Carin. The 20-page booklet accompanying the DVD, features over 80 photos selected from studio recording and touring.

The final show of David Gilmour's On an Island tour took place at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 26 August 2006. The concert was held before a crowd of 50,000, and marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of the founding of the Solidarity trade union. The concert was notable for the inclusion of "A Great Day For Freedom" as part of the encore.

The show was recorded, resulting in a live album and DVD release: ''Live in Gdańsk''. The concert was the only occasion on which Gilmour performed the tour material with an orchestra, using the 40-strong string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zbigniew Preisner, who was responsible for ''On An Island'''s orchestral arrangements.

On 25 May 2009, he participated in a concert at the Union Chapel in Islington, London. The concert was part of the 'Hidden Gigs' campaign against hidden homelessness, which is organised by Crisis, a UK-based national charity campaigning against homelessness. In the concert he collaborated with the Malian musicians Amadou and Mariam.

On 4 July 2009, he joined his friend Jeff Beck onstage at the Royal Albert Hall. David and Jeff traded solos on ''Jerusalem'' and closed the show with ''Hi Ho Silver Lining''.

A video was also posted on-line.

The 2010s

On 11 July 2010, Gilmour gave a performance for the charity Hoping Foundation with Roger Waters in Oxfordshire, England. Also performing were Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Nick Cage and Tom Jones. The performance was presented by Jemima Khan and Nigella Lawson. According to onlookers, it seemed clear that Gilmour and Waters had ended the their long-running feud and seemed to be the best of friends, laughing and joking together along with their respective partners. Waters subsequently confirmed via his Facebook page that Gilmour would play Comfortably Numb with him during one of his shows on his upcoming The Wall Live tour – Gilmour performed the guitar solo on 12 May 2011 at the O2 Arena, London and, with Nick Mason, played with the rest of the band playing 'Outside The Wall' at the conclusion of the show.

Gilmour released an album with The Orb in 2010 entitled ''Metallic Spheres''. On which he co-wrote every track and their subsequent parts, produced, played guitar and sang.

Personal life

Gilmour's first marriage was to American-born model and artist Virginia "Ginger" Hasenbein, on 7 July 1975. He had four children from this union, Alice (born 1976), Clare (born 1979), Sara (born 1983, a fashion model), and Matthew (born 1986). The children originally attended a Waldorf School, but Gilmour called their education there "horrific". In 1994, he married journalist Polly Samson, and the couple have four children, Charlie (Samson's son with Heathcote Williams whom Gilmour adopted), Joe, Gabriel and Romany. Charlie's voice can be heard on the telephone to Steve O'Rourke, at the end of "High Hopes" (''The Division Bell'').

Gilmour has been associated with various charity organisations. In May 2003, Gilmour sold his house in Little Venice to the ninth Earl Spencer and donated the proceeds worth £3.6 million to Crisis to help fund a housing project for the homeless. Apart from Crisis, other Charities to which Gilmour has lent support include Oxfam, the European Union Mental Health and Illness Association, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, The Lung Foundation, and Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy. He also donated £25,000 to the Save the Rhino foundation in exchange for Douglas Adams' name suggestion for the album that became The Division Bell.

Gilmour is also an experienced pilot and aviation enthusiast. Under the aegis of his company, Intrepid Aviation, he had amassed a collection of historical aircraft. He later decided to sell the company, which he had started as a hobby, feeling that it was becoming too commercial for him to handle. In a BBC interview, he stated: }}

On 22 May 2008, Gilmour won the 2008 Ivor Novello Lifetime Contribution Award

In autumn 2008, he was awarded for outstanding contribution for music by the Q Awards. He dedicated his award to his bandmate Richard Wright, who died in September 2008.

On 11 November 2009, Gilmour received an honorary doctorate from the Anglia Ruskin University.

Musical style

Gilmour is best known for his lead guitar work. Gilmour's solo style is often characterised by blues-influenced phrasing, expressive note bends and sustain. In 2011, Gilmour was rated the 14th greatest guitarist by Rolling Stone. In January 2007, ''Guitar World'' readers voted Gilmour's solos, "Comfortably Numb", "Time" and "Money" into the top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos ("Comfortably Numb" was voted the 4th, "Time" was voted the 21st and "Money" was voted the 62nd greatest solo of all time).

In his early career with Pink Floyd, Gilmour played a multitude of Fender Stratocasters. One of his popular guitar solos ("Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2") was played on a 1955 Gibson Les Paul Gold Top guitar equipped with P-90 pick-ups. In 1996, Gilmour was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Gilmour's solo on "Comfortably Numb" was voted as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time in several polls by listeners and critics.

Although mainly known for his guitar work, Gilmour is also a proficient multi-instrumentalist. He also plays bass guitar (which he did on some Pink Floyd tracks), keyboards, synthesiser, banjo, harmonica, drums (as heard on the Syd Barrett solo track "Dominoes", and other songs where he opted to play all the instruments) and lately, the saxophone.

Music equipment

Some of the equipment Gilmour has used either on his solo or Pink Floyd records and tours.

Main electric guitars

Fender

*Stratocaster

**Gilmor's main stage and studio guitar is a 1969 Fender Stratocaster. Black with a black pickguard, it has white pick-up covers and knobs. It does not have the original neck. The guitar has a added switch that combines the neck and bridge pick-ups. It has a Seymour Duncan SSL-1C (SSL-5 Prototype) bridge pick-up. The guitar strap that Gilmour pairs with this instrument once belonged to Jimi Hendrix.

**His main guitar for the post-Roger Waters era Pink Floyd tours was a red 1984 '57 Stratocaster reissue. It had a set of EMG SA active pick-ups. This guitar still continues to be used for specific songs during Gilmour's live performances.

**David Gilmour owns Stratocaster # 0001. This is not the first model made, but it is the first to be given a serial number.

**Cream coloured '57 reissue Stratocaster. This guitar was used on Gilmour's 1984 solo tour and also during the early part of the 1987–1990 Pink Floyd tour. During the 1994 Pink Floyd tour it was used as a spare guitar. During Pink Floyd's Live 8 set sidesman Tim Renwick was seen playing it. It has the same EMG setup as his red '57 Reissue model. After it was used for Live 8 the neck from the cream Stratocaster was transferred to Gilmour's main black Stratocaster.

**'57 Lake Placid Blue. (Serial number #0040). This guitar was used during The Wall recording sessions.

**Double-neck Stratocaster. Custom made body by guitar builder Dick Knight and using standard Fender necks. It was used in the early 1970s.

**1959 sunburst Stratocaster body with a 1963 neck with a rosewood fingerboard. This guitar was given to Gilmour by Steve Marriott. David didn't like the guitar enough to use it for very long but did like the neck better than the original one on his black Stratocaster and the two were switched. The sunburst model was used as A spare and for slide guitar in subsequent years.

*White with white pickguard. Used in the late 1960s. Received as a gift from the rest of the band. It was stolen in 1970.

**Gilmour used a Stratocaster equipped with the Doug Wilkes 'Answer' sliding pick-up system on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' recording.

*Telecaster

**Blonde body with white pickguard. Used on the On an Island tour.

**'52 Butterscotch Reissues with black pickguard. Used between 1987 and 1995. The first guitar was tuned in Dropped D rather than a standard tuning and was used for "Run Like Hell". The second served as a backup instrument and had a regular guitar tuning. Gilmour used this guitar for Astronomy Domine.

**'59 Custom Telecaster with sunburst ash body, white binding on the body, rosewood fingerboard, and a white pickguard. A Gibson Humbucker was briefly placed in the neck position but this was removed before it was used on the Animals' recording sessions. Last seen at rehearsals during the On an Island tour.

**'61 Telecaster used during The Wall recording sessions. Also used live in the post-Waters era for "Run Like Hell". Last seen on the Syd Barrett memory concert in 2007.

**1960s brown-faded body. Used in the late 1960s.

*1960s blonde ash body with white pickguard. This was Gilmour's main guitar during his first year with Pink Floyd, but it was lost by an airline company in 1968, prompting Gilmour to buy the brown-faded Telecaster.

*Esquire '55 Sunburst body a.k.a. "The workmate Tele". Neck pick-up added. Used at the recording sessions for his first solo album, and ''The Wall'' recording sessions and subsequent tour. Also seen when Gilmour performed with Paul McCartney in the late 1990s.

Other electrics

Along with the Fender models (his primary choice for electrics), Gilmour has also used: a Gibson Les Paul goldtop model with P-90 pick-ups and a Bigsby vibrato bridge. It was used for the guitar solo on 'Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2' and the solo in 'Comfortably Numb.' Gilmour also plays a Gretsch Duo-Jet and a Gretsch White Falcon (as well as a 'White Penguin'), a Bill Lewis 24-fret Guitar (used during ''Meddle'' and ''Dark Side of the Moon'' recording sessions) and a Steinberger GL model which was his main guitar during ''A Momentary Lapse of Reason'' recording sessions.

Acoustics

Gilmour has used many different acoustic guitars throughout his career including a Gibson "Chet Atkins" classical model, a Gibson J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitar. Gilmour's list of Ovation models including a Legend 1619-4, a Legend 1613-4 nylon string guitar, both used during The Wall recording sessions. Martin models used include: a D-35. a D12-28 12-string. and a D-18. Gilmour's large acoustic collection also includes many models from Taylor, Takamine and Guild.

Steel guitar

Throughout his recording career David Gilmour has added a different element to his guitar style with his use of steel guitars. A 1950s Fender 1000 twin neck pedal steel guitar was used frequently in the early 1970s. Originally purchased from a pawn shop while Gilmour was in Seattle in 1970, it was used during recording of "One of These Days" from "Meddle" and "Breathe" and "Great Gig in the Sky" from ''The Dark Side of the Moon''. Other Fenders owned by Gilmour include a Deluxe lap steel (seen during The Division Bell tour in 1994. ) and also a Champ lap steel model. Along with the Fender steel models Gilmour has also used: a Gibson EH150, and two Jedson models: one red (1977-tuned D-G-D-G-B-E for ''Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts 6–9'', 1987–2006: Tuned E-B-E-G-B-E for ''High Hopes'') and one blonde. He also uses a ZB steel model.

Bass guitars

Gilmour has played bass both in the studio and onstage at different times and has played many different bass models including: an Ovation Magnum, a Fender Bass VI, Fender Precision and Jazz bass models and a Charvel fretless.(all used during The Wall recording sessions. ). He also has a Doug Wilkes built Precision-style single pick-up bass which was used on the 'Momentary Lapse of Reason' sessions. During the 1991 Amnesty International concert Gilmour used a Music Man Fretless Stingray bass while conducting the house band and again during Spinal Tap's performance of "Big Bottom". (All guitarists played bass on this song, and Gilmour played the solo)

Fender Signature Stratocaster

In November 2006, Fender Custom Shop announced two reproductions of Gilmour's "Black" Strat for release on 22 September 2008. Gilmour's website states the release date was chosen to coincide with the release of his ''Live in Gdansk'' album. Both guitars are based on extensive measurements of the original instrument, each featuring varying degrees of wear. The most expensive is the David Gilmour Relic Stratocaster which features the closest copy of wear on the original guitar. A pristine copy of the guitar is also made, called the David Gilmour NOS Stratocaster.

Discography

Pink Floyd

''A Saucerful of Secrets'' (1968)

''More'' (1969)

''Ummagumma'' (1969)

''Atom Heart Mother'' (1970)

''Meddle'' (1971)

''Obscured by Clouds'' (1972)

''The Dark Side of the Moon'' (1973)

''Wish You Were Here'' (1975)

''Animals'' (1977)

''The Wall'' (1979)

''The Final Cut'' (1983)

''A Momentary Lapse of Reason'' (1987)

''Delicate Sound of Thunder'' (1988)

''The Division Bell'' (1994)

''P•U•L•S•E'' (1995)

:''For the full discography, see Pink Floyd discography.

Solo

Albums

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions	Certification (Sale Threshold)
!style="width:4em;font-size:100%"		!style="width:4em;font-size:100%"	!style="width:4em;font-size:100%"
1978		* Label: Harvest Records (UK)/Columbia Records (US)					RIAA>US: Gold
1984		* Label: Harvest Records (UK)/Columbia Records (US)					RIAA>US: Gold
2006	''On an Island''	* Label: EMI (UK)/Columbia Records (US)					British Phonographic Industry>UK: Platinum	Canadian Recording Industry Association>CAN: Platinum
2008	''Live in Gdańsk''	* Label: EMI (UK)/Columbia Records (US)					British Phonographic Industry>UK: Gold

Soundtracks

''Fractals: The Colours of Infinity'', Documentary (1994)

Singles

"There's No Way Out of Here" (1978)

"Blue Light" (March 1984)

"Love on the Air" (May 1984)

"On an Island" (6 March 2006)

"Smile" (13 June 2006)

"Arnold Layne" (Live) (26 December 2006)

Filmography

''David Gilmour Live 1984'' (VHS) – September 1984

''David Gilmour in Concert'' (DVD) – October 2002

''Remember That Night'' (DVD/BD) – September 2007

''Live in Gdańsk'' (DVD) – September 2008

Collaborations and work for other artists

Guitar on "This Feeling" and "I'll Be In Love" in ''Stop

Year !! Artist !! Album / Work
rowspan=3	1970	Syd Barrett	''The Madcap Laughs''
Syd Barrett	Barrett (album)>''Barrett''
Ron Geesin and Roger Waters	"Give Birth to a Smile" on ''Music from the Body''
	1974	Unicorn
	1975	Roy Harper >
	1976	Unicorn
rowspan=2	1978	Kate Bush
	Unicorn	''One More Tomorrow'' (Harvest Records) (producer, shared with Muff Winwood)
	1979	Wings (band)>Wings
	1980	Roy Harper >
	1982	Kate Bush >
	1983	Atomic Rooster >
	1984	Paul McCartney
rowspan=9	1985	Supertramp >
Bryan Ferry	Legend (Tangerine Dream soundtrack)>Legend''
Bryan Ferry	Boys and Girls (album)>Boys and Girls''
Bryan Ferry	''Live Aid'' (Played with Bryan Ferry's band)
Nick Mason and Rick Fenn	"Lie for a Lie" (vocals) in ''Profiles''
Pete Townshend	White City: A Novel "White City Fighting" credited to Townshend/Gilmour. Also performed live as Deep End (band)>Deep End.
Arcadia (band)	Arcadia	''So Red the Rose''
The Dream Academy	The Dream Academy (album)>The Dream Academy''
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page	"Hope" on ''Whatever Happened to Jugula?'', credited to Harper/Gilmour.
rowspan=3	1986	Berlin (band)>Berlin
	Liona Boyd	Persona (Liona Boyd album)>Persona
Pete Townshend	lead guitar in Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!
	1987	Dalbello >
rowspan=2	1988	Peter Cetera
Sam Brown (singer)	Sam Brown	(album)	Stop!''
rowspan=4	1989	Kate Bush	"Love and Anger" and "Rocket's Tail" in ''The Sensual World''
Paul McCartney	"We Got Married" in ''Flowers in the Dirt''
Rock Aid Armenia	Smoke on the Water in ''The Earthquake Album''
Warren Zevon	''Transverse City''
rowspan=5	1990	Roy Harper >
Propaganda (band)	Propaganda	1234 (Propaganda album)>1234''
Sam Brown (singer)	Sam Brown	April Moon, vocals on "Troubled Soul"
Michael Kamen and David Sanborn	Concerto For Saxophone, guitar on "Sasha"
The Dream Academy	''A Different Kind of Weather'' (co-producer on all but one track, co-wrote and sang backing vocals on "Twelve-Eight Angel")
rowspan=2	1991	All About Eve (band)>All About Eve
Hale and Pace	Lead guitar on "The Stonk"
rowspan=2	1992	Elton John >
Mica Paris	I Put a Spell on You on Later With Jools Holland''
	1993	Paul Rodgers
	1994	Snowy White
	1995	Guy Pratt >
	1996	The Who
	1997	B. B. King >
	1999	Paul McCartney
	2001	''The Triumph of Love'' soundtrack
	2003	Ringo Starr
	2004	Alan Parsons and Simon Posford
	2005	Various artists
	2006	Chris Jagger >
	2009	Nick Laird-Clowes
	2010	The Orb

References

Bibliography

External links

Official website

Official blog

Bootleg recordings

Category:1946 births Category:Living people Category:Pink Floyd members Category:English guitarists Category:English male singers Category:English rock singers Category:English multi-instrumentalists Category:English rock guitarists Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English songwriters Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Slide guitarists Category:Alumni of Anglia Ruskin University Category:People educated at The Perse School Category:English philanthropists Category:People from Cambridge Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Lead guitarists Category:Music in Cambridge Category:Weissenborn players Category:English atheists

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name	Nick Mason
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Nicholas Berkeley Mason
birth date	January 27, 1944
Birth place	Edgbaston, Birmingham, England
instrument	Drums, percussion, keyboards, guitar, vocals
genre	Progressive rock, psychedelic rock, hard rock, instrumental rock
occupation	Musician, drummer, record producer, author, composer, auto racer
years active	1964–present
label	Capitol, Columbia, Sony, EMI, Harvest
associated acts	Pink Floyd, Sigma 6, The Screaming Abdabs, The Tea Set, Mason & Fenn, Robert Wyatt, Carla Bley, Michael Mantler }}

Nicholas Berkeley "Nick" Mason (born 27 January 1944) is an English drummer and songwriter, best known for his work with Pink Floyd. He was the only constant member of the band since its formation in 1965. Despite solely writing only a few Pink Floyd songs, Mason has contributed to some of Pink Floyd's most popular compositions such as "Interstellar Overdrive", "A Saucerful Of Secrets" and "Echoes". He also competes in auto racing events, such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was the only Pink Floyd member to be featured on every one of their albums.

Early life

The son of the documentary film maker Bill Mason, he was born in Birmingham but brought up in Hampstead, London (many online biographies mistakenly cite the street address Downshire Hill – sometimes as "the Downshire Hills" – as a district of Birmingham) and attended Frensham Heights School, near Farnham, Surrey. He later studied at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster), where he teamed up with Roger Waters, Bob Klose and Richard Wright in 1964 to form Pink Floyd's predecessor, Sigma 6.

Musical career

Mason has been the drummer on every Pink Floyd album (but not on every song; some session drummers have been used).

Despite legal conflicts over ownership of the name 'Pink Floyd' which began when Roger Waters left the group in 1986 and lasted roughly 7 years, Waters and Nick Mason are now on good terms. Mason joined Waters on the last two nights of his 2002 world tour to play drums on the Pink Floyd song "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", and he also played drums on some concerts of Waters' European tour in 2006, and during performances in Los Angeles and New York City in the United States. On 12 May 2007, Mason joined Waters again on stage at Earls Court to play ''The Dark Side of the Moon''. Again on 12 May 2011 Mason was featured, along with David Gilmour, on the encore Outside the Wall at Waters´ concert who was performing The Wall in its entirety. Gilmour also performed on Comfortably Numb that night.

In July 2005, Mason, Gilmour, Wright, and Waters played together on stage for the first time in 24 years. A four song set was played at the Live 8 concert in London. Mason also joined David Gilmour and Richard Wright for the encore during Gilmour's show at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on 31 May 2006, reuniting the post-Waters Pink Floyd. Mason has also claimed to be the link between Gilmour and Waters, and believes the band will play live again. His answers have ranged from "playing again for a charitable cause" to "a tour" given in various interviews in the last few years. He also stated in 2006 that Pink Floyd have not officially disbanded yet.

The only Pink Floyd songs that are solely credited to Mason are "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party Parts 1-3" (from ''Ummagumma'') and "Speak to Me" (from ''The Dark Side of the Moon''). The one-off song by the band entitled "Nick's Boogie" was named after him.

The only times Mason's voice has been included on Pink Floyd's albums are "Corporal Clegg", the single spoken line in "One of These Days" and spoken parts of "Signs of Life" and "Learning to Fly" (the latter taken from actual recording of Mason's first solo flight) from ''A Momentary Lapse of Reason''. He does, however, sing lead vocals on two unreleased but heavily bootlegged tracks, "Scream Thy Last Scream" (1967) and "The Merry Xmas Song" (1975–76). In live performances of the song "Sheep", he did the spoken section.

Unlike the other members of Pink Floyd, Mason has rarely played an instrument other than his usual one (drums), although he has contributed sound effects to many Pink Floyd albums. He has only ever played non-percussive instruments on "The Grand Vizier's Garden Party", his personal composition from ''Ummagumma'', where he provided some keyboard, guitar and bass noises, and on live versions of "Outside the Wall", where he played acoustic guitar along with the rest of the band. He has claimed that he took some failed violin and piano lessons as a child. However, on the ''Profiles'' album Nick released with Rick Fenn in 1985, he is also credited with keyboards. He can be seen playing a synthesizer in the promo video for "Lie for a Lie", but it is unknown if he actually played on the recording.

Mason has done some work with other people, notably as a drummer and producer for Steve Hillage, Robert Wyatt (with whom he appeared on Top of the Pops), The Damned and Gong. He also drummed for Michael Mantler.

Nick Mason used Premier drums in the 1960s and occasionally in the 1970s (mainly on recordings up to Wish You Were Here). After that, he used Ludwig drums from 1970 until 1992. He currently uses Drum Workshop (DW) drums, pedals and hardware. His kit is a DW double bass kit with the ''Dark Side of the Moon'' logo on the drums. He has also used Paiste cymbals during his entire career with Pink Floyd. He currently uses a mixture of Paiste Traditional, Signature and 2002 cymbals.

Nick Mason's book, ''Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd'', was published in the UK in October 2004. It is also available, abridged, as a 3CD audio book, read by Mason. An updated edition was published, in paperback, in 2011.

Notable Pink Floyd songs co-written by Mason

Pow R. Toc H. (1967) (''The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'')

Interstellar Overdrive (1967) (''The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'')

A Saucerful Of Secrets (1968) (''A Saucerful of Secrets'')

Careful with that Axe, Eugene (1968) (B-side of their single Point Me at the Sky)

Atom Heart Mother (1970) (''Atom Heart Mother'')

Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast (1970) (''Atom Heart Mother'')

One of These Days (1971) (''Meddle'')

Echoes (1971) (''Meddle'')

Time (1973) (''The Dark Side of the Moon'')

Any Colour You Like (1973) (''The Dark Side of the Moon'')

Drumming style

Influenced by jazz and big band music, Nick was a pioneer who embraced acoustic drums, (both single and double headed) tuned percussion, electronic drums and Roto toms, melding all of these into a melodic whole. His snare drum sound shifted from harsh demarcation of beats 2 and 4 (''Careful with that Axe, Eugene'') to a fatter and gentler timbre (''Echoes'') — a change that reflected growing studio chops. Mason has been seen as playing a big part in creating the atmosphere and mood in Pink Floyd's compositions.

Non-musical ventures

name	Nick Mason
nationality	British
years	1979–80, 1982–84
team(s)	Dorset Racing AssociatesEMKA ProductionsDome RacingGTi Engineering
best finish	18th (1979)
class wins	0 }}

Mason is married (to his second wife, Nettie) and has four children; two daughters (Holly and Chloe) from his first marriage and two sons (Guy and Cary) from his second. They live in Hampstead, London; however they often stay in the Wiltshire town of Corsham in the former home of Camilla Parker Bowles.

As Floyd's recording and touring schedule grew more sporadic, Mason was left with more time to pursue his favourite hobby: car racing. He owns (through his company Ten Tenths) and races several classic cars, and has competed successfully at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. His collection has been a subject of his 1998 book, ''Into the Red'' in which he documents his experience with his cars, along with some histories. He is also a qualified pilot, and flies an Aerospatiale AS 350 Squirrel helicopter in specially painted colours.

Mason was invited by Ferrari to purchase one of their 400 Enzos, which he let Jeremy Clarkson borrow for reviewing purposes on the BBC motoring programme ''Top Gear''. Mason agreed, on the sole condition that throughout the review, Clarkson promoted the release of the book ''Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd''. This led to Clarkson using Pink Floyd album titles in his description of the Enzo and The Stig driving round the track with "Another Brick in the Wall" playing (despite the fact that the Enzo does not come equipped with a stereo). Mason says that his favourite car of all time is the Ferrari 250 GTO, and owns one of the 39 built (which is valued at between £16,000,000 and £20,000,000).

His wealth amounts to £55 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006–07.

Views and advocacy

Mason is a supporter of the Countryside Alliance and has played concerts to raise funds for the organisation. He is a board member and co-chairman of the Featured Artists' Coalition.

Discography

With Pink Floyd

With Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports

''Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports'' – 3 May 1981

With Rick Fenn

''Profiles'' – 29 July 1985 ''White of the Eye'' – 1987 (soundtrack)

''Tank Malling'' – 1988 (soundtrack)

With Michael Mantler

''The Hapless Child'' - 1976 ''Something There'' – 1982 ''Live'' – 1987

''Review'' - 2000

''Concertos'' – 2008

As a producer

Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – ''The Asmoto Running Band'' (1971) Principal Edwards Magic Theatre – ''Round One'' (1974) Robert Wyatt – ''Rock Bottom'' (1974) Gong – ''Shamal'' (1976) The Damned – ''Music for Pleasure'' (1977) Steve Hillage – ''Green'' (1978); Co-produced with Steve Hillage. Mason also plays a drum on "Leylines to Glassdom"

Books

''Into the Red: 22 Classic Cars That Shaped a Century of Motor Sport'' (with Mark Hales) – 3 September 1998 (first edition), 9 September 2004 (second edition)

''Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd'' – 28 October 2004

References

External links

Nick Mason's Drummerworld profile

Nick Mason interviews

Ten Tenths official site

Inside Out book page from Pink Floyd official site

Pink Floyd Drums: The Division Bell Tour Drums

Nick Mason's interview for Hit Channel website

Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:People from Edgbaston Category:People educated at Frensham Heights School Category:Alumni of the University of Westminster Category:English drummers Category:English rock drummers Category:Pink Floyd members Category:English record producers Category:24 Hours of Le Mans drivers

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name	Pete Townshend
alias	Bijou Drains
birth name	Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend
birth date	May 19, 1945
Birth place	London, England
instrument	Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, keyboards, banjo, tin whistle, mandolin, ukulele, fiddle, accordion, organ, piano, drums
background	solo_singer
genre	Rock, art rock, hard rock, power pop, progressive rock, British beat, jazz
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, musical arranger, author
years active	1962–present
label	Track, Polydor, Atlantic, Atco, Decca, Rykodisc
associated acts	The Who, Deep End, Ronnie Lane, Thunderclap Newman
website	The Who's official webpage
notable instruments	Rickenbacker 330Fender StratocasterGibson SG SpecialGibson Les PaulGretsch 6120Gibson J-200 }}

Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career. His career with The Who spans more than 40 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 1960s and 1970s, and, according to Eddie Vedder, "possibly the greatest live band ever."

Townshend is the primary songwriter for The Who, having written well over 100 songs for the band's 11 studio albums, including concept albums and the rock operas ''Tommy'' and ''Quadrophenia'', plus popular rock and roll radio staples like ''Who's Next'', and dozens more that appeared as non-album singles, bonus tracks on reissues, and tracks on rarities compilations like ''Odds & Sods''. He has also written over 100 songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles and television theme songs. Although known primarily as a guitarist, he also plays other instruments such as keyboards, banjo, accordion, synthesiser, bass guitar and drums, on his own solo albums, several Who albums, and as a guest contributor to a wide array of other artists' recordings. Townshend has never had formal lessons in any of the instruments he plays.

Townshend has also been a contributor and author of newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, essays, books, and scripts, as well as collaborating as a lyricist (and composer) for many other musical acts. Townshend was ranked No. 3 in Dave Marsh's list of Best Guitarists in ''The New Book of Rock Lists'', No. 10 in Gibson.com's list of the top 50 guitarists, and No. 10 again in ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's updated 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Townshend was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Who in 1990.

Early life

Born in Chiswick, London into a musical family (his father Cliff Townshend was a professional saxophonist in The Squadronaires and his mother Betty (née Dennis) was a singer), Townshend exhibited a fascination with music at an early age. In the mid-1950s he was drawn to American rock and roll; his mother recounts that he repeatedly saw the 1956 film ''Rock Around the Clock''. When he was 12, his grandmother gave him his first guitar, which he has described as a "cheap Spanish thing". Townshend's biggest guitar influences include Link Wray, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Hank Marvin of The Shadows.

Townshend's brother Simon (who also became a musician) was born in 1960. In 1961, Townshend enrolled at Ealing Art College, with the intention to become a graphic artist and a year later, he and his school friend from Acton County Grammar School John Entwistle founded their first band, The Confederates, a Dixieland duet featuring Townshend on banjo and Entwistle on horns. From this beginning they moved on to The Detours, a skiffle/rock and roll band fronted by Roger Daltrey, another former schoolmate. With the encouragement and assistance of his old classmate Entwistle, Daltrey invited Townshend to join as well. In early 1964, because another band had the same name, The Detours renamed themselves The Who. Drummer Doug Sandom was replaced by Keith Moon not long afterwards. The band (now comprising Daltrey on lead vocals and harmonica, Townshend on guitar, Entwistle on bass guitar and french horn, and Moon on drums) were soon taken on by a mod publicist named Peter Meaden who convinced them to change their name to The High Numbers to give the band more of a mod feel. After bringing out one failed single ("I'm the Face/Zoot Suit"), they dropped Meaden and were signed on by two new managers, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, who had paired up with the intention of finding new talent and creating a documentary about them. The band anguished over a name that all felt represented the band best, and dropped The High Numbers name, reverting to The Who.

Music career

Breakthrough

After The High Numbers once again became The Who, Townshend wrote several successful singles for the band, including "I Can't Explain", "Pictures of Lily", "Substitute", and "My Generation". Townshend became known for his eccentric stage style during the band's early days, often interrupting concerts with lengthy introductions of songs. He developed a signature move in which he would swing his right arm against the guitar strings in a style reminiscent of the vanes of a windmill. He became one of the first musicians known for smashing guitars on stage and would repeatedly throw them into his amplifiers and speaker cabinets. The first incident of guitar-smashing happened when Townshend accidentally broke the neck of his guitar on the low ceiling of an early concert venue at the Railway Tavern in Harrow. The stage, only about a foot high, nevertheless brought the ceiling to within 7 feet. After smashing the instrument to pieces, he carried on by grabbing another guitar and acting as if the broken guitar had been part of the act. Drummer Keith Moon was delighted; he loved attention and destruction on any level, and smashed his drum kit as well. The press sensationalised the incidents. The on-stage destruction of instruments soon became a regular part of The Who's performances. This was further dramatised with pyrotechnics, an idea which came from Moon, who incorporated it in his exploding drum kits. At a concert in Germany, a police officer walked up to Townshend, pointed his gun at him, and ordered him to stop smashing the guitar. Townshend, always a voluble interview subject, would later relate these antics to German/British artist Gustav Metzger's theories on auto-destructive art, to which he had been exposed at art school. However, on several occasions, he admitted that the destruction was a gimmick that set the band out apart from the others and gave them the publicity edge that they needed to be noticed.

The Who thrived, and continue to thrive, despite the deaths of two of the original members. They are regarded by many rock critics as one of the best live bands from a period of time that stretched from the mid-1960s to the 2000s, the result of a unique combination of high volume, showmanship, a wide variety of rock beats, and a high-energy sound that alternated between tight and free-form. The Who continue to perform critically acclaimed sets in the 21st century, including highly regarded performances at The Concert For New York City in 2001, the 2004 Isle of Wight Festival, Live 8 in 2005 and the 2007 Glastonbury Festival.

Townshend remained the primary songwriter and leader of the group, writing over one hundred songs which appeared on the band's eleven studio albums. Among his most well-known accomplishments are the creation of ''Tommy'', for which the term "rock opera" was coined, and a second pioneering rock opera, ''Quadrophenia''; his dramatic stage persona; his use of guitar feedback as sonic technique; and the introduction of the synthesiser as a rock instrument. Townshend revisited album-length storytelling throughout his career and remains the musician most associated with the rock opera form. Many studio recordings also feature Townshend on piano or keyboards, though keyboard-heavy tracks increasingly featured guest artists in the studio, such as Nicky Hopkins, John Bundrick or Chris Stainton.

Townshend is one of the key figures in the development of feedback in rock guitar. When asked who first used feedback, Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore said, "Pete Townshend was definitely the first. But not being that good a guitarist, he used to just sort of crash chords and let the guitar feedback. He didn't get into twiddling with the dials on the amplifier until much later. He's overrated in England, but at the same time you find a lot of people like Jeff Beck and Hendrix getting credit for things he started. Townshend was the first to break his guitar, and he was the first to do a lot of things. He's very good at his chord scene, too." Similarly, when Jimmy Page was asked about the development of guitar feedback, he said, "I don't know who really did feedback first; it just sort of happened. I don't think anybody consciously nicked it from anybody else. It was just going on. But Pete Townshend obviously was the one, through the music of his group, who made the use of feedback more his style, and so it's related to him. Whereas the other players like Jeff Beck and myself were playing more single note things than chords."

Many rock guitarists have cited Townshend as an influence, among them Slash, Alex Lifeson and Steve Jones.

Solo career

In addition to his work with The Who, Townshend has been sporadically active as a solo recording artist. Between 1969 and 1971 Townshend, along with other devotees to Meher Baba, recorded a trio of albums devoted to his teachings: ''Happy Birthday'', ''I Am'', and ''With Love''. In response to bootlegging of these, he compiled his personal highlights (and "Evolution", a collaboration with Ronnie Lane), and released his first major-label solo title, 1972's ''Who Came First''. It was a moderate success and featured demos of Who songs as well as a showcase of his acoustic guitar talents. He collaborated with The Faces' bassist and fellow Meher Baba devotee Ronnie Lane on a duet album (1977's ''Rough Mix''). Townshend's solo breakthrough, following the death of Who drummer Keith Moon, was the 1980 release ''Empty Glass'', which included a top-10 single, "Let My Love Open the Door". This release was followed in 1982 by ''All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes'', which included the popular radio track "Slit Skirts". While not a huge commercial success, noted music critic Timothy Duggan listed it as "Townshend's most honest and introspective work since Quadrophenia." Through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s Townshend would again experiment with the rock opera and related formats, releasing several story-based albums including ''White City: A Novel'' (1985), ''The Iron Man: A Musical'' (1989), and ''Psychoderelict'' (1993). Townshend also got the chance to play with his hero Hank Marvin for Paul McCartney's "Rockestra" sessions, along with other respected rock musicians such as David Gilmour, John Bonham and Ronnie Lane.

Townshend has also recorded several concert albums, including one featuring a supergroup he assembled called Deep End, who performed just two concerts and a television show session for ''The Tube'', to raise money for a charity supporting drug addicts. In 1993 he and Des McAnuff wrote and directed the Broadway adaptation of the Who album ''Tommy'', as well as a less successful stage musical based on his solo album ''The Iron Man'', based upon the book by Ted Hughes. McAnuff and Townshend later co-produced the animated film ''The Iron Giant'', also based on the Hughes story.

A production described as a Townshend rock-opera and titled ''The Boy Who Heard Music'' debuted as part of Vassar College's Powerhouse Summer Theater program in July 2007.

Recent Who work

From the mid-1990s through the present, Townshend has participated in a series of tours with the surviving members of The Who, including a 2002 tour that continued despite Entwistle's death.

In February 2006, a major world tour by The Who was announced to promote their first new album since 1982. Townshend published a semi-autobiographical story ''The Boy Who Heard Music'' as a serial on a blog beginning in September 2005. The blog closed in October 2006, as noted on Townshend's website. It is now owned by a different user and does not relate to Townshend's work in any way. On 25 February 2006, he announced the issue of a mini-opera inspired by the novella for June 2006. In October 2006 The Who released their first album in 26 years, ''Endless Wire''.

The Who performed at the Super Bowl XLIV half-time show on 7 February 2010, playing a medley of songs that included "Pinball Wizard", "Who Are You", "Baba O'Riley", "See Me Feel Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again".

Hearing loss

Townshend suffers from partial deafness and tinnitus believed to be the result of noise-induced hearing loss; in other words, his extensive exposure to loud music. Some such incidents include a Who concert at the Charlton Athletic Football Club, London, on 31 May 1976 that was listed as the "Loudest Concert Ever" by the Guinness Book of Records, where the volume level was measured at 126 decibels 32 metres from the stage. Townshend has also attributed the start of his hearing loss to Keith Moon's famous exploding drum set during The Who's 1967 appearance on ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour''.

In 1989, Townshend gave the initial funding to allow the formation of the non-profit hearing advocacy group H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers). After the Who performed at half-time at the Super Bowl XLIV, Townshend stated that he is concerned that his tinnitus has grown to such a point that he might be forced to discontinue performing with the band altogether. He told ''Rolling Stone'', "If my hearing is going to be a problem, we’re not delaying shows. We're ''finished''. I can’t really see any way around the issue." Neil Young introduced him to an audiologist who suggested he use an In-ear monitor, and although they cancelled their spring 2010 touring schedule, Townshend used the device at their one remaining London concert on 30 March 2010, to ascertain the feasibility of Townshend continuing to perform with The Who.

In March 2011, Roger Daltrey said in an interview with the BBC that Townshend had recently experienced gradual but severe hearing loss and was now trying to save what remained of his hearing.

"Pete's having terrible trouble with his hearing. He's got really, really bad problems with it...not tinnitus, it's deterioration and he's seriously now worried about actually losing his hearing."

Referring to that, in July 2011, Townshend wrote at his blog: "My hearing is actually better than ever because after a feedback scare at the O2 Indigo in December 2008 I am taking good care of it. I have computer systems in my studio that have helped me do my engineering work on the forthcoming Quadrophenia release. I have had assistance from younger forensic engineers and mastering engineers to help me clean up the high frequencies that are out of my range. The same computer systems work wonderfully well on stage, proving to be perfect for me when The Who performed at the Super Bowl and doing Quadrophenia for TCT at the Royal Albert Hall in 2010. I'm 66, I don't have perfect hearing, and if I listen to loud music or go to gigs I do tend to get tinnitus. DON'T WE ALL????"

Interviews

From The Who's emergence on the British musical landscape, Pete Townshend could always be counted upon for a good interview. By early 1966 he had become the band's spokesman, interviewed separately from the band for the BBC television series ''A Whole Scene Going'' admitting that the band used drugs and that he considered The Beatles' backing tracks "flippin' lousy". In a 1967 interview, however, Townshend complimented one of The Beatles' songs: "I think "Eleanor Rigby" was a very important musical move forward. It certainly inspired me to write and listen to things in that vein." Throughout the 1960s Townshend made regular appearances in the pages of British music magazines, but it was a very long interview he gave to ''Rolling Stone'' in 1968 that sealed his reputation as one of rock's leading intellectuals and theorists.

Townshend gave interview after interview to the newly risen underground press, not only providing them with a star for their covers, but firmly establishing his reputation as a commentator on the rock 'n' roll scene. In addition, he wrote his own articles, starting a regular monthly column in ''Melody Maker'', and contributing to ''Rolling Stone'' with an article on his guru Meher Baba and a review of The Who's album ''Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy''.

Townshend has withdrawn from the press on occasion. On his 30th birthday, Townshend discussed his feelings that The Who were failing to journalist Roy Carr, making unflattering comments on fellow Who member Roger Daltrey and other leading members of the British rock community. Carr printed his remarks in the ''NME'' causing strong friction within The Who and embarrassing Townshend. Feeling betrayed, he stopped interviews with the press for over two years.

Nevertheless, Townshend has maintained close relationships with journalists, and sought them out in 1982 to describe his two-year battle with cocaine and heroin. Some of those press members turned on him in the 1980s as the punk rock revolution led to widespread dismissal of the old guard of rock, Townshend attacked two of them, Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, in the song "Jools And Jim" on his album ''Empty Glass'' after they made some derogatory remarks about Who drummer Keith Moon. Meanwhile several journalists denounced Townshend for what they saw as a betrayal of the idealism about rock music he had espoused in his earlier interviews when The Who participated in a tour sponsored by Schlitz in 1982 and by Miller Brewing in 1989. Townshend's 1993 concept album ''Psychoderelict'' offers a scathing commentary on journalists in the character of Ruth Streeting, who attempts to scandalise the main character, Ray High.

On 25 October 2006, Townshend declined at the last minute to do a scheduled interview with Sirius Satellite Radio star Howard Stern after Stern's co-host Robin Quivers and sidekick Artie Lange made joking references to his 2003 arrest. Stern conducted an interview instead with Roger Daltrey and repeatedly expressed regret about the utterances of his on-air colleagues, stating that they did not reflect his own feelings of respect for Townshend.

Later in 2006, Townshend appeared on the ''Living Legends'' radio show in an exclusive interview with Opal Bonfante. The interview, broadcast worldwide on Radio London, was his first live interview in 15 years. Townshend spoke about his forthcoming UK tour, his online novella and his memories of the old pirate radio stations.

Also in late 2006, Townshend granted an interview with author Mark Wilkerson, which led to Wilkerson's 2008 biography ''Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend''.

In a BBC Radio 4 interview, first broadcast on 27 October 2009, Townshend informed the audience that from the time he was involved in writing the music for the Who's first album, he has been influenced by the works of the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell.

In BBC 6 Music's inaugural John Peel Lecture, Townshend urged Apple to use its power to help new bands instead of "bleeding" artists like a "digital vampire". He also argued against unauthorised file-sharing, saying the internet was "destroying copyright as we know it".

Musical equipment

Throughout his solo career and his career with The Who, Townshend has played (and destroyed) a large variety of guitars – including various Gretsch, Gibson, and Fender models. He has also used Guild, Takamine and Gibson J-200 acoustic models.

In the early days with The Who, Townshend played an Emile Grimshaw SS De Luxe and 6-string and 12-string Rickenbacker semi-hollow electric guitars primarily (particularly the Rose-Morris UK-imported models with special f-holes). However, as instrument-smashing became increasingly integrated into The Who's concert sets, he switched to more durable and resilient (and sometimes cheaper) guitars for smashing, such as the Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster and various Danelectro models. On The Who's famous ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour'' appearance in 1967, Townshend used a Vox Cheetah guitar, which he only used for that performance; and the guitar was smashed to smithereens by Townshend and Moon's drum explosion. In the late 1960s, Townshend began playing Gibson SG models almost exclusively, specifically the Special models. He used this guitar at the Woodstock and Isle of Wight shows in 1969 and 1970, as well as the ''Live at Leeds'' performance in 1970.

By 1970, Gibson changed the design of the SG Special which Townshend had been using previously, and thus he began using other guitars. For much of the 1970s, he used a Gibson Les Paul DeLuxe, some with only two mini-humbucker pick-ups and others modified with a third pick-up in the "middle position" (a DiMarzio Superdistortion / Dual Sound). He can be seen using several of these guitars in the documentary ''The Kids Are Alright'', although in the studio he often played a '59 Gretsch 6120 guitar (given to him by Joe Walsh), most notably on the albums ''Who's Next'' and ''Quadrophenia''.

During the 1980s, Townshend mainly used Fenders, Rickenbackers and Telecaster-style models built for him by Schecter and various other luthiers. Since the late-1980s, Townshend has used the Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster, with Lace Sensor pick-ups, both in the studio and on tour. Some of his Stratocaster guitars feature a Fishman PowerBridge piezo pick-up system to simulate acoustic guitar tones. This piezo system is controlled by an extra volume control behind the guitar's bridge.

During The Who's 1989 Tour Townshend played a Rickenbacker guitar that was ironically smashed accidentally when he tripped over it. Instead of throwing the smashed parts away, Townshend reassembled the pieces as a sculpture. The sculpture was featured at the ''Rock Stars, Cars And Guitars 2'' exhibit during the summer of 2009 at The Henry Ford museum.

There are several Gibson Pete Townshend signature guitars, such as the Pete Townshend SG, the Pete Townshend J-200, and three different Pete Townshend Les Paul Deluxes. The SG was clearly marked as a Pete Townshend limited edition model and came with a special case and certificate of authenticity, signed by Townshend himself. There has also been a Pete Townshend signature Rickenbacker limited edition guitar of the model 1998, which was his main 6-string guitar in the Who's early days. The run featured 250 guitars which were made between July 1987 – March 1988, and according to Rickenbacker CEO John Hall, the entire run sold out before serious advertising could be done.

He also used the Gibson ES-335, one of which he donated to the Hard Rock Cafe. Townshend also used a Gibson EDS-1275 double neck very briefly circa late 1967, and both a Harmony Sovereign H1270 and a Fender Electric XII for the studio sessions for ''Tommy'' for the 12-string guitar parts.

In 2006, Townshend had a pedal board designed by long-time gear guru Pete Cornish. The board apparently is composed with a compressor, an old Boss OD-1 overdrive pedal, as well as a T-Rex Replica delay pedal.

Over the years, Pete Townshend has used many types of amplifiers, including Vox, Fender, Marshall, Hiwatt etc., sticking to using Hiwatt amps for most of four decades. Around the time of ''Who's Next'', he used a tweed Fender Bandmaster amp, which he also used for ''Quadrophenia'' and ''The Who by Numbers''. Since 1989, his rig consisted of four Fender Vibro-King stacks and a Hiwatt head driving two custom made 2x12" Hiwatt/Mesa Boogie speaker cabinets. However, since 2006, he has only three Vibro-King stacks, one of which is a backup.

Townshend figured prominently in the development of what is widely known in rock circles as the "Marshall Stack". It has been recounted by others during the start of popularity of Jim Marshall's guitar amplifiers, that Townshend became a user of these amps.

He also ordered several speaker cabinets that contained eight speakers in a housing standing nearly six feet in height with the top half of the cabinet slanted slightly upward. These became hard to move and were incredibly heavy.

Jim Marshall then cut the massive speaker cabinet into two separate speaker cabinets, at the suggestion of Townshend, with each cabinet containing four 12-inch speakers. One of the cabinets had half of the speaker baffle slanted upwards and Marshall made these two cabinets stackable. The Marshall stack was born, and Townshend used these as well as Hiwatt stacks.

His amplifier rig currently usually consists of four Fender Vibro King amps with extension cabinets.

He has always regarded his instruments as being merely tools of the trade and has, in latter years, determinedly kept his most prized instruments well away from the concert stage. These instruments include a few vintage and reissue Rickenbackers, the Gretsch 6120, an original 1952 Fender Telecaster, Gibson Custom Shop's artist limited edition reissues of Townshend's Les Paul DeLuxe models 1, 3 and 9 as well his signature SG Special reissue.

Townshend also worked with synthesisers that made their debut on ''Who's Next'' that included the EMS VCS3, the ARP Instruments, Inc. ARP 2600, some of which modified a Lowrey TBO Berkshire organ. Current photos of his home studio also show an ARP 2500. Townshend was featured in ARP promotional materials in the early 1970s.

Literary work

Although known for his musical compositions and musicianship, Pete Townshend has been extensively involved in the literary world for more than three decades, writing newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, essays, books, and scripts.

An early example of Townshend's writing came in August 1970 with the first of nine instalments of "The Pete Townshend Page", a monthly column written by Townshend for the British music paper ''Melody Maker''. The column provided Townshend's perspective on an array of subjects, such as the media and the state of U.S. concert halls and public address systems, as well as providing valuable insight into Townshend's mindset during the evolution of his ''Lifehouse'' project.

Townshend also wrote three sizeable essays for ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, the first of which appeared in November 1970. In Love With Meher Baba described Townshend's spiritual leanings. "Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy", a blow-by-blow account of The Who compilation album of the same name, followed in December 1971. The third article, "The Punk Meets the Godmother", appeared in November 1977.

Also in 1977, Townshend founded Eel Pie Publishing, which specialised in children's titles, music books, and several Meher Baba-related publications. A bookstore named Magic Bus (after the popular Who song) was opened in London. ''The Story of Tommy'', a book written by Townshend and his art school friend Richard Barnes (now the Who's official biographer) about the writing of Townshend's 1969 rock opera and the making of the 1975 Ken Russell-directed film, was published by Eel Pie the same year.

In July 1983, Townshend took a position as an acquisitions editor for London publisher Faber and Faber. Notable projects included editing Animals frontman Eric Burdon's autobiography, Charles Shaar Murray's award-winning ''Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop'', Brian Eno and Russell Mills's ''More Dark Than Shark'', and working with Prince Charles on a volume of his collected speeches. Townshend commissioned Dave Rimmer's ''Like Punk Never Happened'', and was commissioning editor for radical playwright Steven Berkoff.

Two years after joining Faber and Faber, Townshend decided to publish a book of his own. ''Horse's Neck'', published in May 1985, was a collection of short stories he’d written between 1979 and 1984, tackling subjects such as childhood, stardom and spirituality. As a result of his position with Faber and Faber, Townshend developed a friendship with the Nobel prize-winning author of ''Lord of the Flies'', Sir William Golding, and became friends with British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. His friendship with Hughes led to Townshend's musical interpretation of Hughes's children's story, ''The Iron Man'', six years later, as ''The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend'', released in 1989.

Townshend has written several scripts spanning the breadth of his career, including numerous drafts of his elusive ''Lifehouse'' project, the last of which, co-written with radio playwright Jeff Young, was published in 1999. In 1978, Townshend wrote a script for ''Fish Shop'', a play commissioned but not completed by London Weekend Television, and in mid-1984 he wrote a script for ''White City: A Novel'' which led to a short film.

In 1989, Townshend began work on a novel entitled ''Ray High & The Glass Household'', a draft of which was later submitted to his editor. While the original novel remains unpublished, elements from this story were used in Townshend's 1993 solo album ''Psychoderelict''. In 1993, Townshend authored another book, ''The Who's Tommy'', a chronicle of the development of the award-winning Broadway version of his rock opera.

The opening of his personal website and his commerce site Eelpie.com, both in 2000, gave Townshend another outlet for literary work. Several of Townshend's essays have been posted online, including "Meher Baba—The Silent Master: My Own Silence" in 2001, and "A ''Different'' Bomb", an indictment of the child pornography industry, the following year.

In September 2005, Townshend began posting a novella online entitled ''The Boy Who Heard Music'' as background for a musical of the same name. He posted a chapter each week until it was completed, and novella was available to read at his website for several months. Like ''Psychoderelict'', it was yet another extrapolation of ''Lifehouse'' and ''Ray High & The Glass Household''.

In 1997 Townshend signed a deal with Little, Brown and Company publishing to write his autobiography, reportedly titled ''Pete Townshend: Who He?'' Townshend's creative vagaries and conceptual machinations have been chronicled by Larry David Smith in his book ''The Minstrel's Dilemma'' (Praeger 1999). After a lengthy delay, Townshend's autobiography is expected to be available in the fall of 2012 from publisher Harper Collins. The book is now titled ''Who I Am''.

Religion

Townshend showed no predilection for religious belief in the first years of The Who's career. By the beginning of 1968, however, Townshend had begun to explore spiritual ideas. In January 1968, The Who recorded his song "Faith in Something Bigger" (''Odds & Sods''). Townshend's art school friend Mike McInnerney gave him a copy of C. B. Purdom's book ''The God-Man'', introducing him to the writings of the Indian "perfect master" Meher Baba, who blended elements of Vedantic, Sufi, and Mystic schools.

Townshend swiftly absorbed all of Baba's writings that he could find; by April 1968, he announced himself Baba's disciple. At about this time, Townshend, who had been searching the past two years for a basis for a rock opera, created a story inspired by the teachings of Baba and other Indian spiritualists that would ultimately become ''Tommy''.

''Tommy'' did more than revitalise The Who's career (which was moderately successful at this point but had reached a plateau); it also marked a renewal of Townshend's songwriting and his spiritual studies infused most of his work from ''Tommy'' forward, including the unfinished Who project ''Lifehouse''. The Who song "Baba O'Riley", written for ''Lifehouse'' and eventually appearing on the album ''Who's Next'', was named for Meher Baba and minimalist composer Terry Riley. His newfound passion was not shared by his bandmates, whose attitude was tolerant, but who were unwilling to become the spokesmen for a particular religion. Few of the thousands of fans who packed stadiums across Europe and the U.S. to see The Who noticed the religious message in the songs: that "Bargain" and the middle section of "Behind Blue Eyes" from ''Who's Next'' and "Listening To You" from ''Tommy'' were all originally written as prayers, that "Drowned" from ''Quadrophenia'' and "Don't Let Go The Coat" from ''Face Dances'' were based on Baba's sayings, that the "who are you, who, who, who, who" chorus from the song "Who Are You" was based on Sufi chants, or that "Let My Love Open The Door" was not a message from a lover but from God.

In interviews Townshend was more open about his beliefs, penning an article on Baba for ''Rolling Stone'' in 1970 and stating that following Baba's teachings, he was opposed to the use of all psychedelic drugs, making him one of the first rock stars with counterculture credibility to turn against their use.

His stardom quickly made him the world's most notable follower of Baba. Having missed out on meeting his guru with Baba's death 31 January 1969 (work on ''Tommy'' kept him from making the pilgrimage), Townshend made several trips to visit Baba's tomb in India as well as becoming a frequent visitor to the Meher Baba Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. At home he recorded and released his most overtly spiritual songs on records assembled, pressed and sold by Baba organisations. When these records became widely bootlegged, Townshend put together a selection of the tracks for release as the solo album ''Who Came First''. One of the songs from that album, "Parvardigar", a Baba prayer set to music by Townshend, would gradually be accepted as a hymn by the Baba movement. In 1976 he opened the Oceanic Centre in London, using it as a haven for English Baba followers and Americans making a pilgrimage to Baba's tomb in Meherabad, India as well as a place for small concerts (one such in 1979 was released on CD in 2001 as ''Pete Townshend & Raphael Rudd—The Oceanic Concerts'') and a repository for films made of Baba.

Townshend became a lower-profile member after 1982, having felt that his former addictions to cocaine and heroin made him a poor candidate for spokesman. Nevertheless, his discipleship continues to the current day.

Personal life

Townshend met Karen Astley (born 12 June 1947, daughter of composer Ted Astley and sister of record producer Jon Astley), while in art school and married her in 1968. The couple separated in 1994 and divorced in 2009. They have three children: Emma (b. 1969), who is a singer/songwriter, Aminta (b. 1971), and Joseph (b. 1990). Townshend currently lives with his long-time partner, musician Rachel Fuller, in The Wick, Richmond, England. He also owns a house in Churt, Surrey, England, and in 2010 purchased a lease on the historic National Trust property Ashdown House in Oxfordshire. According to ''The Sunday Times'' Rich List his assets are worth £40 million as of 2009.

Townshend has two younger brothers by nearly a generation, Paul Townshend (b. 1958) and Simon Townshend, (b. 10 October 1960). Simon is a guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist. Simon initially has had a career as a solo artist, and has performed with other bands, but began to record with The Who in the studio as early as their work on the film version of ''Tommy'', and began to play with Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle on their solo efforts. By 1996, Simon joined The Who on their ''Quadrophenia'' support tour for two years as a backup guitarist and singer. He also returned again after the death of Entwistle as a part of their touring band. Paul played the voice of his brother, Pete, in ''The Simpsons'' episode, "A Tale of Two Springfields" as Pete was unavailable.

Charity work

Pete Townshend has woven a long history of involvement with various charities and other philanthropic efforts throughout his career, both as a solo artist and with The Who. His first solo concert, for example, was a 1974 benefit show which was organised to raise funds for the Camden Square Community Play Center.

The earliest public example of Townshend's involvement with charitable causes was in 1968, when Townshend donated the use of his former Wardour Street apartment to the Meher Baba Association. The following year, the association was moved to another Townshend-owned apartment, the Eccleston Square former residence of wife Karen. Townshend sat on a committee which oversaw the operation and finances of the centre. "The committee sees to it that it is open a couple of days a week, and keeps the bills paid and the library full", he wrote in a 1970 ''Rolling Stone'' article.

In 1969 and 1972 Townshend produced two limited-release albums, ''Happy Birthday'' and ''I Am'', for the London-based Baba association. This led to 1972's ''Who Came First'', a more widespread release, 15 percent of the revenue of which went to the Baba association. A further limited release, ''With Love'', was released in 1976. A limited-edition boxed set of all three limited releases on CD, ''Avatar'', was released in 2000, with all profits going to the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in India, which provided funds to a dispensary, school, hospital and pilgrimage centre.

In July 1976, Townshend opened Meher Baba Oceanic, a London activity centre for Baba followers which featured film dubbing and editing facilities, a cinema and a recording studio. In addition, the centre served as a regular meeting place for Baba followers. Townshend offered very economical (reportedly £1 per night) lodging for American followers who needed an overnight stay on their pilgrimages to India. "For a few years, I had toyed with the idea of opening a London house dedicated to Meher Baba", he wrote in a 1977 ''Rolling Stone'' article. "In the eight years I had followed him, I had donated only coppers to foundations set up around the world to carry out the Master's wishes and decided it was about time I put myself on the line. The Who had set up a strong charitable trust of its own which appeased, to an extent, the feeling I had that Meher Baba would rather have seen me give to the poor than to the establishment of yet another so-called 'spiritual center'." Townshend also embarked on a project dedicated to the collection, restoration and maintenance of Meher Baba-related films. The project was known as MEFA, or Meher Baba European Film Archive.

Children's charities

Townshend has been an active champion of children's charities. The debut of Pete Townshend's stage version of ''Tommy'' took place at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse in July 1992. The show was earmarked as a benefit for the London-based Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation, an organisation which helps children with autism and mental retardation.

Townshend performed at a 1995 benefit organised by Paul Simon at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theatre, for The Children's Health Fund. The following year, Townshend performed at a benefit for the annual Bridge School Benefit, a California facility for children with severe speech and physical impairments with concerts organised by Neil and Pegi Young. In 1997, Townshend established a relationship with Maryville Academy, a Chicago area children's charity. Between 1997 and 2002, Townshend played five benefit shows for Maryville Academy, raising at least $1,600,000. His 1998 album ''A Benefit for Maryville Academy'' was made to support their activities and proceeds from the sales of his release were donated to them.

As a member of The Who, Pete Townshend has also performed a series of concerts, beginning in 2000, benefiting the Teenage Cancer Trust in the UK, raising several million pounds. In 2005, Townshend performed at New York's Gotham Hall for Samsung's Four Seasons of Hope, an annual children's charity fundraiser, and donated a smashed guitar to the Pediatric Epilepsy Project.

On 4 November 2011, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend launched the Daltrey/Townshend Teen and Young Adult Cancer Program at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, to be funded by The Who's charity Who Cares. The launch, followed on 5 November by a fund-raising event, was also attended by Robert Plant and Dave Grohl.

Drug rehabilitation

Townshend has also advocated for drug rehabilitation. In a 1985 radio interview, he said:

The "large clinic" Townshend was referring to was a plan he and drug rehabilitation experimenter Meg Patterson had devised to open a drug treatment facility in London; however, the plan failed to come to fruition. Two early 1979 concerts by The Who raised £20,000 for Patterson's Pharmakon Clinic in Sussex.

Further examples of Townshend's drug rehabilitation activism took place in the form of a 1984 benefit concert, an article he wrote a few days later for Britain's ''Mail On Sunday'' urging better care for the nation's growing number of drug addicts, and the formation of a charitable organisation, Double-O Charities, to raise funds for the causes he’d recently championed. Townshend also personally sold fund-raising anti-heroin T-shirts at a series of UK Bruce Springsteen concerts, and reportedly financed a trip for former Clash drummer Topper Headon to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment. Townshend's 1985–86 band, Deep End, played two benefits at Brixton Academy in 1985 for Double-O Charities.

Amnesty International

In 1979, Townshend donated his services to the human rights organisation Amnesty International when he performed three songs for its benefit show ''The Secret Policeman's Ball'' – performances that were released on record and seen in the film of the show. Townshend's acoustic performances of three of his songs ("Pinball Wizard", "Drowned", and "Won't Get Fooled Again") were subsequently cited as having been the forerunner and inspiration for the "unplugged" phenomenon in the 1990s. Townshend had been invited to perform for Amnesty by Martin Lewis, the producer of ''The Secret Policeman's Ball'' who stated later that Townshend's participation had been the key to his securing the subsequent participation for Amnesty (in the 1981 sequel show) of Sting, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins and Bob Geldof. Other performers inspired to support Amnesty International in future ''Secret Policeman's Ball'' shows and other benefits because of Townshend's early commitment to the organisation include Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, David Gilmour and U2 singer Bono who in 1986 told ''Rolling Stone'' magazine: "I saw ''The Secret Policeman's Ball'' and it became a part of me. It sowed a seed...."

Other

Highlights of Pete Townshend's other public charitable efforts include the following:

A 1972 ''Tommy'' performance which raised nearly £10,000 for the Stars Organization for Spastics charity.

A 1979 Rock Against Racism benefit concert, organised to raise money to pay the legal costs of those arrested in a London area anti-racism demonstration. Townshend helped organise the show, topped the bill, and supplied the event lighting and equipment.

A 1982 Prince's Trust Gala Benefit performance.

Performing with The Who at the 1985 Live Aid concert.

A 2001 benefit show for San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse which raised approximately $100,000.

Organizing an online auction in 2000 to raise funds for Oxfam's emergency services to help those affected by floods in Mozambique and a combination of drought and food shortages in Ethiopia. Among the auctioned items were a selection of gold and platinum awards, letters from celebrities such as Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, and musical instruments (including a smashed Rickenbacker guitar and the guitar on which Townshend composed the Who classic "Behind Blue Eyes"). The centerpiece of the auction, however, was a 1957 Fender Stratocaster which was given to Townshend as a gift by Eric Clapton after Townshend had helped arrange Clapton's 1973 recovery from his own heroin addiction, and comeback show at the Rainbow. The guitar was ultimately purchased by Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, and presented to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Performing with The Who at the 2001 all-star The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden, honouring policemen and emergency personnel killed in the 11 September attacks.

Performing at the Royal Albert Hall in a 2004 Ronnie Lane tribute show which served as a fundraiser for both Lane's family and multiple sclerosis research.

Performing with The Who at the 2005 Live 8 concert.

In 1998, Townshend was named in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the UK Labour Party. He refused to let Michael Moore use "Won't Get Fooled Again" in ''Fahrenheit 9/11'', saying that he watched ''Bowling for Columbine'' and was not convinced.

Performing with The Who in Detroit in 2008, donating all profits to Focus: HOPE and Gleaners Community Food Bank.

Operation Ore investigation and police caution

Townshend was cautioned by the British police in 2003 as part of Operation Ore. Following a news leak that Townshend was among the subjects of the investigation, he publicly stated that on one occasion he had used a credit card to access a website advertising child pornography. Townshend, who had posted essays on his personal website in 2002 as part of his campaign against the widespread availability of child pornography on the internet, claimed that he had entered the site for research purposes and had not downloaded any images. A four-month police investigation, including forensic examination of all of his computers, established that Townshend was not in possession of any illegal downloaded images. The police elected to caution him, stating, "It is not a defence to access these images for research or out of curiosity." In a statement issued by his lawyer, Townshend said, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me."

Discography

Guest appearances

"Because You're Young" with David Bowie on ''Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)'' (1980)

Acoustic guitar on "Ball and Chain" with Elton John on ''Jump Up!'' (1982)

"Lonely at the Top" and "Hard Women" with Mick Jagger on ''She's the Boss'' (1985)

Guitar on "Town of Plenty" with Elton John on ''Reg Strikes Back'' (1988)

Acoustic guitar with Prefab Sprout on "Hey Manhattan!" on ''From Langley Park to Memphis'' (1988)

"Substitute" with The Ramones on ''Acid Eaters'' (1993)

"Joy" and "Gun" with Mick Jagger on ''Goddess in the Doorway'' (2001)

"Slow Burn" with David Bowie on ''Heathen'' (2002)

In 1968 Townshend helped assemble a band called Thunderclap Newman consisting of three musicians he knew. Pianist Andy Newman (an old art school friend), drummer John "Speedy" Keen (who had written "Armenia City in the Sky" for The Who to record for their 1967 album ''The Who Sell Out'') and teenage guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (later to join Wings). Townshend produced the band and played bass on their recordings under the tongue-in-cheek pseudonym "Bijou Drains". Their first recording was the single "Something in the Air", which became a number one hit in the UK and a substantial hit elsewhere in the world. This was the only number one hit in the UK that Townshend performed on (The Who had none.) Following this success, Townshend produced their sole album, ''Hollywood Dream''.

Townshend also produced "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in 1968 that was No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US.

In 1971, Townshend, along with Keith Moon and Ronnie Lane, backed Mike Heron (of the Incredible String Band) on one song "Warm Heart Pastry" from Heron's first solo LP, ''Smiling Men with Bad Reputations''. On the album notes, they are listed as "Tommy and the Bijoux". Also present on the track was John Cale on viola.

In 1984, Townshend contributed lyrics to two songs ("Love on The Air" and "All Lovers are Deranged") on David Gilmour's solo album ''About Face''.

For albums Townshend composed as a member of The Who, see their entry. Not included are albums by other artists on which Townshend played as a session musician. Through much of 2005, Pete Townshend recorded and performed alongside his partner Rachel Fuller, a classically trained pianist and singer-songwriter.

In 2006, Townshend opened a website for implementation of The Lifehouse Method based on his 1971 ''Lifehouse'' concept. This website was in collaboration with composer Lawrence Ball and software developer David Snowden. Applicants at the website could input data to compose a musical "portrait" which the musical team could then develop into larger compositions for a planned concert or series of concerts.

Awards

BRIT Awards 1983 – Life Achievement Award

Tony Award 1993 – Best Original Score (music & lyrics) – ''The Who's Tommy'' (tie)

Grammy Awards 1993 – Best Musical Show Album (as composer and lyricist of ''The Who's Tommy'')

Kennedy Center Honors 2008 Honorary doctorate from University of West London, 2010

Classic Album Award for ''Quadrophenia'' from the Classic Rock Roll of Honour Awards at The Roundhouse, 9 November 2011, London, England

See also

Guitar showmanship

Cliff Townshend

Simon Townshend

References

Further reading

''Horses Neck'' by Pete Townshend Mariner Books 1985, new edition, (21 May 1998) ISBN 0-395-90559-1 ISBN 978-0-395-90559-3

''The Who: Maximum R&B;'' by Pete Townshend and Richard Barnes Plexus Publishing; 5th edition (27 September 2004) ISBN 0-85965-351-X ISBN 978-0-85965-351-0

''Pete Townshend: A Minstrel's Dilemma'' by Larry David Smith Praeger Publishers (30 March 1999) ISBN 0-275-96472-8, ISBN 978-0-275-96472-6

''Who Are You: The Life Of Pete Townshend'' by Mark Ian Wilkerson Omnibus Press; 1st edition (30 November 2008) ISBN 1-84772-243-1 ISBN 978-1-84772-243-0

External links

The Who's official web site

Pete Townshend's commercial Eelpie web site

In Love With Meher Baba (Townshend's 1970 ''Rolling Stone'' article)

video of Townshend's 1996 Fillmore West performance of his song "O Parvardigar"

Cliff and Pete Townshend play jazz, Parkinson show, 1981

Townshend smashes a guitar, 1989

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:English rock musicians Category:English male singers Category:English tenors Category:English guitarists Category:Lead guitarists Category:English rock guitarists Category:English composers Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Tony Award winners Category:English-language singers Category:English songwriters Category:English rock singers Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Deaf musicians Category:Followers of Meher Baba Category:The Who members Category:Townshend family Category:British rhythm and blues boom musicians Category:People from Chiswick

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name	Kate Bush
background	solo_singer
birth name	Catherine Bush
transformice name	Katebush
birth date	July 30, 1958
birth place	Bexleyheath, Southeast London, England
instrument	Vocals, piano, keyboards, bass guitar, guitar, violin
genre	Art rock, progressive rock, alternative rock, baroque pop
occupation	Musician, vocalist, songwriter, record producer
years active	1975–present
label	EMI Records (1975–present)Columbia Records (U.S.) (1989–2009)Legacy Recordings (2010–present) Fish People (division of EMI) 2011–
website
notable instruments	Fairlight CMI }}

Catherine "Kate" Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.

In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written song. She has since released ten albums, three of which topped the UK Albums Chart, and has had 25 UK Top 40 hit singles including the Top 10 hits "Wuthering Heights", "Running Up that Hill", "King of the Mountain", "Babooshka", "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and "Don't Give Up".

In 1987, she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, and in 2002, her songwriting ability was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. During the course of her career, she has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards. After her 1979 tour — the only concert tour of her career — Bush released the 1980 album ''Never for Ever'', which made her the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at Number 1. She is also the first (and to date only) female artist to have Top 5 albums in the UK charts in 5 successive decades.

Early life

Bush was born in Bexleyheath, Southeast London, to English physician Robert Bush and his Irish wife, Hannah Daly. She was raised in their farmhouse in East Wickham with her older brothers, John and Paddy. Bush came from an artistic background: her mother was a former Irish folk dancer, her father was an accomplished pianist, Paddy worked as a musical instrument maker and John was a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local folk music scene.

John was a karateka at Goldsmiths College karate club and Kate also trained there, becoming known as "Ee-ee" because of her squeaky kiai. One of the instructors, Dave Hazard, later noted in his autobiography that her dance moves seemed to owe something to karate.

Her family's musical influence inspired the young Kate to teach herself to play the piano at the age of 11. She also played the organ in a barn behind her parents' house and studied the violin. She soon began writing her own tunes and eventually added lyrics to them.

Career

Bush attended St Joseph's Convent Grammar School (later the St Joseph's campus of Bexley College) and a Catholic girls' school on Woolwich Road in Abbey Wood, London, in the mid-1970s. During this time her family produced a demo tape with over 50 of her compositions, which was turned down by record labels. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd received the demo from Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of Gilmour and the Bush family. Impressed with what he heard, Gilmour helped the sixteen-year-old Bush get a more professional-sounding demo tape recorded that would be more saleable to the record companies. The tape was produced by Gilmour's friend Andrew Powell, who would go on to produce Bush's first two albums, and sound engineer Geoff Emerick. The tape was sent to EMI executive Terry Slater. Slater was impressed by the tape and signed her. The British record industry was reaching a point of stagnation. Progressive rock was very popular and visually oriented rock performers were growing in popularity, thus record labels looking for the next big thing were considering experimental acts.

Bush was put on retainer for two years by Bob Mercer, managing director of EMI group-repertoire division. According to Mercer he felt Bush's material was good enough to be released but felt that if the album failed it would be demoralizing and if it was successful Bush was too young to handle it. For the first two years of her contract, Bush spent more time on school work than making an album. She left school after doing her mock A-levels and having gained ten GCE O-Level qualifications. In 2005, Bush stated in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 2 that she believed EMI signed her before she was ready to make an album so that no other record company could offer her a contract. After the contract signing, EMI forwarded her a sizeable advance which she used to enrol in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, a former teacher of David Bowie, and mime training with Adam Darius.

Bush also wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, a few of which today can be found on bootleg recordings and are known as the ''Phoenix Recordings''. From March to August 1977, she fronted the KT Bush Band at public houses around London – specifically at the Rose of Lee public house (now Dirty South) in Lewisham. The other three band members were Del Palmer (bass), Brian Bath (guitar), and Vic King (drums). She began recording her first album in August 1977, although two tracks had been recorded during the summer of 1975.

''The Kick Inside'' and ''Lionheart''

As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band. However, for her debut album ''The Kick Inside'' (1978) she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her bandmates back on board. Her brother Paddy played the harmonica and mandolin, unlike on later albums where he would play more exotic instruments such as the balalaika and didgeridoo. Stuart Elliott played some of the drums and would become her main percussionist on subsequent albums.

Bush released ''The Kick Inside'' when she was 19 years old, but some of the songs had been written when she was as young as 13. EMI originally wanted the more rock-oriented track "James and the Cold Gun" to be her debut single, but Bush insisted that it should be "Wuthering Heights". Even at this early stage of her career, she had gained a reputation for her determination to have a say in decisions affecting her work. "Wuthering Heights" topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. Bush became the first woman to reach number one in the UK charts with a self-penned song. A second single, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", reached number six in the UK charts. It also made it onto the American Billboard Hot 100 where it reached number 85 in early 1979. Bob Mercer felt that Bush's relative lack of success in the United States compared to the rest of the world was due to her music being a poor fit for American radio formats and that there were no outlets for the visual presentation central to Bush's appeal. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" went on to win her an Ivor Novello Award in 1979 for Outstanding British Lyric.

EMI capitalised on Bush's appearance by promoting the album with a poster of her in a tight pink top that emphasised her breasts. In an interview with ''NME'' magazine in 1982, Bush criticised the marketing technique, stating: "People weren't even generally aware that I wrote my own songs or played the piano. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist in a female body." In late 1978, EMI persuaded Bush to quickly record a follow-up album, ''Lionheart'', to take advantage of the success of ''The Kick Inside''. Bush has often expressed dissatisfaction with ''Lionheart'', feeling that she had needed more time to get it right. The album was produced by Andrew Powell, assisted by Bush. While it had spawned several hit singles, most notably "Wow", it did not garner the same reception as her first album, reaching number six in the UK album charts.

Bush was displeased with being rushed into making the second album. She set up her own publishing company, Kate Bush Music, and her own management company, Novercia, to maintain complete control over her work. Bush herself, along with members of her family, comprised the company's board of directors. Following the album's release, she was required by EMI to undertake heavy promotional work and an exhausting tour, the only one of her career. The tour, named The Tour of Life, began in April 1979 and lasted six weeks. This live show was co-devised and performed on stage with magician Simon Drake. Typical of her determination to have control, she was involved in every aspect of the show's production, choreography, set design, and staff recruitment. The shows were noted for her dancing, complex lighting and her 17 costume changes per show. Because of her intention to dance as she sang, her sound engineers used a wire coat hanger and a radio microphone to fashion the first headset mic to be used by a rock performer since the Swedish group Spotnicks used a very primitive version in the early 1960s.

''Never for Ever'' and ''The Dreaming''

Released in September 1980, ''Never for Ever'' saw Bush's second foray into production, co-producing with Jon Kelly. Her first time as a producer was on her ''Live On Stage'' EP, released after her tour the previous year. The first two albums had resulted in a definitive sound evident in every track, with orchestral arrangements supporting the live band sound. The range of styles on ''Never for Ever'' is much more diverse, veering from the straightforward rocker "Violin" to the wistful waltz of hit single "Army Dreamers". ''Never for Ever'' was the first Kate Bush album to feature synthesisers and drum machines, in particular the Fairlight CMI, to which she was introduced when providing backing vocals on Peter Gabriel's eponymous third album in early 1980. It was her first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female British artist to achieve that status, and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at the top. The top-selling single from the album was "Babooshka", which reached number five in the UK singles chart. In November 1980, she released the Christmas single "December Will Be Magic Again", which reached number 29 in the UK charts.

September 1982 saw the release of ''The Dreaming'', the first album Bush produced by herself. It was also a major departure for Bush, being initially composed on the Fairlight CMI rather than piano, with songs extensively revised and rebuilt in the studio, rather than merely arranged there. With her new-found freedom, she experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a diverse blend of musical styles and is known for its near-exhaustive use of the Fairlight CMI. ''The Dreaming'' received a mixed critical reception in the UK at first. Many were baffled by the dense soundscapes Bush had created, and some critics accused the album of being over-produced. In a 1993 interview with ''Q'', Bush stated: "That was my 'She's gone mad' album." However, the album was hailed as a "masterpiece" and a "musical ''tour-de-force''" by critics in America, and the album became her first to enter the US charts, albeit only reaching number 157. The album entered the UK album chart at number three, but is to date her lowest-selling album, garnering only a gold disc.

"Sat in Your Lap" was the first single from the album to be released. It pre-dated the album by over a year and peaked at number 11 in the UK. The album's title track, featuring the talents of Rolf Harris and Percy Edwards, stalled at number 48, while the third single, "There Goes a Tenner", failed to chart, despite promotion from EMI and Bush. The track "Suspended in Gaffa" was released as a single in Europe, but not in the UK.

Continuing in her storytelling tradition, Bush looked far outside her own personal experience for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films for "There Goes a Tenner", a documentary about the war in Vietnam for "Pull Out the Pin", and the plight of Indigenous Australians for "The Dreaming". "Houdini" is about the magician's death, and "Get Out Of My House" was inspired by Stephen King's novel ''The Shining''.

''Hounds of Love'' and ''The Whole Story''

''Hounds of Love'' was released in 1985. Because of the high cost of hiring studio space for her previous album, she built a private studio near her home, where she could work at her own pace. ''Hounds of Love'' ultimately topped the charts in the UK, knocking Madonna's ''Like a Virgin'' from the number one position.

The album takes advantage of the vinyl format with two very different sides. The first side, ''Hounds of Love'', contains five "accessible" pop songs, including the four singles "Running Up that Hill", "Cloudbusting", "Hounds of Love", and "The Big Sky". In August 1985, ''NME'' featured Bush in a "Where Are They Now" article. "Running Up that Hill" reached number 3 in the UK charts and also re-introduced Bush to American listeners, climbing to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1985. The second side of the album, ''The Ninth Wave'', takes its name from Tennyson's poem, "Idylls of the King", about the legendary King Arthur's reign, and is one continuous piece of music. The album earned Bush nominations for Best Female Solo Artist, Best Album, Best Single, and Best Producer at the 1986 BRIT Awards. In the same year, Bush and Peter Gabriel had a UK top ten hit with "Don't Give Up" (Dolly Parton, Gabriel's original choice, turned his offer down), and EMI released her "greatest hits" album, ''The Whole Story''. Bush provided a new lead vocal and refreshed backing track on "Wuthering Heights," and recorded a new single, "Experiment IV," for inclusion on the compilation. At the 1987 BRIT Awards, Bush won the award for Best Female Solo Artist.

''The Sensual World'' and ''The Red Shoes''

The increasingly personal tone of her writing continued on 1989's ''The Sensual World'', with songs about unexpressed and unrequited love ("Love and Anger" and "Never Be Mine", respectively), and the pressures on modern relationships ("Between a Man and a Woman"). One of the quirkiest tracks on the album, touched by Bush's black humour, is "Heads We're Dancing", about a woman who dances all night with a charming stranger only to discover in the morning that he is Adolf Hitler. The title track drew its inspiration from James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses''.

''The Sensual World'' went on to become her biggest-selling album in the US, receiving an RIAA Gold certification four years after its release for 500,000 copies sold. In the United Kingdom album charts, it reached the number two position.

In 1990, the boxed-set ''This Woman's Work'' was released and included all of her albums with their original cover art, as well as two discs of all single B sides recorded from 1978–1990. In 1991, Bush released a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man", which reached number 12 in the UK singles chart, and went as high as number two in Australia, and in 2007, was voted the greatest cover ever by readers of ''The Observer'' newspaper. She recorded "Candle in the Wind", as the single's b-side.

''The Red Shoes'' was released in November 1993. ''The Red Shoes'' features more high-profile cameo appearances than Bush's previous efforts, including contributions from composer and conductor Michael Kamen. Comedian Lenny Henry, Prince, Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Trevor Whittaker, and Jeff Beck also contributed to the album. Both "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes" featured contributions from Trio Bulgarka, a trio of women who sang on several tracks, including "You're The One" and "Rocket's Tail." The album gave Bush her highest chart position in the US, reaching number 28, although the only song from the album to make the US singles chart was "Rubberband Girl", which peaked at number 88 in January 1994. In the UK, the album reached number two, and the singles "Rubberband Girl", "The Red Shoes", "Moments of Pleasure", and "And So Is Love" all reached the top 30. That same year, the short film ''The Line, the Cross & the Curve'', written and directed by Bush, and starring Bush and English actress Miranda Richardson, used six of the songs on the album.

The initial plan had been to take the songs out on the road (though a new tour did not transpire), so Bush deliberately aimed for a live-band feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums and that would be difficult to recreate on stage. The result alienated some of her fan base, who enjoyed the intricacy of her earlier compositions, but others found a new complexity in the lyrics and the emotions they expressed.

This was a troubled time for Bush. She had suffered a series of bereavements, including the loss of guitarist Alan Murphy, who had started working with her on The Tour Of Life in 1979, and her mother Hannah, to whom she was exceptionally close. Many of the people she lost are honoured in the ballad "Moments of Pleasure". However, Bush's mother was still alive when "Moments of Pleasure" was written and recorded. Bush describes playing the song to her mother, who thought the line where she is quoted by Bush as saying "Every old sock meets an old shoe", was hilarious and "couldn't stop laughing".

''Aerial''

After the release of ''The Red Shoes'', Bush dropped out of the public eye for many years, although her name occasionally cropped up in the media with rumours of a new album release. Bush had originally intended to take one year off but despite working on material 12 years would pass before her next album release. The press often viewed her as an eccentric recluse, sometimes drawing a comparison with Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens's ''Great Expectations''. In reality, she was trying to give her young son a normal childhood, and needed a quiet place for her creative process to function. In 1998, Bush had given birth to Albert, known as "Bertie", fathered by her guitarist and now-husband Danny McIntosh. After living for many years on Court Road, Eltham, southeast London, the couple and their son moved away from the city and currently have two homes: a £2.5 million house in East Portlemouth on the Devon coast and a mansion on an islet on the Kennet and Avon canal at Sulhamstead in West Berkshire.

Bush's eighth studio album, ''Aerial'', was released on double CD and vinyl in November 2005. The first single from the album was "King of the Mountain", which was played for the first time on BBC Radio 2 on 21 September 2005.

As on ''Hounds of Love'' (1985), the album is divided into two sections, each with its own theme and mood. The first disc, subtitled ''A Sea of Honey'', features a set of unrelated themed songs, including "King of the Mountain"; "Bertie", a Renaissance-style ode to her son; and "Joanni", based on the story of Joan of Arc. In the song "π", Bush sings the number Pi to 115 decimal places. The second disc, subtitled ''A Sky of Honey'', features one continuous piece of music describing the experience of being outdoors after waking at dawn, moving through afternoon, dusk, to night, then back to the following dawn of single summer's day. All the pieces in this suite refer or allude to sky and sea in their lyrical content. Bush mixed her voice with cooing wood pigeons to repeat the phrases "A sea of honey, a sky of honey," and "You're full of beauty" throughout the piece, and uses recordings of actual birdsong throughout. ''A Sky of Honey'' features Rolf Harris playing the didgeridoo on one track, and providing vocals on "The Painter's Link". Other artists making guest appearances on the album include Peter Erskine, Eberhard Weber, Lol Creme, and Gary Brooker. Two tracks feature string arrangements by Michael Kamen, performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra. A CD release of the single "King of the Mountain" included a cover of "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye.

"King of the Mountain" entered the UK Downloads Chart at number six on 17 October 2005, and by 30 October it had become Bush's third-highest-charting single ever in the UK, peaking at number four on the full chart. ''Aerial'' entered the UK albums chart at number 3, and the US chart at number 48. Bush herself carried out relatively little publicity for the album, only conducting a handful of magazine and radio interviews. ''Aerial'' earned Bush two nominations at the 2006 BRIT Awards, for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Album.

In late 2007, Bush composed and recorded a new song, "Lyra", for the soundtrack to the fantasy film ''The Golden Compass''.

''Director's Cut'' and ''50 Words for Snow''

On 16 May 2011, Bush released the album ''Director's Cut''. The album, which Bush has described as an entirely new project rather than a collection of mere remixes, contains 11 tracks of substantially reworked material from her earlier albums ''The Sensual World'' and ''The Red Shoes'', all of which have been recorded using analogue, rather than digital, equipment to create "a warmer sound". All the tracks have new lead vocals, new drums, and radically reworked instrumentation. Some of them have been transposed to a lower key to accommodate her lowering voice. Three of the songs, including "This Woman's Work", have been completely re-recorded, with lyrics often changed in places. The album has been met with a wide range of reviews with most reviewers a bit confused about the concept of the album itself, while responding with varying degrees of enthusiasm about its revamped tracks. Of particular note is the warmer, more intimate tone of the songs and the richer, more mature sound of her voice. This is the first album on her new label, Fish People, a division of EMI Records, with whom she's had a relationship since she started recording. In addition to the album ''Director's Cut'' in both its single CD form and in a box-set with ''The Sensual World'' and the analog re-mastered ''The Red Shoes'', Fish People will be releasing re-mastered editions of ''The Hounds of Love'' and ''The Dreaming''. The album debuted at number 2 on the United Kingdom chart.

The song "The Sensual World" has been renamed "Flower of the Mountain" and contains a passage of Molly Bloom's famous soliloquy from James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses''. Bush said, "Originally when I wrote the song "The Sensual World", I had used text from the end of Ulysses. When I asked for permission to use the text I was refused, which was disappointing. I then wrote my own lyrics for the song, although I felt that the original idea had been more interesting. Well, I'm not James Joyce am I? When I came to work on this project I thought I would ask for permission again and this time they said yes."

The first single released from the album was "Deeper Understanding" and contains a new chorus featuring computerised vocals from Bush's son, Albert. A video for the song, directed by Bush, has been released through her channel on YouTube. It features Robbie Coltrane as a man consumed by his relationship with his computer (voiced by Bush's son). Frances Barber plays the man's wife, and Noel Fielding also appears.

Bush's next studio album, ''50 Words for Snow'', was released on 21 November 2011. The album contains seven new songs "set against a backdrop of falling snow," with a total running time of 65 minutes. A radio edit of the first single, "Wild Man," was played on BBC Radio 2's 'Ken Bruce' show on 10 October. and was released as a digital download on 11 October. The album will be distributed in the United States by Anti-Records.

On 14 November 2011, NPR played ''50 Words for Snow'' in its entirety for the first time. Australia's ABC Radio National declared ''50 Words for Snow'' album of the week of 12 November 2011.

The album's songs are built around Bush's quietly jazzy piano and Steve Gadd's drums, and utilise both sung and spoken word vocals in what Classic Rock's Stephen Dalton calls "a...supple and experimental affair, with a comtemporary chamber pop sound grounded in crisp piano, minimal percussion and light-touch electronics...billowing jazz-rock soundscapes, interwoven with fragmentary narratives delivered in a range of voices from shrill to Laurie Anderson-style cooing." Bassist Danny Thompson appears on the album, which also features performances by Elton John and actor Stephen Fry.

On the first track, "Snowflake," in a song written specifically to use his still high choir-boy voice, Bush's son Albert (Bertie) sings the role of a falling snowflake in a song expressing the hope of a noisy world soon being hushed by snowfall. "Snowflake" drifts into "Lake Tahoe", where choral singer Stefan Roberts and Bush sing about a rarely seen ghost: a woman who appears in a Victorian gown to call to her dog, Snowflake. Bush explained to fellow musician Jamie Cullum in an interview on Dutch Radio that she wished to explore using high male voices in contrast to her own, deeper, voice. "Misty" is about a snowman lover who melts away after a night of passion, while "Wild Man" tells the story of a group of climbers in the Himalayas who, upon finding evidence of a nearby Yeti, erase all traces of it to protect it from discovery. Elton John and Bush as eternally divided lovers trade vocals on "Snowed In at Wheeler Street", while Stephen Fry recites the "50 Words for Snow". The quiet "Among Angels" finishes the album.

''50 Words For Snow'' received general acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 26 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". She was nominated for a Brit Award in the "Best Female Artist" category, and the album was nominated in 2012 in the Best Album category of both the South Bank and Ivor Novello Awards. In both awards, the other two nominees were Adele for 21 and PJ Harvey for Let England Shake.

Musical style

Bush's music is eclectic, using various styles of music even within the same album. Her songs have spanned genres as diverse as rock, pop, alternative and art rock. Even in her earliest works where the piano was a primary instrument, she wove together many diverse influences, melding classical music, rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources, and this has continued throughout her career.

In an interview with ''Melody Maker'' magazine in 1977, she revealed that male artists had more influence on her work than females, stating: "Every female you see at a piano is either Lynsey De Paul, or Carole King. And most male music—not all of it but the good stuff—really lays it on you. It really puts you against the wall and that's what I like to do. I'd like my music to intrude. Not many females succeed with that."

The experimental nature of her music has led it to be described as a later, more technological, and more accessible manifestation of the British progressive rock movement. Southern England was the home to the most influential and successful acts of the progressive rock movement and, like other artists in this genre, Bush rejects the classic American style of making pop music, which was adopted by most UK pop artists. Bush's vocals contain elements of British, Anglo-Irish and most prominently (southern) English accents and, in its utilization of musical instruments from many periods and cultures, her music has differed from American pop norms. Elements of Bush's lyrics tend to be more unusual and less clichéd than American-style pop lyrics, often employing historical or literary references and avoiding autobiographical lyrics. She considers herself a storyteller who embodies the character singing the song and strenuously rejects efforts by others to insist that her songs are autobiographical.

Reviewers have used the term "surreal" to describe her music. Many of her songs have a melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorisation. It has been observed that even the more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy, and even the most sorrowful pieces have elements of vitality struggling against all that would oppress them.

Bush is not afraid to tackle sensitive and taboo subjects. "The Kick Inside" is based on a traditional English folk song (''The Ballad of Lucy Wan'') about an incestuous pregnancy and a resulting suicide. "Kashka from Baghdad" is a song about a homosexual male couple; ''Out'' magazine listed two of her albums in their Top 100 Greatest Gayest albums list. "The Infant Kiss" is a song about a haunted, unstable woman's almost paedophile infatuation with a young boy in her care (inspired by Jack Clayton's film ''The Innocents'' (1961), which had been based on Henry James's famous novella ''The Turn of the Screw''); and "Breathing" explores the results of nuclear fallout from the perspective of an unborn child in the womb. Her lyrics have referenced a wide array of subject matter, often relatively obscure, as in "Cloudbusting", which was inspired by Peter Reich's autobiography, "Book of Dreams", about his relationship with his father, Wilhelm Reich, and G. I. Gurdjieff in "Them Heavy People", while "Deeper Understanding", from ''The Sensual World'', portrays a person who stays indoors, obsessively talking to a computer and shunning human contact.

Comedy is also a big influence on her and is a significant component of her work. She has cited Woody Allen, ''Monty Python'', ''Fawlty Towers'', and ''The Young Ones'' as particular favourites. Horror movies are another interest of Bush's and have influenced the gothic nature of several of her songs, such as "Hounds of Love", inspired by the 1957 horror movie ''Night of the Demon''. Her songs have occasionally combined comedy and horror to form dark humour, such as murder by poisoning in "Coffee Homeground", an alcoholic mother in "Ran Tan Waltz" and the upbeat "The Wedding List", a song inspired by François Truffaut's 1967 film of Cornell Woolrich's ''The Bride Wore Black'' about the death of a groom and the bride's subsequent revenge against the killer.

Length of time between albums and perception of perfectionism

The length of time in between album releases has led to rumours in the media concerning her health or appearance. In the past, stories of weight gain or mental instability have been disproved by Bush's periodic reappearance. In 2011 Bush told BBC Radio 4 that the amount of time between album releases is extremely stressful noting: "It's very frustrating the albums take as long as they do...I wish there weren't such big gaps between them." In the same interview Bush denied she was a perfectionist in the studio, saying: "I think it's important that things are flawed...That's what makes a piece of art interesting sometimes – the bit that's wrong or the mistake you've made that's led onto an idea you wouldn't have had otherwise," and reiterated her prioritisation of her family life.

Live performances

Bush's only tour took place 2 April – 13 May 1979, after which she gave only the occasional live performance. Several reasons have been suggested as to why she abandoned touring, among them her reputed need to be in total control of the final product, which is incompatible with live stage performance, a rumour of a crippling fear of flying, and the suggestion that the death of 21-year-old Bill Duffield severely affected her. Duffield, her lighting director, was killed in an accident during her 2 April 1979 concert at Poole Arts Centre. Bush held a benefit concert on 12 May 1979, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley at London's Hammersmith Odeon for his family. Duffield would be honoured in two later songs: "Blow Away" on ''Never for Ever'' and "Moments of Pleasure" on ''The Red Shoes''. Bush explained in a BBC Radio 2 interview with Mark Radcliffe that she actually enjoyed the tour but was consumed with producing her subsequent records. A BBC film crew followed the preperation for the tour which was shown on the BBC Nationwide program as a 30 minute special.

During the same period as her tour, she made numerous television appearances around the world, including ''Top of the Pops'' in the United Kingdom, ''Bios Bahnhof'' in Germany, and ''Saturday Night Live'' in the United States (with Paul Shaffer on piano). On 28 December 1979, BBC TV aired the ''Kate Bush Christmas Special''. It was recorded in October 1979 at the BBC Studios in Birmingham, England; choreography by Anthony Van Laast. As well as playing songs from her first two albums, she played "December Will Be Magic Again", and "Violin" from her forthcoming album, ''Never for Ever''. Peter Gabriel made a guest appearance to play "Here Comes the Flood", and a duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day" with Bush.

After the Tour of Life Bush desired to make two more albums before touring again. At that point she got involved with production techniques and sound experimentation that took up a lot of time and prevented her from touring. Later on there were a couple of instances where she came close to touring again.

In 1982, Bush participated in the first benefit concert in aid of The Prince's Trust alongside artists such as Madness, Midge Ure, Phil Collins, Mick Karn and Pete Townshend. On 25 April 1986 Bush performed live for British charity event Comic Relief, singing "Do Bears... ?", a humorous duet with Rowan Atkinson, and a rendition of "Breathing". Later in the year on 28 June 1986, she made a guest appearance to duet with Peter Gabriel on "Don't Give Up" at Earl's Court, London as part of his "So" tour. In March 1987, Bush sang "Running Up that Hill" at The Secret Policeman's Third Ball.

On 17 January 2002, Bush appeared with her long-time champion, David Gilmour, singing the part of the doctor in "Comfortably Numb" at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

In 2011 Bush told Classic Rock Magazine "I do hope that some time I get a chance to do some shows. Maybe not a tour, but something"

Video projects

In 1979 Bush's one live show, The Tour of Life, was recorded for the BBC and for release on VHS as ''Kate Bush Live at Hammersmith Odeon''.

Bush has appeared in innovative music videos designed to accompany her singles releases. Among the best known are those for "Running Up that Hill", "Babooshka", "Breathing", "Wuthering Heights", and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and "Cloudbusting", featuring actor Donald Sutherland, who made time during the filming of another project to take part in the video. EMI has released collections of her videos, including ''The Single File'', ''Hair of the Hound'', ''The Whole Story'', a career video overview released in conjunction with the 1986 compilation album of the same title, and ''The Sensual World''.

In 1993, she directed and starred in the short film, ''The Line, the Cross & the Curve'', a musical co-starring Miranda Richardson, featuring music from Bush's album ''The Red Shoes'', which was inspired by the classic movie of the same name. It was released on VHS in the UK in 1994 and also received a small number of cinema screenings around the world. In recent interviews, Bush has said that she considers it a failure, and stated in 2001: "I'm very pleased with four minutes of it, but I'm very disappointed with the rest." In a 2005 interview, she described the film as "A load of bollocks."

In 1994, Bush provided the music used in a series of psychedelic-themed television commercials for the soft drink Fruitopia that appeared in the United States. The same company aired the ads in the United Kingdom, but the British version featured Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins instead of Bush.

In late 2006, a DVD documentary titled ''Kate Bush Under Review'' was released by Sexy Intellectual, which included archival interviews with Bush, along with interviews with a selection of music historians and journalists (including Phil Sutcliffe, Nigel Williamson, and Morris Pert). The DVD also includes clips from several of Bush's music videos.

On 2 December 2008, the DVD collection of the fourth season of ''Saturday Night Live'', including her performances, was released. A three DVD set of The Secret Policeman's Balls benefit concerts that includes Bush's performance was released on 27 January 2009..

Bush has released four short videos for the album ''50 Words for Snow''. One is an advertisement for the album. Two stop-motion "Animation Segments" were posted on the Kate Bush Official website and YouTube, one to accompany a 2 minute 25 second section of "Misty", called "Mistraldespair", the other to accompany a 2 minute 33 second section of "Wild Man". "Mistraldespair" was directed by Bush and animated by Gary Pureton, while the "Wild Man" segment was created by Finn and Patrick at Brandt Animation. On 24 January 2012, a third piece called "Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe", was premiered on her website and on YouTube. Running at 5:01, the piece is a black & white shadow puppet animation. Directed by Bush and photographed by award-winning British cinematographer Roger Pratt, the shadow puppets were designed by Robert Allsopp. Bush stated that "Eider Falls at Lake Tahoe" is intended to be a "self contained piece" separate from the song "Lake Tahoe".

Movie projects

In 1990, Bush starred in the black comedy film ''Les Dogs'', produced by ''The Comic Strip'' for BBC television. Aired on 8 March 1990, Bush plays the bride Angela at a wedding set in a post-apocalyptic version of Britain. While Bush's is a silent presence in a wedding dress throughout most of the film, she does have several lines of dialogue with Peter Richardson in two dream sequences. In another ''Comic Strip Presents'' film, ''GLC'', she produced the theme song "Ken", which includes a vocal performance by Bush. The song was written about Ken Livingstone, the leader of the Greater London Council, who would later be elected as mayor of London and at the time was working with musicians to help the Labour Party garner the youth vote.

She also produced all the incidental music, which is synthesiser based. Bush wrote and performed the song "The Magician", in a fairground-like arrangement, for Menahem Golan's 1979 film ''The Magician of Lublin''. In 1985, Bush contributed a darkly melancholic version of the Ary Barroso song "Brazil" to the soundtrack of the Terry Gilliam film ''Brazil''. The track was scored and arranged by Michael Kamen. In 1986, she wrote and recorded "Be Kind To My Mistakes" for the Nicolas Roeg film ''Castaway''. An edited version of this track was used as the B side to her 1989 single "This Woman's Work". In 1988, the song "This Woman's Work" was featured in the John Hughes film ''She's Having a Baby'', and a slightly remixed version appeared on Bush's album ''The Sensual World''. The song has since appeared on numerous television shows, and in 2005 reached number eight on the UK download chart after featuring in a British television advertisement for the charity NSPCC.

In 1999, Bush wrote and recorded a song for the Disney film ''Dinosaur'', but the track was ultimately not included on the soundtrack. According to the winter 1999 issue of ''HomeGround'', a Bush fanzine, it was scrapped when Disney asked her to rewrite the song and she refused. Also in 1999, Bush's song "The Sensual World" was featured prominently in Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan's film "Felicia's Journey". "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" is on the soundtrack for the 2007 British romantic comedy film ''Starter for 10''.

Collaborations

Bush provided vocals on two of Peter Gabriel's albums, including the hits "Games Without Frontiers" and "Don't Give Up", as well as "No Self-Control". Gabriel appeared on Bush's 1979 television special, where they sang a duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day". She has sung on two Roy Harper tracks, "You", on his 1979 album, "The Unknown Soldier", and "Once", the title track of his 1990 album. She has also sung on the title song of the 1986 Big Country album ''The Seer'', the Midge Ure song "Sister and Brother" from his 1988 album ''Answers to Nothing'', Go West's 1987 single "The King Is Dead" and two songs with Prince – "Why Should I Love You?", from her 1993 album ''The Red Shoes'', and in 1996, the song "My Computer" from Prince's album ''Emancipation''. In 1987, she sang a verse on the charity single "Let It Be" by Ferry Aid. She sang a line on the charity single "Spirit of the Forest" by Spirit of the Forest in 1989. 1990 saw Kate producing, for the only time in her career, one song for another artist, Alan Stivell's "Kimiad", on his album ''Again''. Stivell had appeared on ''The Sensual World''. In 1995, Bush covered George Gershwin's "The Man I Love" for the tribute album ''The Glory of Gershwin''. In 1996, Bush contributed a version of "Mná na hÉireann" (Irish for Women of Ireland) for the Anglo-Irish folk-rock compilation project ''Common Ground: The Voices of Modern Irish Music''. Bush had to sing the song in Irish, which she learned to do phonetically. Artists who have contributed to Bush's own albums include Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Nigel Kennedy, Gary Brooker, and Prince. Bush provided backing vocals for a song that was recorded during the 1990s titled ''Wouldn't Change a Thing'' by Lionel Azulay, the drummer with the original band that was later to become the KT Bush Band. The song, which was engineered and produced by Del Palmer, is available for download and will be on Azulay’s upcoming CD.

Bush declined a request by Erasure to produce one of their albums because "she didn’t feel that that was her area".

In 2010, Bush provided vocals for Rolf Harris's cover of the traditional Irish song "She Moves Through the Fair". Harris, who described the collaboration the "best thing I’ve done," is unsure of how to release the track.

Influence

From the 1980s onward, it has become almost standard for individualistic female singer-songwriters to be compared to Bush by the media. She has been noted as an influence on female artists such as Tori Amos, Björk, Alison Goldfrapp, Nerina Pallot, KT Tunstall, Happy Rhodes, Lily Allen, PJ Harvey, Little Boots, and Florence Welch, in addition to acts as diverse as Muse, OutKast, and Bloc Party. Paula Cole named Bush as an influence while accepting the Best New Artist Grammy in 1996. Ariel Pink wrote a tribute song for her titled "For Kate I Wait" on the album ''The Doldrums''. The trip-hop artist Tricky has said about Bush, "I don't believe in God, but if I did, her music would be my bible". Punk rocker John Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, declared her work to be "beauty beyond belief", "fucking brilliant" and labelled her "a true original". Rotten once wrote a song for her, titled "Bird in Hand" (about exploitation of parrots) that Bush rejected. Rotten theorised that Bush thought the song contained insulting references aimed at her. Marc Almond chose "Moments of Pleasure" as one of his 10 favourite songs on Radio 2 in June 2007, saying that the song had a profound influence on him when he was combating drug addiction in New York in the 1990s. In November 2006, the singer Rufus Wainwright named Bush as one of his top ten gay icons. Outside music, Bush has been an inspiration to several fashion designers, most notably Hussein Chalayan.

Many artists around the world have recorded cover versions of Bush songs, including Charlotte Church, The Futureheads (who had a UK top ten hit with a cover of "Hounds of Love"), Placebo (whose cover of "Running Up that Hill" has featured in many TV series and films), Pat Benatar, Faith and the Muse, Hayley Westenra, Jane Birkin, Natalie Cole, Ra Ra Riot, Maxwell, The Church and Nada Surf. The British dance act Utah Saints sampled a line from "Cloudbusting" for their single, "Something Good". Artists such as Tori Amos, Nolwenn Leroy, Patrick Wolf and Happy Rhodes (whose upper vocal range has been compared with the one of Kate Bush) have covered her songs in live performances. Coldplay said their track "Speed of Sound" was originally an attempt to re-create "Running Up that Hill". Suede front-man Brett Anderson has stated that "Wuthering Heights" was the first single he ever bought and mentioned "And Dream of Sheep" in Suede's song "These are the Sad Songs". British folk singer Jim Moray also references "And Dream of Sheep" in his self-penned track "Longing for Lucy". Progressive death metal act Novembre also covered "Cloudbusting" on their album ''Novembrine Waltz''. In 2009, John Forté released a hip hop version of "Running Up that Hill".

In 2010, composer and vocalist Theo Bleckmann released an album of Kate Bush covers, titled ''Hello Earth! - The Music of Kate Bush'' which includes his interpretation of fourteen Bush classics, which he also performs live around the world. In an interview with Hungarian online music magazine ''Kortár's Blog'', Bleckmann explained his choice to explore Bush's work: "The music of Kate Bush has been a saviour throughout my teenage years when I lived in a small town in Germany...To come back to her music fresh...and to discover more depths and beauty in it, became an overwhelming confirmation of the endurance of great music regardless of genre and time."

Personal life

Kate Bush is married to guitarist Dan McIntosh and the couple have a son, Albert.

Discography

''The Kick Inside'' (1978)

''Lionheart'' (1978)

''Never for Ever'' (1980)

''The Dreaming'' (1982)

''Hounds of Love'' (1985)

''The Sensual World'' (1989)

''The Red Shoes'' (1993)

''Aerial'' (2005)

''Director's Cut'' (2011)

''50 Words for Snow'' (2011)

See also

List of Kate Bush awards

References

Further reading

Vermorel, Fred and Judy, ''Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia'' (1980) Target Books

Vermorel, Fred, ''The Secret History of Kate Bush and the Strange Art of Pop'' (1983) Omnibus Press ISBN 0.7119.0152.X

Cann, Kevin and Mayes, Sean, ''Kate Bush: A Visual Documentary'' (1988) Omnibus Press ISBN 0-7119-1039-1

Muskens, Helena; Racké, Quirine, ''Come Back Kate''. Snow White Films. Involved TV Channel: NPS. 2007

'I'm not some weirdo recluse' (''The Guardian'', 28 October 2005)

This Bush's mission finally gets accomplished (''National Post'', 22 December 2005)

Two Musicians who have worked with Bush describe her working style and non work personality

The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kate Bush, 2nd Edition, published by Collector's Guide Publishing. A complete guide to everything Kate Bush. Includes albums, CDs, DVDs, books and other collectibles. It's complete up to Aerial.

Withers, Debroah ''Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory ''. Hammeron Press, 1 March 2010. ISBN 0-9564507-0-9.

Thompson, Graeme ''Kate Bush: Under the Ivy''. Omnibus Press, 1 May 2010 ISBN 1-84772-930-4

Gracey, James '''It's Coming For Me Through The Trees' – The Influence of Horror Cinema on the Music of Kate Bush'' Behind the Couch, 18 August 2010

External links

Official website

Category:English pop singers Category:English singer-songwriters Category:English female singers Category:English pianists Category:English record producers Category:English vegetarians Category:Female rock singers Category:Brit Award winners Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:English people of Irish descent Category:People from Bexleyheath Category:People from South Hams (district) Category:People from Sulhamstead Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Art rock Category:Singers with a four octave vocal range Category:English sopranos

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name	Douglas Adams
birth date	March 11, 1952
birth place	Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
height	6 ft 5''
death date	May 11, 2001
death place	Santa Barbara, California, United States
resting place	Highgate Cemetery, London, England
alma mater	St John's College, Cambridge
religion	None (Atheist)
occupation	Writer
genre	Science fiction, comedy, satire
influences	Monty Python, Robert Sheckley, Kurt Vonnegut, P. G. Wodehouse, Richard Dawkins
influenced	Richard Dawkins, Eoin Colfer, Neil Gaiman
website	http://douglasadams.com/
religion	None (Atheist) }}

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.

Adams also wrote ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987) and ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988), and co-wrote ''The Meaning of Liff'' (1983), ''Last Chance to See'' (1990), and three stories for the television series ''Doctor Who''. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as ''The Salmon of Doubt'' in 2002.

Adams became known as an advocate for environmental and conservation causes, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, and the Apple Macintosh. He was a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book, ''The God Delusion'' (2006), to Adams, writing on his death that, "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."

Early life

Adams was born on 11 March 1952 to Janet (née Donovan) and Christopher Douglas Adams in Cambridge, England. The following year Watson and Crick famously first modelled DNA in the city, leading Adams to later quip he was DNA in Cambridge months earlier. The family moved to East London a few months after his birth where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan, and their mother moved to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex, run by his maternal grandparents.

Adams's father married Mary Judith Stewart (born Judith Robertson) in July 1960, a marriage that produced a half-sister, Heather; his mother's 1964 remarriage to veterinarian Ron Thrift provided two more half-siblings, Jane and James Thrift.

Education

Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School, an independent school whose alumni include Robin Day, Jack Straw, Noel Edmonds, and David Irving. Griff Rhys Jones was a year below him, and he was in the same class as Stuckist artist Charles Thomson. He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. His form master, Frank Halford, said of him: "Hundreds of boys have passed through the school but Douglas Adams really stood out from the crowd—literally. He was unnecessarily tall and in his short trousers he looked a trifle self-conscious. "The form-master wouldn't say 'Meet under the clock tower,' or 'Meet under the war memorial'," he joked, "but 'Meet under Adams'." Yet it was his ability to write first-class stories that really made him shine." Adams was six feet tall (1.83 m) by age 12 and finally stopped growing at 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m): He became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing, something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block.

Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in ''The Brentwoodian'' in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine ''Broadsheet'', edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, who later became a character in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide''. He also designed the cover of one issue of the ''Broadsheet'', and had a letter and short story published nationally in ''The Eagle'', the boys' comic, in 1965. On the strength of a bravura essay on religious poetry that discussed The Beatles and William Blake, he was awarded a place at St John's College, Cambridge to read English, going up in 1971, though in fact the reason he applied to Cambridge was to join the Footlights, an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for some of the most notable comic talent in England. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith, forming a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams," but through sheer doggedness managed to become a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work—he recalled having completed three essays in three years—he graduated in 1974 with a B.A. in English literature.

Career

Writing

After leaving university Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the ''Footlights Revue'' appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of the Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of ''Monty Python'' for a sketch called "Patient Abuse". He is one of only two people outside the original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes). The sketch plays on the idea of mind-boggling paper work in an emergency, a joke later incorporated into the Vogons' obsession with paperwork. Adams also contributed to a sketch on the album for ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail''.

Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of ''Monty Python's Flying Circus''. At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never actually gets started. At the beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a "pepperpot" outfit and loads a missile on to a cart driven by Terry Jones, who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including ''Out of the Trees''.

At this point Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to the current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil. Anecdotes about the job included that the family had once ordered one of everything from a hotel's menu, tried all the dishes, and sent out for hamburgers. Another story had to do with a prostitute sent to the floor Adams was guarding one evening. They acknowledged each other as she entered, and an hour later, when she left, she is said to have remarked, "At least you can read while you're on the job."

During this time Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976 his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed, to good review, ''Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close'' at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. But by Christmas work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard and a low confidence would become a feature of Adams's life; "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [..] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".

Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for ''The Burkiss Way'' in 1977 and ''The News Huddlines''. He also wrote, again with Graham Chapman, the 20 February 1977 episode of ''Doctor on the Go'', a sequel to the ''Doctor in the House'' television comedy series. After the first radio series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on ''Week Ending'' and a pantomime called ''Black Cinderella Two Goes East''. He left the position after six months to become the script editor for ''Doctor Who''.

In 1979 Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of ''Doctor Snuggles'': "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes seven and twelve). John Lloyd was also co-author of two episodes from the original ''Hitchhiker'' radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as ''The Meaning of Liff'' and ''The Deeper Meaning of Liff''. Lloyd and Adams also collaborated on an SF movie comedy project based on ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', which would have starred John Cleese as the UN Secretary General, and had a race of aliens beating humans in athletic competitions, but the humans winning in all of the "absurd" record categories. The latter never proceeded past a treatment.

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' was a concept for a science-fiction comedy radio series pitched by Adams and radio producer Simon Brett to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Adams came up with an outline for a pilot episode, as well as a few other stories (reprinted in Neil Gaiman's book ''Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion'') that could potentially be used in the series. According to Adams, the idea for the title ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, gazing at the stars, though he joked that the BBC would instead claim it was Spain "probably because it's easier to spell". He had been wandering the countryside while carrying a book called the ''Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe'' when he ran into a town where everyone was either "deaf" and "dumb" or only spoke languages he could not understand. After wandering around and drinking for a while, he went to sleep in the middle of a field and was inspired by his inability to communicate with the townspeople. He later said that due to his constantly retelling this story of inspiration, he no longer had any memory of the moment of inspiration itself, and only remembered his retelling of that moment.

Despite the original outline, Adams was said to make up the stories as he wrote. He turned to John Lloyd for help with the final two episodes of the first series. Lloyd contributed bits from an unpublished science fiction book of his own, called ''GiGax''. Very little of Lloyd's material survived in later adaptations of ''Hitchhiker's'', such as the novels and the TV series. The TV series itself was based on the first six radio episodes, but sections contributed by Lloyd were largely re-written.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first radio series weekly in the UK in March and April 1978. Following the success of the first series, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. A second series of five episodes was broadcast one per night, during the week of 21–25 January 1980.

While working on the radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as ''The Pirate Planet'') Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that only got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that ''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' was completed. He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992.

The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game, and a photo-illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured a 42 Puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of the first four ''Hitchhiker's'' novels (the paperback for the fifth re-used the artwork from the hardback edition).

In 1980 Adams also began attempts to turn the first ''Hitchhiker's'' novel into a movie, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with a number of Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year, 1981, the radio series became the basis for a BBC television mini-series broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the movie project started with Disney, which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay finally got a posthumous re-write by Karey Kirkpatrick, was green-lit in September 2003, and the resulting movie was released in 2005.

Radio producer Dirk Maggs had consulted with Adams, first in 1993, and later in 1997 and 2000 about creating a third radio series, based on the third novel in the ''Hitchhiker's'' series. They also vaguely discussed the possibilities of radio adaptations of the final two novels in the five-book "trilogy". As with the movie, this project was only realised after Adams's death. The third series, ''The Tertiary Phase'', was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and was subsequently released on audio CD. With the aid of a recording of his reading of ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' and editing, Adams can be heard playing the part of Agrajag posthumously. ''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' and ''Mostly Harmless'' made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled ''The Quandary Phase'' and ''The Quintessential Phase'') and these were broadcast in May and June 2005, and also subsequently released on Audio CD. The last episode in the last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) concluded with, "The very final episode of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author."

More recently, the film makers at Smoov Filmz adapted the anecdote that Arthur Dent relates about biscuits in ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'' into a short film called "Cookies". Adams also discussed the real-life incident that inspired the anecdote in a 2001 speech, reprinted in his posthumous collection ''The Salmon of Doubt''. He also told the story on the radio programme ''It Makes Me Laugh'' on 19 July 1981.

''Dirk Gently'' series

In between Adams's first trip to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine in 1985, and their series of travels that formed the basis for the radio series and non-fiction book ''Last Chance to See'', Adams wrote two other novels with a new cast of characters. ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' was first published in 1987, and was described by its author as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics."

A sequel novel, ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'', was published a year later. This was an entirely original work, Adams's first since ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.'' After the book tour, Adams set off on his round-the-world excursion which supplied him with the material for ''Last Chance to See''.

''Doctor Who''

Adams sent the script for the ''HHGG'' pilot radio programme to the ''Doctor Who'' production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write ''The Pirate Planet'' (see below). He had also previously attempted to submit a potential movie script, called "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen," which later became his novel ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (which in turn became the third ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three ''Doctor Who'' serials starring Tom Baker as the Doctor:

''The Pirate Planet'' (the second serial in the "Key To Time" arc, in Season 16)

''City of Death'' (with producer Graham Williams, from an original storyline by writer David Fisher. It was transmitted under the pseudonym "David Agnew")

''Shada'' (only partially filmed and not broadcast due to industrial disputes)

The episodes authored by Adams are some of the few that have not been novelised as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them, and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay.

Adams was also known to allow in-jokes from ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' to appear in the ''Doctor Who'' stories he wrote and other stories on which he served as Script Editor. Subsequent writers have also inserted ''Hitchhiker's'' references, even as recently as 2007. Conversely, at least one reference to ''Doctor Who'' was worked into a ''Hitchhiker's'' novel. In ''Life, the Universe and Everything'', two characters travel in time and land on the pitch at Lord's Cricket Ground. The reaction of the radio commentators to their sudden appearance is very similar to the reactions of commentators in a scene in the eighth episode of the 1965–66 story ''The Daleks' Master Plan'', which has the Doctor's TARDIS materialise on the pitch at Lord's.

Elements of ''Shada'' and ''City of Death'' were reused in Adams's later novel ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'', in particular the character of Professor Chronotis. Big Finish Productions eventually remade ''Shada'' as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005.

Adams is credited with introducing a fan and later friend of his, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, to Dawkins's future wife, Lalla Ward, who had played the part of Romana in Doctor Who. Dawkins confirmed this in his eulogy of Adams.

When he was at school he wrote and performed a play called ''Doctor Which''.

Music

Adams played the guitar left-handed and had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars when he died in 2001 (having received his first guitar in 1964). He also studied piano in the 1960s with the same teacher as Paul Wickens, the pianist who plays in Paul McCartney's band (and composed the music for the 2004–2005 editions of the ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' radio series). The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Procol Harum all had important influence on Adams's work.

Pink Floyd

Adams included a direct reference to Pink Floyd in the original radio version of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', in which he describes the main characters surveying the landscape of an alien planet while Marvin, their android companion, hums Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". This was cut out of the CD version. Adams also compared the various noises that the kakapo makes to "Pink Floyd studio out-takes" in his nonfiction book on endangered species, ''Last Chance to See''.

Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and, on the occasion of Adams's 42nd birthday (the number 42 having special significance, being the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything and also Adams's age when his daughter Polly was born), he was invited to make a guest appearance at Pink Floyd's 28 October 1994 concert at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, ''The Division Bell'', by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks, namely "High Hopes". Gilmour also performed at Adams's memorial service following his death in 2001, and what would have been Adams' 60th birthday party in 2012.

Procol Harum

Douglas Adams was a friend of Gary Brooker, the lead singer, pianist and songwriter of the progressive rock band Procol Harum. Adams is known to have invited Brooker to one of the many parties that Adams held at his house. On one such occasion Gary Brooker performed the full (4 verse) version of his hit song "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Brooker also performed at Adams's memorial service.

Adams also appeared on stage with Brooker to perform "In Held Twas in I" at Redhill when the band's lyricist Keith Reid was not available. On several other occasions he had been known to introduce Procol Harum at their gigs.

Adams also let it be known that while writing he would listen to music, and this would occasionally influence his work. On one occasion the title track from the Procol Harum album ''Grand Hotel'' was playing when... }}

Computer games and projects

Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of ''HHGG'' together with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in a week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game ''Labyrinth''. Later he was also involved in creating ''Bureaucracy'' (also by Infocom, but not based on any book; Adams wrote it as a parody of events in his own life). Adams was also responsible for the computer game ''Starship Titanic'', which was published in 1998 by Simon and Schuster. Terry Jones wrote the accompanying book, entitled ''Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic'', since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, an experimental attempt at making ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' a reality, and at harnessing the collective brainpower of the internet community.

In 1990 Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme ''Hyperland'' which featured Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the "Assistants" used in several versions of Microsoft Office, derived from their failed "Bob" program), and interviews with Ted Nelson, which was essentially about the use of hypertext. Although Adams did not ''invent'' hypertext, he was an early adopter and advocate of it. This was the same year that Tim Berners-Lee used the idea of hypertext in his HTML.

Personal beliefs and activism

Atheism and views on religion

Adams described himself as a "radical atheist", adding ''radical'' for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this made things easier, but most importantly it conveyed the fact that he really meant it. "I am convinced that there is not a god," he said. Despite this, he remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I’ve thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing."

The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins in ''The God Delusion'' uses Adams's influence throughout to exemplify arguments for non-belief; Dawkins jokingly states that Adams is "possibly [my] only convert" to atheism. The book is dedicated to Adams, quoting him, "Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Environmental activism

Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of a number of endangered species. This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series ''Last Chance to See'', in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the Kakapo and Baiji, and the publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992 this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audio book, e-book and picture slide show.

Adams and Mark Carwardine contributed the 'Meeting a Gorilla' passage from ''Last Chance to See'' to the book ''The Great Ape Project''. This book, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer launched a wider-scale project in 1993, which calls for the extension of moral equality to include all great apes, human and non-human.

In 1994 he participated in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro while wearing a rhino suit for the British charity organisation ''Save the Rhino''. Many different people participated in the same climb and took turns wearing the rhino suit; Adams wore the suit while travelling to the mountain before the climb proper began. About £100,000 were raised through that event, benefiting schools in Kenya and a Black Rhinoceros preservation programme in Tanzania. Adams was also an active supporter of the ''Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund''. Since 2003, ''Save the Rhino'' has held an annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture around the time of his birthday to raise money for environmental campaigns. The lectures in the series are:

2003 Richard Dawkins – ''Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science''

2004 Robert Swan – ''Mission Antarctica''

2005 Mark Carwardine – ''Last Chance to See... Just a bit more''

2006 Robert Winston – ''Is the Human an Endangered Species?''

2007 Richard Leakey – ''Wildlife Management in East Africa – Is there a future?''

2008 Steven Pinker – ''The Stuff of Thought, Language as a Window into Human Nature''

2009 Benedict Allen – ''Unbreakable''

2010 Marcus du Sautoy – ''42: the answer to life, the universe and prime numbers''

2011 Brian Cox – ''The Universe and Why We Should Explore It''

Technology

Adams was a serious fan of technology. Though he did not buy his first word processor until 1982, he had considered one as early as 1979. He was quoted as saying that until 1982, he had difficulties with "the impenetrable barrier of jargon. Words were flying backwards and forwards without concepts riding on their backs." In 1982 his first purchase was a 'Nexus'. In 1983, when he and Jane Belson went out to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow. Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot, then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000. In ''Last Chance to See'' Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88, which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the Northern White Rhinoceros.

Adams's posthumously published work, ''The Salmon of Doubt'', features multiple articles by him on the subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in ''MacUser'' magazine, and in ''The Independent on Sunday'' newspaper. In these Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET, and that his love affair with the Apple Macintosh first began after seeing one at Infocom's headquarters in Massachusetts in 1983.

As he wrote himself:

Adams was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in Europe (the second being Stephen Fry – though some accounts differ on this, saying Fry bought his Mac first. Fry himself claims he was second to Adams). Adams was also an "Apple Master", one of several celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (other Apple Masters included John Cleese and Gregory Hines). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video was available on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams even installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His very last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. He said it was ''"awesome..."'', which was also the last word he wrote on his site. Adams can also be seen in the ''Omnibus'' tribute included with the Region One/NTSC DVD release of the TV adaptation of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' using Mac OS X on his PowerBook G3.

Adams used e-mail extensively from the technology's infancy, adopting a very early version of e-mail to correspond with Steve Meretzky during the pair's collaboration on Infocom's version of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another e-mail address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Many of his posts are now archived through Google. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up a message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering. In his keynote speech, he shared his vision of technology and how it should contribute in everyday – and every man's – life.

Personal life

Adams moved to Upper Street, Islington, in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace in Islington in the late 1980s.

In the early 1980s Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson, who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' to Emerson. In 1981 Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard, a contemporary of Adams's at Brentwood School, and later editor of ''The Times''. Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He [Adams] lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983 while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of ''Hitchhiker's''. When the deal fell through, they moved to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and an aborted engagement, they married on 25 November 1991. Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999 the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Jane died on 7 September 2011.

Death

Adams died of a heart attack on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California. He had unknowingly suffered a gradual narrowing of the coronary arteries, which led at that moment to a myocardial infarction and a fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Adams had been due to deliver the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College on 13 May. His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara, California. His remains were subsequently cremated and the ashes placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002.

A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London. This became the first church service of any kind broadcast live on the web by the BBC. Video clips of the service are still available on the BBC's website for download.

One of his last public appearances was a talk given at the University of California, Santa Barbara, ''Parrots, the universe and everything'', recorded days before his death. A full transcript of the talk is also available.

In May 2002 ''The Salmon of Doubt'' was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry (in the UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the U.S. edition), and Terry Jones (in the U.S. paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his long-awaited but unfinished novel, ''The Salmon of Doubt'', which was originally intended to become a new Dirk Gently novel, but might have later become the sixth ''Hitchhiker'' novel.

Other events after Adams's death included a webcast production of ''Shada'', allowing the complete story to be told, radio dramatisations of the final three books in the ''Hitchhiker's'' series, and the completion of the film adaptation of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. The film, released in 2005, posthumously credits Adams as a producer, and several art design elements – most notably a head-shaped planet seen near the end of the film – incorporated Adams's features.

A 12-part radio series based on the Dirk Gently novels was announced in 2007, with annual transmissions starting in October of that year.

BBC Radio 4 also commissioned a third Dirk Gently radio series based on the incomplete chapters of ''The Salmon of Doubt'', and written by Kim Fuller; however, this has now been dropped in favour of a BBC TV series based on the two completed novels. A sixth ''Hitchhiker'' novel, ''And Another Thing...'', by ''Artemis Fowl'' author Eoin Colfer, was released on 12 October 2009 (the 30th anniversary of the first book), published with the full support of Adams's estate. A BBC Radio 4 ''Book at Bedtime'' adaptation and an audio book soon followed.

In 2011, over 3000 people took part in a public vote to choose the subjects of People's Plaques in Islington. As a result, it was decided to erect a plaque in Adams's honour, on a date yet to be announced. Adams received 489 votes.

Works

''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' Episode 45, ''Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party'' (1972)

''The Private Life of Genghis Khan'' (1975)

''The Pirate Planet'', a Doctor Who serial first broadcast in 1978

''Dr Snuggles'', contributed to a childrens TV series (1979)

''City of Death'', a Doctor Who serial, cowritten with Graham Williams, based on a story by David Fisher, first broadcast October 1979

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979)

''Shada'' (1979–1980), a Doctor Who serial

''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' (1980)

''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (1982)

''The Meaning of Liff'' (1983, with John Lloyd)

''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' (1984)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)'' (1984, with Steve Meretzky)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts'' (1985, with Geoffrey Perkins)

''Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (short story)'' (1986)

''A Christmas Fairly Story'' (1986, with Terry Jones), and

''Supplement to The Meaning of Liff'' (1986, with John Lloyd and Stephen Fry), both part of

* ''The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book'' (1986, edited with Peter Fincham)

''Bureaucracy (computer game)'' (1987)

''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987)

''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988)

''Hyperland'' (TV documentary) (1990)

''The Deeper Meaning of Liff'' (1990, with John Lloyd)

''Last Chance to See'' (1990, with Mark Carwardine)

''Mostly Harmless'' (1992)

''The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1994)

''Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic'' (1997), written by Terry Jones, based on an idea by Adams

''Starship Titanic'' (computer game) (1998)

''h2g2'' (internet project) (1999)

''The Internet: The Last Battleground of the 20th century'' (radio series) (2000)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future'' (radio series) (2001) final project for BBC Radio 4 before his death

''Parrots, the universe and everything'' (2001)

''The Salmon of Doubt'' (2002), unfinished novel manuscript (11 chapters), short stories, essays, and interviews (also available as an audiobook, read by Simon Jones)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)'' (2005)

Works about

Articles

Herbert, R. (1980). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Book Review). Library Journal, 105(16), 1882.

Adams, J., & Brown, R. (1981). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Book Review). School Library Journal, 27(5), 74.

Nickerson, S. L. (1982). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book). Library Journal, 107(4), 476.

Nickerson, S. L. (1982). Life, the Universe, and Everything (Book). Library Journal, 107(18), 2007.

Morner, C. (1982). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book Review). School Library Journal, 28(8), 87.

Morner, C. (1983). Life, the Universe and Everything (Book Review). School Library Journal, 29(6), 93.

Shorb, B. (1985). So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Book). School Library Journal, 31(6), 90.

The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul (Book). (1989). Atlantic (02769077), 263(4), 99.

Hoffert, B., & Quinn, J. (1990). Last Chance To See (Book). Library Journal, 115(16), 77.

Reed, S. S., & Cook, I. I. (1991). Dances with kakapos. People, 35(19), 79.

Last Chance to See (Book). (1991). Science News, 139(8), 126.

Field, M. M., & Steinberg, S. S. (1991). Douglas Adams. Publishers Weekly, 238(6), 62.

Dieter, W. (1991). Last Chance to See (Book). Smithsonian, 22(3), 140.

Dykhuis, R. (1991). Last Chance To See (Book). Library Journal, 116(1), 140.

Beatty, J. (1991). Good Show (Book). Atlantic (02769077), 267(3), 131.

A guide to the future. (1992). Maclean's, 106(44), 51.

Zinsser, J. (1993). Audio reviews: Fiction. Publishers Weekly, 240(9), 24.

Taylor, B., & Annichiarico, M. (1993). Audio reviews. Library Journal, 118(2), 132.

Good reads. (1995). NetGuide, 2(4), 109.

Stone, B. (1998). The unsinkable starship. Newsweek, 131(15), 78.

Gaslin, G. (2001). Galaxy Quest. Entertainment Weekly, (599), 79.

So long, and thanks for all the fish. (2001). Economist, 359(8222), 79.

Geier, T., & Raftery, B. M. (2001). Legacy. Entertainment Weekly, (597), 11.

Passages. (2001). Maclean's, 114(21), 13.

Don't panic! Douglas Adams to keynote Embedded show. (2001). Embedded Systems Programming, 14(3), 10.

Ehrenman, G. (2001). World Wide Weird. InternetWeek, (862), 15.

Zaleski, J. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Publishers Weekly, 249(15), 43.

Mort, J. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Booklist, 98(16), 1386.

Lewis, D. L. (2002). Last Time Round The Galaxy. Quadrant Magazine, 46(9), 84.

Burns, A. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Library Journal, 127(15), 111.

Burns, A., & Rhodes, B. (2002). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book). Library Journal, 127(19), 118.

Kaveney, R. (2002). A cheerful whale. TLS, (5173), 23.

Pearl, N., & Welch, R. (2003). The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Book). Library Journal, 128(11), 124.

Preying on composite materials. (2003). R&D; Magazine, 45(6), 44.

Webb, N. (2003). The Berkeley Hotel hostage. Bookseller, (5069), 25.

The author who toured the universe. (2003). Bookseller, (5060), 35.

Osmond, A. (2005). Only human. Sight & Sound, 15(5), 12-15.

Culture vulture. (2005). Times Educational Supplement, (4640), 19.

Maughan, S. (2005). Audio Bestsellers/Fiction. Publishers Weekly, 252(30), 17.

Hitchhiker At The Science Museum. (2005). In Britain, 14(10), 9.

Rea, A. (2005). The Adams asteroids. New Scientist, 185(2488), 31.

Most Improbable Adventure. (2005). Popular Mechanics, 182(5), 32.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: The Tertiary Phase. (2005). Publishers Weekly, 252(14), 21.

Bartelt, K. R. (2005). Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams. Library Journal, 130(4), 86.

Larsen, D. (2005). I was a teenage android. New Zealand Listener, 198(3390), 37-38.

Tanner, J. C. (2005). Simplicity: it's hard. Telecom Asia, 16(6), 6.

Nielsen Bookscan Charts. (2005). Bookseller, (5175), 18-21.

Buena Vista launches regional site to push Hitchhiker's movie. (2005). New Media Age, 9.

Shynola bring Beckland to life. (2005). Creative Review, 25(3), 24-26.

Carwardine, M. (2007, September 15). The baiji: So long and thanks for all the fish. New Scientist. pp. 50–53.

Czarniawska, B. (2008). Accounting and gender across times and places: An excursion into fiction. Accounting, Organizations & Society, 33(1), 33-47.

Pope, M. (2008). Life, the Universe, Religion and Science. Issues, (82), 31-34.

Bearne, S. (2008). BBC builds site to trail Last Chance To See TV series. New Media Age, 08.

Arrow to reissue Adams. (2008). Bookseller, (5352), 14.

Page, B. (2008). Colfer is new Hitchhiker. Bookseller, (5350), 7.

I've got a perfect puzzle for you. (2009). Bookseller, (5404), 42.

Mostly Harmless…. (2009). Bookseller, (5374), 46.

Penguin and PanMac hitch a ride together. (2009). Bookseller, (5373), 6.

Adams, Douglas. Britannica Biographies [serial online]. October 2010;:1

Douglas (Noël) Adams (1952–2001). Hutchinson's Biography Database [serial online]. July 2011;:1

My life in books. (2011). Times Educational Supplement, (4940), 27.

See also

Towel Day is celebrated by Douglas Adams's fans annually on 25 May

Notes

References

Adams, Douglas (1998). Is there an Artificial God?, speech at ''Digital Biota 2'', Cambridge, England, September 1998.

Adams, Douglas (2002). ''The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time'', Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-76657-1

Dawkins, Richard (2001). Lament for Douglas Adams, ''The Guardian'', 14 May 2001.

Dawkins, Richard (2003). "Eulogy for Douglas Adams," in ''A devil's chaplain: reflections on hope, lies, science, and love''. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Felch, Laura (2004). Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaiman, May 2004

Ray, Mohit K (2007). ''Atlantic Companion to Literature in English'', Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. ISBN 81-269-0832-7

Simpson, M. J. (2003). ''Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams'', Justin, Charles and Co. ISBN 1-932112-17-0

Webb, Nick (2005a). ''Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams''. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-47650-6

Webb, Nick (2005b). "Adams, Douglas Noël (1952–2001)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, January 2005, accessed 25 October 2005.

Further reading

Adams's official web site, established by him, and still operated by The Digital Village

Adams's .mac homepage

Douglas Adams Quotes

Douglas Adams speech at Digital Biota 2 (1998) (The audio of the speech)

Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.

Douglas Adams & his Computer article about his Mac IIfx

BBC2 "Omnibus" tribute to Adams, presented by Kirsty Wark, 4 August 2001

Mueller, Rick and Greengrass, Joel (2002).''Life, The Universe and Douglas Adams'', documentary.

Simpson, M.J. (2001). ''The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide''. ISBN 1-903047-40-4. Updated April 2005 ISBN 1-904048-46-3

Parrots, the Universe and Everything, 90 min talk at University of California Santa Barbara, 2001

External links

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