Sting Guitar Tabs.

Almost universally known by his stage name Sting, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE was born 2 October 1951. Prior to starting his solo career, this English musician was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist of the rock band The Police. As solo musician and as a member of The Police, Sting has sold over 100 million records, and received over sixteen Grammy Awards for his work. He received his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, and has also receiving an Oscar nomination for best song.

Sting was born in Wallsend (an area of North Tyneside in the northeast of England to Ernest Sumner and his wife Audrey Cowell, a hairdresser. Ernest and Audrey had three more children after Gordon all of whom were raised as Roman Catholics, due to the influence of their Irish paternal grandmother. Stings father Ernest managed a dairy and young Gordon would often assist his father with the early morning milk deliveries.

After jobs as a bus conductor, a construction labourer, and a tax officer, Gordon attended Northern Counties College of Education, from 1971 to 1974 and qualified as a teacher. He then worked as a schoolteacher at St. Paul's First School in Cramlington for two years. His experiences there would inspire him to write two of the Police's most notable hits: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Roxanne". Each was loosely based on one of his favourite books: Lolita and Cyrano de Bergerac, respectively.

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

Sting has stated that he gained his nickname while with the Phoenix Jazzmen. He once performed wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes that bandleader Gordon Solomon had said made him look like a bumblebee; thus Gordon became "Sting". In a press conference filmed in the movie Bring on the Night, he jokingly stated when referred to by a journalist as Gordon, "My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, who is this Gordon character?"

In January 1977, Sting moved from Newcastle to London, and soon after joined Stewart Copeland and Henry Padovani (soon to be replaced by Andy Summers) to form the New Wave band called The Police. Between 1978 and 1983, they released five chart-topping albums and won six Grammy Awards.

Although their initial sound was punk inspired, The Police soon revealed their unique reggae-tinged rock and minimalist pop. Some of the album or song titles came from the works of Arthur Koestler. Their final studio album, Synchronicity, which included their most successful song, "Every Breath You Take", was released in 1983.

While never formally breaking up, after Synchronicity, the Police agreed to concentrate on solo projects. As the years went by, the band members, particularly Sting, dismissed the possibility of reforming. In 2007, however, the band did reform and undertook a world tour.

In September 1981, Sting made his first live solo appearance, performing at the fourth Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. He performed solo versions of "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle", playing the guitar.

He also led an all-star band (dubbed "The Secret Police") on his own arrangement of Bob Dylan's, "I Shall Be Released". The band and chorus included Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, all of whom (except Beck) later worked together on Live Aid.

His performances were featured prominently in the album and movie of the show which drew to Sting some major critical attention as a soloist. His participation in The Secret Policeman's Other Ball was the beginning of a growing involvement in raising money and consciousness for political and social causes.

In 1982 he released a solo single, "Spread a Little Happiness" from the film version of the Dennis Potter television play Brimstone and Treacle. The song was a re-interpretation of a song from the 1920s musical Mr. Cinders by Vivian Ellis, and was a surprise Top 20 hit in the UK.

Sting's first solo album, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, featured a cast of accomplished jazz musicians, including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim, and Branford Marsalis. It included the hit single "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free". The single included a fan favourite non-LP track titled "Another Day".

The album featured the thoughtful "If the Russians love their children too" and also yielded the hits "Fortress Around Your Heart", and "Love is the Seventh Wave". Within a year, it reached Triple Platinum. This album brought Sting a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. The film and video Bring on the Night documented the formation of the band and its first concert in France.

Also in 1985, he sang the introduction and chorus to "Money for Nothing", a groundbreaking song by Dire Straits (he was given co-writer status and receives royalties based on his somewhat minor performance, supposedly because he reused his melody from The Police hit "Don't Stand So Close to Me" for his vocal parts. (It is one of only two shared songwriting credits on any Dire Straits album). He performed this song with Dire Straits at the Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium.

Sting provided a short guest vocal performance on the Miles Davis album You're Under Arrest. He sang backing vocals in Arcadia's single "The Promise" from their only album, So Red the Rose. He also contributed a version of "Mack the Knife" to the Hal Willner-produced tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill.

Sting released the album Nothing Like the Sun in 1987, including the hit songs "We'll Be Together", the heartbreaking "Fragile", "Englishman in New York", and "Be Still My Beating Heart", dedicated to his recently-deceased mother. This eventually went Double Platinum. The song "The Secret Marriage" from this album was adapted from a melody by German composer Hanns Eisler. While "Englishman In New York" was about the eccentric writer Quentin Crisp. The album's title is taken from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130.

Soon thereafter, in February 1988, he released Nada como el sol, a selection of five songs from Sun sung (by Sting himself) in Spanish and Portuguese. Sting was also involved in two other recordings in the late 1980s, the first in 1987 with noted jazz arranger Gil Evans who placed Sting in a big band setting for a live album of Sting's songs (the CD was not released in the U.S.). 

The second on Frank Zappa's 1988 Broadway the Hard Way album, where Sting performs an unusual arrangement of "Murder By Numbers", set to the tune "Stolen Moments" by jazz composer Oliver Nelson, and "dedicated" to fundamentalist evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

In 1988, he released the single "They Dance Alone" which chronicled the plight of the mothers, wives and daughters of the  innocent victims of the Pinochet regime in Chile. Unable to speak their grievances to the government about their missing loved ones, for fear that they would "go missing" too, the women of Chile would pin photos of their "disappeared" relatives on their clothing, and dance in silent outrage against the government in public places.

October 1988 saw the release of Igor Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale with the London Sinfonietta conducted by Kent Nagano. It featured Vanessa Redgrave, Sir Ian McKellen and Sting in the role of the soldier. Sting continued to sing and record with other people, notably tenor Pavarotti and Craig David, but with other artists as well too numerous to mention. He explored different sounds from world music and told stories in his songs, and contibuted to soundtracks.

Sting's 1991 album The Soul Cages was dedicated to his recently deceased father and like his autobiography some tracks have a genuine feel of the place where he grew up in. It included the Top 10 song "All this Time", which reached #5 on the U.S. Pop chart, and the Grammy-winning "Soul Cages". It also has the love song Mad About You and the haunting When the Angels Fall. This album too eventually went Platinum.

The following year, he married Trudie Styler. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in music from Northumbria University. In 1993, he released the album Ten Summoner's Tales, which went Triple Platinum in just over a year. Ten Summoner's Tales was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 1993 and nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1994.

The single, "Fields of Gold" had moderate success on radio airways but is often cited by people as being one of their favourite Sting songs. Shape of my Heart also still gets a lot of airplay. Concurrent video albums were released to support Soul Cages (a live concert) and Ten Summoner's Tales (recorded during the recording sessions for the album).

In May 1993, Sting released a cover of his own classic Police song from the Ghost in the Machine album, "Demolition Man" for the Demolition Man film. Sting reached a US pinnacle of success in 1994. Together with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, they performed the chart-topping song "All For Love" from the film The Three Musketeers. The song stayed at the top of the U.S. charts for five weeks and went Platinum; it is to date Sting's only song from his post-Police career to top the U.S. charts.

In February, he won two more Grammy Awards and was nominated for three more. The Berklee College of Music gave him his second honorary doctorate of music degree in May. In November, he released a greatest hits compilation called Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting, which eventually was certified Double Platinum.

Sting's 1996 album, Mercury Falling debuted strongly with the single "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot", but it dropped quickly on the charts. Brought to my Senses and the folk inspired Valparaiso are favourites from the album. He reached the Top 40 with two singles the same year with "You Still Touch Me" (June) and "I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying" (December) (which became a country music hit the next year in a version recorded with American country singer Toby Keith).

During this period, Sting was also recording music for the upcoming Disney film Kingdom of the Sun, which went on to be reworked into The Emperor's New Groove. The film went through drastic overhauls and plot changes, many of which were documented by Sting's wife, Trudie Styler.

She captured the moment he was called by Disney who then informed him that his songs would not be used in the final film. The story was put into a final product: The Sweatbox, which premièred at the Toronto Film Festival. Disney currently holds the rights to the film and will not grant its release. That same year Sting also released a little-known CD-ROM called All This Time, which provided music, commentary and custom computer features describing Sting and his music from his perspective.

In 1996, Sting provided some vocals for the Tina Turner single "On Silent Wings" as a part of her Wildest Dreams album. Sting has also co-operated with Greek popular singer George Dalaras, giving a common concert in Athens. "Moonlight", a rare jazz performance by Sting for the 1995 remake of Sabrina, written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman and John Williams, was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television.

The Emperor's New Groove soundtrack was released with complete songs from the previous version of the film, which included Rascal Flatts and Shawn Colvin. The final single used to promote the film was "My Funny Friend and Me".

Sting's September 1999 album Brand New Day included the Top 40 hits "Brand New Day" and the arabian music influenced "Desert Rose". The album went Triple Platinum by January 2001. In 2000, he won Grammy Awards for Brand New Day and the song of the same name. At the awards ceremony, he performed "Desert Rose" with his collaborator on the album version, Cheb Mami. For his performance, the Arab-American Institute Foundation gave him the Khalil Gibran Spirit of Humanity Award.

Sting and his wife Trudie Styler were awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience award in Sherborn Mass on 30 June 2000. For singer/song writer, documentary film producers for their commitment to the environment through the establishment of the Rainforest Foundation; to human rights in China through the documentary film on Tiananmen Square; and to peace and social justice through the powerful gift of song.

In February 2001 he won another Grammy. His song "After The Rain Has Fallen" made it into the Top 40. His next project was to record a live album at his Tuscan villa, which was to be released as a CD and DVD, as well as being simulcast in its entirety on the internet. The CD and DVD were to be entitled On Such a Night and was intended to feature re-workings of Sting favourites such as "Roxanne" and "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free."

The concert, however, was scheduled for September 11, 2001 and due to the terrorist attacks in America that day, the project was affected in various ways. The webcast was shut down after one song (a reworked version of "Fragile"), after which Sting let the audience decide whether or not to continue with the show.

Eventually they decided to go through with the concert, and the resultant album and DVD were released in November under a different title, All This Time. Both are dedicated "to all those who lost their lives on that day".

He performed a special arrangement of "Fragile" with Yo-Yo Ma and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Fragile had also been played years before at the funeral of Princess Diana.

In 2002 Sting won a Golden Globe Award and in June, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In the summer, Sting was awarded the honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In 2003 he released Sacred Love, a studio album featuring collaborations with hip-hop artist Mary J. Blige and sitar maestro Anoushka Shankar. He and Blige won a Grammy for their duet, "Whenever I Say Your Name". The album did not have the hit singles like his previous releases. The first single, "Send Your Love" reached only #30 and reviews were mixed. However, the album did reach platinum status by January 2004.

His autobiography Broken Music was published in October. Sting embarked on a Sacred Love tour in 2004 with performances by Annie Lennox. Sting went on the Broken Music tour, touring smaller venues, with a four piece band starting in Los Angeles on 28 March 2005 and ending this "College Tour" on 14 May 2005. Sting appears as a guest on the 2005 Monkey Business CD by American hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas, adding vocals to the track "Union" which makes heavy use of samples from his Englishman in New York.

Continuing with his involvement in Live Aid, he appeared at Live 8 in July 2005. During 2006, Sting collaborated with Roberto Livi in producing a Spanish language version of his cult classic "Fragile" entitled "Fragilidad" on the album Rhythms Del Mundo by Latino recording legends "The Buena Vista Sound" (previously known as the Buena Vista Social Club) available via www.apeuk.org.

In October 2006, Sting released a 'classical' album, to mixed reviews, entitled Songs from the Labyrinth featuring the music of John Dowland (an Elizabethan-era composer) and accompaniment from Bosnian lute player Edin Karamazov. It is an album that strongly shows his tenor voice to advantage and the music and arrangements are very beautiful, but it isn't a style of music that has a large popular appeal, being medieval.

As a part of the promotion of this album, he appeared on the fifth episode of Studio 60 during which he performed a segment of Dowland's "Come Again" as well as his own "Fields of Gold" in the arrangement for voice and two archlutes.In May 2007, Deutsche Grammophon releases the opera Welcome to the Voice composer Steve Nieve, with Sting portraying the main character, Dyonisos.

Reports surfaced in early 2007 that Sting would reunite with his former Police bandmates for a 30th anniversary tour. On 11 February 2007, Sting reunited with the other members of the Police as the introductory act for the 2007 Grammy Awards, singing "Roxanne", and subsequently announced The Police Reunion Tour, the first concert of which was held in Vancouver on 28 May in front of 22,000 fans at one of two nearly sold-out concerts. The Police toured for more than a year, beginning with North America and eventually crossing over to Europe, South America, Australia & New Zealand and Japan. The last concert was at Madison Square Garden on 7 August 2008, during which Sting's three daughters appeared with him onstage.

In 2007 he recorded a song called "Power's Out" with Nicole Scherzinger (lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls). On 1 February 2008, "Power's Out" was added on Nicole's official website and now "Power's Out" will be the official second single off Her Name Is Nicole.

Sting is noted for playing a Fender Precision Bass and a Fender Jazz Bass. Sting is also featured as a playable character in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour.