RYAN ADAMS

Ryan Adams was born David Ryan Adams on November 5th, 1974 in Jacksonville, North Carolina

Born and Raised in Jacksonville, North Carolina

Adams eventually moved to Raleigh, North Carolina to pursue a career in music.

Whiskeytown

Whiskeytown was formed in Raleigh, NC in 1994 and officially disbanded in 1999 after 3 studio albums.

Whiskeytown had a revolving door of musicians aside from the core members of Caitlin Cary, Mike Daly, and Ryan Adams

Whiskeytown Albums

• Faithless Street (1995, Outpost Recordings)• Strangers Almanac (1997, Geffen, Outpost)• Pneumonia (2001, Lost Highway)

Ryan Adams SoloHeartbreaker (2000, Lost Highway)This was his solo debut and it was perfect. A break up album written during and after him and Parker Posies split up.

Gold (2001), Lost Highway

This is his best selling and most intentionally commercial album. Many consider it to be his best.

Demolition (2002), Lost HighwayLegend goes that Adams delivered 4 albums worth of material and his record label insist he widdle it down to one cd’s length, hence the name.

Ryan Adams SoloROCK N ROLL (2003, Lost Highway) This album has record label lore attached to it as well. This is apparently what he recorded when they refused to release Love Is Hell

Love Is Hell (2003, Lost Highway) It’s supposedly Ryans tribute to The Smiths and Morrissey. His label initially refused to release it. It was split in to two EP’s and released on the same day as ROCK AND ROLL

Ryan Adams The Rock Star

Collaborations

• Norah Jones• Emmylou Harris• Elton John • Counting Crows• Many Others!

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals• Adams formed the Cardinals as a means for him to be a

member of a band more so than “be” the band.• His recent solo material had been more mainstream. All of the

members of The Cardinals have country music backgrounds. • Shortly after the band was formed Adams began stating he

would release 3 albums in 2005.

2005• It appears that Adams drug abuse became more prevalent around 2005. • He did make good on his promise to release 3 albums during the calendar year. • He released 2 with the Cardinals and 1 solo. The albums with the Cardinals was

more like his earlier work with a country music base.• The 3rd album of 2005, 29, was without the Cardinals and dealt with very dark

subject matter and was mostly acoustic gloomy music. It is widely understood among Ryan Adams fans that 29 is the recording of Adams reaching his bottom and choosing to turn his life around. There are 9 tracks on the album to represent each year of his 20’s.

Resurgence• After taking most of 2006 off to deal with his chemical

dependencies he began recording again. • However, this too would be a solo album. Assumingly because

all of the music was written by himself. • In 2007 he returned with Easy Tiger with an obvious

departure from his hard partying days but he never stopped being a prolific musician.

The Public Figure • Ryan has always been an outspoken and unabashedly

attention starved person to some degree. Some of the things he’d say about other musicians or do at his live show’s.

• He had a guy thrown out of a show once when he kept shouting “Summer of ‘69”, of course, the Bryan Adams hit.

• His love life has always been one for public banter because he often was with an actress, model, musician, of the alternative type. He joked in an interview once that the album Heartbreaker may as well be called Parker Posie, the indie film actress that apparently broke his heart.

Marriage

• On March 10, 2009 Ryan married actress Mandy Moore. This was a shock to many as most didn’t even know they we’re dating.

2008 - Present• The Cardinals recorded 2 more albums with Ryan

Adams before the announcement was made that they had officially disbanded.

• Adams has carried on with his career nevertheless. His lastest release was just October 2011

Listening Guide for Dear John By Ryan Adams and Norah Jones

• This song is a collaboration between Norah Jones and Ryan Adams. The song began with Norah Jones working on writing some music and became increasingly frustrated because she hadn’t made much progress. Being her neighbor, she called Ryan Adams to ask his advice on overcoming her writers block. He said “I’m coming over” and they wrote the rest together over several nights. Norah Jones credits Ryan Adams in helping her overcome that bout with writers block. The song is from the 2005 album Jacksonville City Nights.

• In the song the vocals are almost entirely a duet with Adams and Jones.

0:00 The song begins with Jones playing a simple piano melody for the interlude.

0:16 The interlude goes for 8 bars and then the band comes in with a 3/4 beat. The band consists of a drummer bass and it sounds like several acoustic guitar tracks.

0:48 The chorus is sung, by both Adams and Jones. There is also multiple backing vocal tracks that back and compliment the main vocals during the chorus. Built around the melody of the way “Dear John” is sung. The violin makes its first appearance and will continue to on each chorus.

1:20 The second verse begins. Still singing just left of in unison.

1:47 A variation is added to the verse that leads into the next chorus. I find it to really elevate the song.

2:34 Third verse begins, with another variation just before the chorus

3:08 The third chorus is sung.

3:36 They break from the chorus and play the coda with sparse drums and vocals and a lonely piano melody

4:01 The band almost entirely cuts out and it becomes sparse vocals and the accompanying piano still playing the same melody.

4:37 After the tempo gradually slowing ever wider the song ends gracefully.

Norah Jones Discusses Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams & Nora Jones - Dear John