The Police/ Sting

The Police was a three-piece British rock band, which was strongly influenced by ska and reggae. Coming to prominence in the wake of the punk rock phenomenon, they rose to become one of the most popular groups in the world in the early 1980s. more...

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Career

Formation

The Police were founded by American-born drummer Stewart Copeland in early 1977. After the demise of his progressive rock band Curved Air, Copeland was anxious to form a new three-piece group and join the burgeoning London punk scene. Singer-bassist Sting and guitarist Henry Padovani began rehearsing with Copeland in January 1977, and they recorded their first Police single "Fall Out/Nothing Achieving" the following month. In March and April, the threesome toured as a support act for Cherry Vanilla as well as Wayne County & the Electric Chairs.

In May, ex-Gong musician Mike Howlett invited Sting and guitarist Andy Summers to form Strontium 90 with him, as a project band for a Gong reunion. The drummer Howlett had in mind for this band, Chris Cutler, was unavailable to play drums, so Sting brought along Stewart Copeland.

Strontium 90 recorded several demo tracks at Virtual Earth Studios, and then performed at a Gong reunion concert in Paris on May 28, 1977. An album with some of these studio and live tracks (with a very early incarnation of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic") was released in 1997 under the name "Police Academy". The foursome also performed at a London club as "The Elevators" in July 1977.

In July 1977, Copeland, Sting, Padovani, and Summers began performing as a four-piece version of The Police. Padovani's relatively limited ability as a guitarist meant that his tenure in the band was short, and soon after an aborted recording session with producer John Cale on August 10, Padovani left the band and Summers took over sole guitar duties. This lineup of Copeland, Sting, and Summers would endure for the rest of Police history.

Sting proved to be a capable songwriter; he had previously spent time as a secondary school English teacher, and his lyrics are noted for their literary awareness and verbal agility. Material in the later album Ghost In The Machine was inspired by the writings of Arthur Koestler, and material in Synchronicity was prominently inspired by the writings of Carl Jung. "Tea in the Sahara" on the latter album showed interest in Paul Bowles as well.

The Police, along with The Clash, are notable as one of the first mainstream white groups to adopt ska and reggae as predominant musical forms and to score major international hits with ska and reggae-styled material. Although ska and reggae were already very popular in the United Kingdom (due to the large number of Caribbean immigrants) the style was little known in the United States or other countries, and prior to the emergence of the Police only a handful of reggae songs — such as Eric Clapton's 1974 cover rendition of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" — had enjoyed any significant chart success. Desmond Dekker, a ska artist, also flirted with international chart success for songs "Israelites" and "007".

Read more at Wikipedia.org