Adam Ant

Stuart Leslie Goddard (born 3 November 1954), known professionally as Adam Ant, is an English musician and actor. He gained popularity as the lead singer of new wave group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring 10 UK top ten hits from 1980 to 1983, including three UK No. 1 singles. He has also worked as an actor, appearing in many films and television episodes.

Ant began his musical career playing bass in the band Bazooka Joe. From 1977 to 1982 he performed with Adam and the Ants. Their debut album Dirk Wears White Sox (1979) reached number one on the UK Independent Albums Chart. Between recording and releasing his debut album as Adam and the Ants, he asked producer Malcolm McLaren to manage his band; McLaren instead took his backing band to form Bow Wow Wow. Ant regrouped with new members, including Marco Pirroni, to release his second album Kings of the Wild Frontier (1980). It reached number one in the UK Album Chart, spawned three hit singles, became the UK number-one selling album in 1981, and won Best British Album at the 1982 BRIT Awards. He released his third and final album with the group, Prince Charming (1981), which spawned two UK number-one singles "Stand and Deliver" and "Prince Charming".

In 1982, he began a solo career, retaining Marco Pirroni as co-songwriter. His first solo album was Friend or Foe (1982), from which the debut single "Goody Two Shoes" reached number one in the UK and Australia in 1982, and became his first top 20 hit in the United States on the Billboard Hot 100. The album reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and number 16 on the US Billboard 200 album chart, becoming his most successful solo album. His next two solo albums Strip (1983) and Vive Le Rock (1985) were less commercially successful. Ant began to focus on an acting career, performing on stage and in film and television roles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He released his fourth solo album Manners & Physique (1990) which was produced by André Cymone and featured a Minneapolis sound. Despite the US top 20 success of the single "Room at the Top", Ant was dropped from MCA Records, and his album Persuasion (1991) was shelved and never officially released. He signed with Capitol Records to release Wonderful (1995). The single "Wonderful" became Ant's third US top 40 hit single.

Since 2010, Ant has continued his music career, recording and releasing a new album Adam Ant Is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter (2013, UK number 25), and completing nine full-length UK national tours, six US national tours, and two Australian tours. A further album, Bravest of the Brave, was recorded in 2014 and is still awaiting release.

Stuart Leslie Goddard was born in Marylebone, London on 3 November 1954, the only child of Leslie Alfred Goddard and Betty Kathleen Smith. His father had served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and worked as a chauffeur, and his mother was an embroiderer for Norman Hartnell.: 4 His home was two rooms in the De Walden buildings, St John's Wood.: 5 He recalls: "There was no luxury, but there was always food on the table." He is of partial Romani descent; his maternal grandfather, Walter Albany Smith, was Romanichal.: 10 This heritage became a basis for a theme in his later work: a concern for oppressed minorities.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.