Bryan Guy Adams is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 18 Juno Awards among 56 nominations, including wins for Best Male Artist in 2000 and Male Vocalist of the Year in 1997 and every year from 1983 to 1987, as well as Junos for Producer, Composer, and Songwriter of the Year. He has also had 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television for "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" in 1992. He has also won MTV, ASCAP, and American Music awards. In addition, he has won two Ivor Novello Awards and has been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards and three times for Academy Awards for his songwriting for films.

Adams was awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for contributions to popular music and philanthropic work via his own foundation, which helps improve education for people around the world. He is a well known photographer.

Adams was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 1998, and in April 2006 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards. On January 13, 2010, he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his part in numerous charitable concerts and campaigns during his career, and on 1 May 2010 was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his 30 years of contributions to the arts.

Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, to English parents. From his grandmother he also inherited a Maltese ancestry. As Adams's father was a diplomat, he grew up travelling around the world with his parents. Subsequently, most of his youth was spent growing up in England, Israel, Portugal, and Austria, part of the time in Birre, Portugal, situated close to Lisbon. In 1973, Adams's family returned to Canada and settled down in North Vancouver, British Columbia.He moved to Ottawa, Ontario and attended Henry Munro Middle School. His musical goals began during his teenage years, and as he explained to Carlo D'Agostino from Rolling Stone magazine, "In high school, I was too far into my music to even pay attention to girls." He washed dishes, sold pet food, and worked in record stores, and at the age of 15, Adams quit school to play in nightclubs with bands like Shock and Sweeney Todd, who released an album called If Wishes Were Horses with the fifteen year old Adams as lead singer.

In 1978, at the age of 18, Adams sent a few demo recordings to A&M Records in Toronto. Not long afterwards he signed with them for the sum of one dollar. Some of the first demos written in 1978 have surfaced over the years, most notably "I'm Ready" (recorded for both the album Cuts Like a Knife and later his release for MTV Unplugged) and "Remember", which was recorded on his first album. Both songs were covered by other artists even before his first album was released. Also recorded during this time was Adams's first single, "Let Me Take You Dancing", which made the Canadian RPM chart in March 1979 (the b-side was entitled "Don't Turn Me Away").

The Adams/Vallance partnership wrote songs for many other artists notably Kiss, Prism, Bonnie Raitt, Rod Stewart, Neil Diamond, Joe Cocker, Carly Simon, and Loverboy to name a few.