Sting, legendary singer, songwriter, bassist and frontman for The Police, turns 58 years old today. Sting, real name Gordon Sumner, was born in the town of Wallsend in the northeast of England. Sting gravitated towards music early on in life, starting by playing a spanish guitar his uncle left behind at the family home when he moved to Canada. Some of his earliest gigs were performing with jazz ensembles at local nightclubs and it was at one of these gigs where he was nicknamed Sting - when bandleader Gordon Solomon suggested jokingly that the black and yellow stripped sweater that Gordon regularly wore to performances made him look like a bumblebee, his bandmates began referring to him as Sting. In 1977 Sting moved from Newcastle to London and it was there that he joined Stewart Copeland and original Police guitarist Henri Padovani in The Police. They started as a punk band trying to capitalize on the success of new acts like The Sex Pistols and The Clash. But it was when guitarist Andy Summers joined the band and Stewart Copeland started introducing some of the reggae and african beats he learned while growing up in Cairo that the group found it's niche in the burgeoning New Wave scene. Below is a video of the first live performance of their hit song "Message in a Bottle":
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