Henry Padovani today
(click to watch CNN interview)
London, December 1976: The young Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani first arrived in England. His two-week vacation turned into a seven-year sojourn as the novice musician discovered an entirely new world, whose fresh philosophy he quickly and instinctively adopted.
Meeting Stewart Copeland was the turning point, and together with Sting they formed The Police. The following year, after a short stint as a four-piece with Andy Summers, Henry left the band and teamed up with Wayne County and the Electric Chairs. It is important to note that Henry has always remained good friends with his old friends from The Police:
“When the band that I was with became very famous – and I wasn’t part of it anymore – many people in France asked me if I wasn’t disgusted, jealous, bitter or even sour. Never once have I ever felt anything other than joy for my friends, for their well-deserved success … I have never made music thinking that I wanted to become number one. In England, no one has ever asked me whether I was jealous of The Police’s success. My friends are proud to know that I, along with two mates, started a group that became one of the biggest pop groups in the world.”
This important era of musical and social history became, for Padovani, a formative period of friendship with those who are today known as the undisputed stars of pop and rock. People such as Sting and The Police, Mick Jones, Topper Headon and The Clash, Pete Farndon and The Pretenders, Wayne County and The Electric Chairs, to name just a few, all became part of his life. Yet Padovani distanced himself from the spotlight, focusing his life instead on human values.
In 1984 Henry was appointed vice president of IRS records by Miles Copeland and went on to launch bands such as REM, The Cramps and Lords of the New Church amongst others. In 1994, he became Zucchero’s manager and they went on to sell more than 10 million albums during their 5 year collaboration. In 2005, after two years of sabbatical, rest and reflection, he took up his guitar again and after writing the music for the award-winning film “La Vie Comme Elle Va”, he recorded a new album, his first in nearly twenty years, where he sang and surrounded himself with his fellow musicians: Sting, Stewart Copeland, Manu Katché, Steve Hunter, Glen Matlock, Chris Musto and others. As Henry explains in his book:
“…we reformed our original Police for the song Welcome Home. It read nearly as an omen … We had sort of come full circle”.
Welcome Home – Henry Padovani (vocals/guitar), Sting (bass), Stewart Copeland (drums)
Not long after, in 2007, Sting, Stewart and Andy reformed The Police and embarked on a gruelling world tour to mark their comeback. Henry joined them on stage at the Stade de France for two nights in front of 80,000 French fans when the tour reached Paris.
To the big names of rock, Padovani was not simply a musical partner, but also – and above all – a friend; the type who stocked Sting’s fridge when The Police were still obscure and broke. And it is precisely through his dedication to friendship, solidarity, and joie-de-vivre that Henry Padovani became an ideal witness of this social-artistic gestation. Thanks to his personality, values, and demonstrated loyalty, Padovani remains the one to whom nothing is denied, the constant observer of these complicated years.
For further information, visit Henry’s websites:
www.henrypadovani.com
www.myspace.com/henrypadovanimusic
