Richie Sambora
Richard "Richie" Stephen Sambora (born on July 11, 1959), is an American rockguitarist, producer, musician, singer/ songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the popular rock band Bon Jovi. Along with frontman Jon Bon Jovi, he forms the primary songwriting unit of the band. He is also a solo artist, having released two solo albums; Stranger in This Town in 1991, and Undiscovered Soul in 1998.
Biography
Born to an Italian father, Adam C. Sambora, and a Polish mother, Joan Sienila, Sambora grew up in Woodbridge, New Jersey. He attended Woodbridge High School there, graduating in 1977. He began playing the guitar at the age of 12 following the death of guitar legend Jimi Hendrix in 1970. From his early days Sambora was strongly influenced by blues and 60s rock 'n' roll. His most important influences were Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter and Jimmy Page and Joe Perry. He was also influenced by Spanish classical music and began a life long love of the Spanish guitar.
Sambora played guitar for Joe Cocker and auditioned for Kiss. Bon Jovi added Sambora to replace original lead guitarist Dave Sabo.
Sambora has occasionally taken over as lead vocalist on some Bon Jovi songs, most notably "I'll Be There for You" and "These Days" when played live on the Bounce, Have a Nice Day and Lost Highway tours. He has also performed "Stranger In This Town". One of the live performances of "Stranger In This Town", recorded during the Keep the Faith tour, was released on Bon Jovi's CD single "Dry County" in 1994.
Recent ventures have seen him compose television theme songs for both Entertainment Tonight and The Insider. He (along with Jon Bon Jovi) is part of the Ownership Group of the Philadelphia Soul, an Arena Football League football team.
Over the years, Sambora has been an ardent fundraiser for many charities, such as Dream Street, the Steve Young Foundation and Michael J Fox's Parkinson's charity. He has donated money privately to various cancer charities since the death of his beloved father, especially with recognition to both hospitals his father was treated at, Memorial Sloan Kettering and M D Anderson. Sambora's fundraising with the charity Stand Up For a Cure allowed for three mobile full service hospital units to be brought to the streets of New York, two of which were named after his parents respectively. These units will help to serve the community and help those afflicted with cancer as well as educate the public about the risks. Having learned about a girl who attended his alma mater, Woodbridge High, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that caused her to have several strokes and aneurysms post operation, Sambora donated auction materials that were raised on WPLJ radio station, and he designed t-shirts for general sale. The auction alone raised $53,000 dollars which helped Kelly Mahon's family enormously with their mounting medical bills and the possibility of raising funds for adaptations necessary to their property if Kelly were to ever come home.
In May 2004, Richie Sambora was bestowed with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Kean University where he attended the awards ceremony and gave a speech of acceptance, even though he had attended Kean University as a freshman, but then dropped out to pursue a career as a professional guitarist and session musician.
Sambora made a cameo appearance in The Sims Superstar.
Sambora is featured on the track "Baby Rock Remix", from LL Cool J's upcoming album "Exit 13".
His first solo outing was Stranger in This Town in 1991, a blues-influenced album that was received well by many critics although commercially a relative flop partially down to the more adult tone of the record that was not instantly appealing to Bon Jovi fans. Eric Clapton played the lead guitar track on the song Mr Bluesman, backed by Sambora on acoustic guitars. He did a short US tour in support of the album, featuring Tony Levin (bass), Dave Amato (guitar), Crystal Taliefero (percussion) and Bon Jovi bandmates Tico Torres (drums) and Dave Bryan (keyboards). Ballad of Youth was released in the UK in summer 1991 and despite plugs from The Friday Rock Show on BBC Radio 1 the song barely skimmed the top 75.
Undiscovered Soul was Sambora's second solo album, released in 1998. The album was produced by Don Was. In support of Undiscovered Soul, Sambora toured Japan, Australia and Europe in the summer of 1998. The band featured Richie Supa (guitar), Ron Wikso (drums), Kasim Sulton (bass), Tommy Mandel (keyboards), Everett Bradley (percussion - Japan only), Gioia Bruno (percussion - Australia only) and Crystal Taliefero (percussion - Europe only).
He made a special guest appearance on Bo Diddley's 1996 album A Man Amongst Men, playing guitar on the tracks "Can I Walk You Home" and "Oops! Bo Diddley".
In 1999, Sambora appeared as a guest vocalist on the Stuart Smith album Stuart Smith's Heaven & Earth, performing a cover of the Deep Purple song "When a Blind Man Cries".
Sambora played on a recently released album called Lessons from a band called Message. The album was recorded in the early 1980s.
Sambora sings "Long Way Around" (background audio) during the final scene in the 1997 Steven Seagal action movie Fire Down Below and is featured on the movie's soundtrack.
Sambora also recorded the song "One Last Goodbye" on the soundtrack for the movie The Banger Sisters. He also covered Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" for the soundtrack of The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, released in 1990.
His guitar work is also featured on the track "Misery" on Pink's 2001 album Missundaztood with Steven Tyler.
In 2004, Sanctuary Records released a self-titled album which had been recorded in 1978 by Shark Frenzy, documenting Sambora's first recorded material. The mix tapes had been damaged in a flood and it had taken band member Bruce Foster to remaster them for them to be released so many years later.
Sambora co-wrote several tracks and played guitar on Australian rock/pop artist Shannon Noll's third album, called Turn It Up. It was released in Australia September 15, 2007.
Sambora is also a self taught musician of other instruments including: mandolin, sitar, ukulele, bass, banjo, piano, keyboards, drums, flute, trumpet, saxophone, accordion, bouzouki, mandocello, and others.
