He is an American rock musician of Italian origin. He is the founder and lead singer of the band Bon Jovi. Jon Bon Jovi is related to the famous artist Frank Sinatra (there is a blood relationship on his father's side). His wife, Dorothea Hurley, is Jovi's high school friend and they have four children, a girl and three boys.
John Francis Bongiovi, the first child of John Bongiovi, who immigrated to America from the Sciacca region of Sicily in the late 1950s, was born on March 2, 1962, in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.
He first studied at Sayrville St Joseph's High School. He later transferred to Sayreville High School. Jon Bon Jovi started taking guitar lessons when he was 13 years old. He started playing the songs of his idols such as Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, and Bob Dylan. They were performing covers in various bars with the bands they formed with their school friends.
In the following years, he made an important decision and stopped making covers. He wanted to write his own songs and gradually moved away from the Springsteen-Dylan school and started listening to hard and loud music.
John Francis Bongiovi Jr. (born March 2, 1962), known professionally as Jon Bon Jovi, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and actor. He is best known as the founder and frontman of the rock band Bon Jovi, which was formed in 1983. He has released 15 studio albums with his band as well as two solo albums.
His first band was The House of the Rising Sun, inspired by the famous song The Animals. He participated in various competitions with this group but was not successful. In 1978, he founded a new community called Atlantic City Expressway. During this period, Jon included his high school friend David Bryan, who would later become the keyboardist of the band Bon Jovi, into the band. But his life at the Atlantic City Expressway, which had the honor of playing at a festival attended by 50,000 people headlined by Bruce Springsteen in New York in 1979, was short-lived. While David Bryan decided to go to Julliard, the famous music school in New York, Jon took the microphone in the band called The Rest.
1980-1983 Power Station years
When events did not develop as Jon expected, he took shelter with his cousin Tony Bongiovi, who worked at Power Station Studios in New York. Jon was not a musician or technician in the studio but was responsible for the cleaning of the studio, errands, and coffee service. But he wasn't complaining about it. He watched musicians such as Mick Jagger and David Bowie and sometimes accompanied them. In his spare time, he composed songs and recorded with cheap musicians he hired.
Runaway
In 1982, Jon collected the songs he composed in a demo and started pushing the doors of music companies. But there was no response. The only person he noticed was a DJ at WAPP radio station on Long Island. DJ Chip Hobart liked Jon's song Runaway very much and wanted to put the song in the radio's compilation album of amateur bands and singers. Although Jon did not want this, he could not resist the insistence and the song was included in the album.
Runaway quickly climbed to the top of the radio charts, first in New York and then throughout the USA, and became a hit song on everyone's lips. Runaway was playing on the radio not only on WAPP but all over the country, but Jon didn't have a band. He first called David Bryan, his friend since high school, and convinced him to play keyboards in the band. Later, he added bassist Alec John Such, whom he knew from bars in New Jersey, and drummer Tico Torres, whom he met through him, to the band. Eventually, guitarist Richie Sambora joined the band, and the well-known Bon Jovi line-up was formed. The band's first album, Bon Jovi, was released in January 1984 after signing a deal with the Mercury-Poligram company.
Jon Bon Jovi worked to take the Bon Jovi band to the top between 1984 and 1990 and managed to make the band one of the most important rock bands of the period.
Jon Bon Jovi, who wrote and composed most of the songs in the Bon Jovi band himself or with guitarist Richie Sambora; He has also worked with co-songwriters such as Desmond Child, Billy Falcon, and Max Martin. All 10 songs in his first solo album, Blaze Of Glory, published in 1990, are his own. The single Blaze Of Glory reached number 1 on the American music charts and became number 1 in many countries. In addition, this song earned Jon Bon Jovi a Golden Globe award and Oscar and Grammy nominations. He wrote most of the songs in his second solo album, "Destination Anywhere", released in 1997.
His work with other bands and singers
Jon Bon Jovi heard and liked the Philadelphia band Cinderella in a bar in 1985 and introduced them to their manager and helped them record an album. He also supported another hard rock band, Skid Row, and played an important role in their album release. He produced an album for Cher with Richie Sambora and Desmond Child and produced the song Hell Is Living Without You with Richie Sambora for Alice Cooper.
Together with Richie Sambora, they composed Notorious, the title song of the band Loverboy's 1987 album.
He worked with very important names such as Jeff Beck and Elton John on his first solo album, Blaze Of Glory, which included the soundtrack of the movie Youn Guns II, released in 1990. In 1991, he produced Aldo Nova's album.
He gathered the band again in 1992 and successfully continued his band career where they left off with the album Keep The Faith.
Musicians influenced by
Jon Bon Jovi's two biggest idols are Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny, who are also from New Jersey. Apart from these, Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Thin Lizzy, The Animals, Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith are the bands and artists that influenced his youth and played a role in his musical development.
Cinema and acting
Jon Bon Jovi received his first acting offer in 1984 when the band's first album was released. However, he did not accept the offers because he wanted to concentrate on music in those years. Jon Bon Jovi, who first encountered acting on the set of the movie Youn Guns II in 1990, started taking acting lessons from Harold Guskin from then on. In 1995, he officially took his first step into the cinema with Moonlight And Valentino. He acted in 13 movies and appeared as a guest actor in some TV series.