Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, to English parents. From his grandmother he also inherited a Maltese ancestry.

A serendipitous meeting with drummer Jim Vallance in a Vancouver music store led to a song-writing partnership that continues to this day. 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 a demo of the song, " Let Me Take You Dancing."

His self-titled debut album was released in February 1980, and marked the beginning of what was to become a long songwriting partnership between Adams and co-writer Jim Vallance. With the exception of "Remember" and "Wastin' Time", most of the album was recorded from October 29 up until November 29, 1979 at Manta Studios in Toronto and co-produced by Adams and Vallance. The album was certified gold in Canada in 1986. After the release of the album, Adams was nominated for Best Male Rock Performance.

After the tour in the United States, Adams traveled to Ethiopia to aid famine relief in the country.. It was even more successful on the other side of the Atlantic, reaching number 1 on both big European markets, the UK and Germany. The album was released in September 1991 and featured the power ballad "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". This song was featured in the movie 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves', starring Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman. The single topped the charts in numerous countries around the world including big markets such as the US, the UK, France, Australia and Germany. "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" spent a record-breaking sixteen weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart. It also achieved record-breaking sales of four million copies in the US.

Canadian content regulations were revised in 1991 to allow radio stations to credit airplay of this album towards their legal requirements to play Canadian music.

Adams further supported the album with his tour, Waking Up the World which started on October 4, 1991, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. On December 18, 1991, Adams played two first-ever shows in Reykjavik, Iceland and then performed in the U.S. with a concert at the Ritz Theatre on the 10th of January.

The album has been certified platinum in the United States and is Adams last studio effort which has been certified by the RIAA.

In December 1997, Adams released 'MTV Unplugged' with three new tracks: "Back to You", "A Little Love" and "When You Love Someone". "Back to You" was the first single, followed by "I'm Ready", an acoustic version of the 'Cut's Like A Knife' track. The album was a top 10 success in Germany while both singles reached the top 20 in the UK.

'On a Day Like Today' was released in 1998 and was the first studio album since 'Cuts Like a Knife' which wasn't certified by the RIAA.

Adams released his eleventh album internationally on March 17, 2008. It was appropriately called '11'. The album was released in the US exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club retail stores on May 13, 2008. The first single released from the album was "I Thought I'd Seen Everything". Adams did an 11-day, 11-country European acoustic promotional tour to kick off the release of the album. The album debuted at number one in Canada (making it his first album to reach that position since 'Waking Up the Neighbours' in 1991) as well as reaching number 2 in Germany. In the United States the album charted at number eighty. The total estimated number of Bryan Adams stamps to be printed is one and one-half million.

In December 2009, Bryan Adams released the song "You've Been A Friend To Me" for the movie Old Dogs.

In February 2010 Adams released "One World, One Flame"- a track which will be used as a theme song by the major German TV station ARD for their Olympic TV Coverage of Olympic Games in Vancouver.

On February 12th, Adams, along with Nelly Furtado, performed "Bang The Drum" during the opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics Games in Vancouver, BC. With Wayne Gretzky and Jaromir Jagr at the opening ceremonies, this brought all three together once again, following Gretzky's final game in 1999 at Madison Square Garden, when Gretzky then played for the New York Rangers and Jagr was with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Adams then sang the Canadian national anthem and altered the line to reflect Gretzky's departure, saying, " We'll miss you Wayne Gretzky."Most of Adams's philanthropic activity is dedicated to his foundation "The Bryan Adams Foundation", which aims to advance education and learning opportunities for children and young people worldwide, believing that an education is the best gift that a child can be given. The Foundation's area of support is broad and far-reaching, enabling grants to be given for projects supporting the elderly, victims of war and natural disasters, and those suffering from mental or physical illness. The foundation is completely funded by his photographic activities.

Since the 1980s, Adams has participated in concerts and other activities to help raise money and awareness for a variety of causes. His first high profile charity appearance came in 1985 when he opened the US transmission of Live Aid from Philadelphia. In June of the next year, Adams participated in the two-week Amnesty International "A Conspiracy of Hope" tour alongside Sting, U2 and Peter Gabriel. He performed the Pink Floyd songs 'What Shall We Do Now?' and 'Young Lust' during the performance of 'The Wall', and then joined Waters, Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Van Morrison, Paul Carrack and others to perform Waters' "The Tide Is Turning" to close the concert. His version of 'Young Lust', which was partially re-recorded for the album due to technical problems during the live concert, peaked at #7 at Mainstream Rock Tracks.

On January 29, 2005, Adams joined the CBC benefit concert in Toronto for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Twenty years after performing at Live Aid in the USA, Adams played at Canada's Live 8 show in Barrie, Ontario. Money raised also went to some of his own projects like rebuilding a school in Thailand and building a new sports center in Sri Lanka, both of which had been devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

On October 18, 2007, Adams was billed to perform in Tel Aviv and Jericho as part of the One Voice Movement concerts, hoping to aid in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the mid 1990s, Adams successfully campaigned for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary with Greenpeace Chairman David Mc Taggart (the two distributed over 500,000 postcards at concerts around the world encouraging politicians to vote 'yes' for the creation of the sanctuary).

Adams occasionally writes letters on behalf of the animal rights group PETA to support the ethical treatment of animals. He wrote to the CEO of the most KFC restaurants in Canada in November 2007, asking them to become leaders in using more modern and more humane methods of killing chickens. Adams has been a vegan for 17 years and was also a nominee for PETA's "Sexiest Vegetarians of the Year".

On May 25, 2005, Adams raised £1.3M with cousin Johnny Armitage, from a concert and auction entitled Rock by the River for the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. On May 15 of the next year, Adams returned to London to attend the Hope Foundation's event (hosted by designer Bella Freud), helping to raise a portion of the £250,000 to support the Palestinian refugee children. The following June, he offered individuals from the public the chance to bid to sing with him live in concert at three different charity auctions in London. Over £50,000 was raised with money going to the NSPCC, Children in Need, and the University College Hospital.

To support the peace in Georgia, Adams played a special outdoor concert in Tbilisi, on September 19, 2008.
Played at The Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Born Free Foundation at "Wild and Live" on November 14, 2009.
He is also to appear on CMT'S Crossroads with the new hit big green tractor's Jason Aldean.