Stanard "Stan" Ridgway is an American singer-songwriter, film and television composer, and renowned for his distinctive voice, dramatic lyrical narratives, and eclectic solo albums. Born on April 5, 1954, in Barstow, California, he grew up in the high desert and later in Los Angeles.
As a child, Ridgway was fascinated with folk music, persistently asking his parents to buy him a banjo at the age of 14. He also had a brief stint as a budding ventriloquist, spending his first night in jail at the age of 12 for stealing street signs.
The band Wall of Voodoo was founded by Ridgway, who named it after a comment made by a friend while recording a Kalamazoo Rhythm Ace drum machine, a gift from voice actor Daws Butler. Ridgway's friend compared the music to Phil Spector's Wall of Sound, prompting Ridgway to jokingly say it sounded more like a "wall of voodoo," and the name stuck.
Wall of Voodoo's music was a unique blend of New Wave and Ennio Morricone's Spaghetti Western soundtracks, featuring percussive and textural experimentation with unconventional instruments and interlocking melodic figures. Ridgway's unusual vocal style and highly stylized, cinematic narratives heavily influenced by science fiction and film noir added to the band's distinctiveness.
In 1983, Ridgway embarked on a solo career after Wall of Voodoo's appearance at the US Festival. He released his first solo album, The Big Heat, in 1986, which included the top 5 European hit "Camouflage." Ridgway continued to release solo albums throughout the years, including Mosquitos, Partyball, Black Diamond, Anatomy, The Way I Feel Today, and Holiday in Dirt.
Ridgway's album Holiday in Dirt was a cinematic project, released with a compilation of 14 short films by independent filmmakers, each visualizing a song from the album. A DVD compilation of the films was released in 2005.
Throughout his career, Ridgway has collaborated with various artists, including Stewart Copeland from the Police, and has composed music for film and television.
