Stewart Copeland

A founding member of the English pop-rock group The Police, Stewart Copeland was also the group's propulsive, versatile drummer whose innate grasp of jazz, new wave and world music rhythms later contributed to a successful tenure as a film composer. Copeland launched the group with Sting in 1977, and after adding guitarist Andy Summers, saw it rise from the New wave scene of the late 1970s to global popularity in the early 1980s. When The Police split in 1984, Copeland moved into soundtrack work, writing dense, rhythmic scores for such films as "Wall Street" (1987). By the 1990s, he was in demand as a composer for film and theater, which largely curtailed his rock efforts. But he reunited with his Police mates in 2007 to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary with a record-breaking world tour. Its success gave both longtime fans and a new generation of listeners ample proof of Copeland's status as one of the most innovative drummers in popular music.