Over the past year, Adele has taken the country by storm, sweeping the 2012 Grammy Awards and taking home six titles, including one for Album of the Year. The British singer-songwriter has been smashing records ever since her 2008 appearance on Saturday Night Liveand her 2009 Grammy for Best New Artist. The success of her second album, 21, made her the first living artist since the Beatles to have two top-five hits in both the UK singles and albums charts. The album hit the #1 spot in 18 different countries. In the U.S., 21is the longest running number one album by a female in Billboard history, surpassing Whitney Houston's The Bodyguard. To put it simply, her worldwide success is unmatched. This one-of-a-kind book will provide answers to fans' burning questions, including: - What was Adele's childhood like as the daughter of a single, teenage mother? - Growing up, who were her biggest inspirations and influences in the music industry? - As someone whose career depends on her voice, what was it like being diagnosed with a vocal cord hemorrhage? - How did canceling her Adele Livetour affect her career? - How did she make the decision to perform at the Grammys, while still recovering from vocal surgery? - And much more! A must-read for every Adele fan.

MARC SHAPIRO is the New York Times bestselling author of J.K. Rowling: The Wizard behind Harry Potter, Justin Bieber: The Fever! and many other bestselling celebrity biographies. He has been a freelance entertainment journalist for more than twenty-five years, covering film, television and music for a number of national and international newspapers and magazines.

"2011 will be remembered as the year of Adele." —Anderson Cooper, 60 Minutes

"21 was the entertainment world's favorite story of 2011 . . . Adele is not rock-'n'-roll. She is not self-consciously retro. She does not shimmy or shake. Hers is a plant-the-feet-and-belt delivery that has all but disappeared from the pop landscape. It should be deeply uncool. And yet, there is something startlingly refreshing about her youthful elegance and commanding presence . . . Adele transcends all notions of hipness." —Vogue

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The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

1.

ONLY THE BEGINNING

Adele loves her mother. Always has. Always will.
“You don’t realize how important your parents are until you’ve spent a lot of time away from them,” she was quoted on the Web site Great Personalities. “My mother and I have always been friends but we’re tighter than ever now. We can talk about anything and not just in a mother-daughter way.”
But as aVoguejournalist discovered during a 2011 interview, her feelings toward her father are a whole other matter: “If I ever see him, I will spit in his face.”
And a journalist forRolling Stonereceived a similar response when the question of her father was broached: “He has no fucking right to talk about me.”
Adele’s responses were toward questions about her father’s reemergence in the pages ofThe Sunnewspaper, telling about those early days with Adele and her mother. In Adele’s view, he added insult to injury by supplying the paper with rarely seen photos of her as a child. She considered it an intrusion and a betrayal of the highest order, made all the more evil by the fact that he was paid quite handsomely for the interview and photos. For Adele, the act was the final nail in the coffin of an already tenuous relationship, one that just a year previous was showing signs of a reconciliation.
“I don’t know what a dad is supposed to do because I never had one,” she said in aMusicLifestory. “I’m sure I will see him again. I think we can be friends. I don’t need him to be a dad now.”
But it was not meant to be.
Adele is not the first superstar talent to be estranged from a parent. In fact, it comes as a surprise when a reigning celebrity has come from a happy, intact, and functional family. But the obvious anger in Adele’s thoughts when it comes to dealing with the biological dad she rarely saw and now does not see at all, is palpable.
Armchair psychiatrists have been quick to blame the lion’s share of Adele’s much-publicized relationship difficulties on the fact that she essentially grew up without a father figure. Adele has never addressed the impact not having a father may have had. But one thing is certain …
… Adele has been adamant in her estrangement from Mark Evans and, indirectly, keeping her father at arm’s length has only served to cloud the details of how her parents met and how she came to be. She has only spoken about that element of her history when pressed, and then we’ve only gotten the broad strokes. Her parents met quite young. Adele’s mother became pregnant. They never married, and her father moved out when Adele was a toddler. There were always the tabloid allegations; Evans was a notorious womanizer and an alcoholic according to the more colorful media outlets.
Of the latter, Evans, in a far-reaching interview withThe Sun,admitted as much. But until Adele decides to completely chronicle her history or her mother decides to talk, there is largely only Evans’ recounting of those early days to rely on.
Mark Evans was raised in the Welsh seaside town of Penarth. By all accounts, he was cut from simple, workingman stock and maintained a likable, salt-of-the-earth personality. He was once described in one of Adele’s charitable moments as “The big Welsh guy who works on the ships.” His looks: rugged yet youthful. Chances are, if you threw a rock in Wales in the late ’70s and early ’80s, hitting a Mark Evans type would not be difficult.
He was straightforward in his outlook, basic in his attitude, and it goes without saying that he was not a creative bloke and certainly not musically inclined.
He would seem an odd choice for Penny Adkins.
Penny was born in Tottenham, an equally working-class enclave of North London, to grocer John Adkins and his wife, Doreen. The city of Tottenham had an illustrious history of turning out inventors, statesmen, and no shortage of entertainers that included Dave Clark (of Dave Clark Five music fame), musician Lemar Obika, and actors Ron Moody and Shani Wallace. There was a consensus that being from Tottenham was something special and a legitimate source of pride. So much so that, following the 2012 Grammy Awards, Adele stated proudly in aSunfeature, “I’m not a fake Tottenham girl. I was born there.”
But the years and the economy had not been kind to the town of Tottenham. The city of Tottenham was a sturdy blue-collar place that, with the years, had evolved into a decidedly bleak low-income enclave whose population had become used to hard times, poverty, and little in the way of a future. If you were from Tottenham, you hoped for the best. And the best was usually avoiding jail, death, or unplanned parenthood.
Penny had grown up to be the exception to the rule.
Penny Adkins was an attractive, creative, and quite adventurous young woman, heavily into the arts and, at age eighteen, an art student with a bright future in front of her. She was clearheaded when it came to avoiding the pitfalls of being a teen. Her parents encouraged her to be something special. Penny was enamored of music but had not seemed inclined to pursue it. The young girl was looked upon by those who knew her as a “Great White Hope,” somebody who was on the verge of overcoming the odds and leaving Tottenham behind for something better.
In keeping with the Adkins family tradition, Penny, at eighteen, was already out of her parents’ home and living an independent life. In a March 2011 interview withThe Sun, Doreen Adkins recalled, “We threw Adele’s mum out when she was eighteen. That’s what we did with all the kids. They had to make their own way in life.”
Mark and Penny met in 1987 in a London pub. They hit it off immediately. Penny has never been candid in assessing what she liked about Adele’s future father, but inThe Suninterview, Mark was intent in what made his heart skip a beat.
“Penny was amazing,” he said. “She was a gorgeous-looking woman with real presence. She was intelligent, creative, and she knew how to make you laugh.”
It was the classic case of opposites attracting.
The relationship between the couple developed at lightning speed. The impression from those who must have looked back on the couple’s courtship was that neither of them was looking at it as being long lasting and serious. They became intimate almost immediately. In a matter of months, Penny broke the news to her parents that she was pregnant with Evans’ child. Evans’ parents were reportedly extremely upset that their son had gotten a young teenager pregnant. On the other hand, Penny’s mother, Doreen, toldThe Sun, “I wasn’t that shocked when she got pregnant.”
“She fell pregnant with me when she would have been applying for uni (university),” Adele recalled in a conversation withThe Observer. “But she chose to have me instead. She never, ever reminds me of that. I try to remember it.”
Penny’s parents were equally upset at the news. But this sort of thing happened with regularity in Tottenham, and all that was left was for them to put the best possible face on the situation. Penny’s parents remained optimistic and supportive of the union—easily more so than Penny.
For while Mark stated in theDaily Mailinterview that he was ready to step up and do the right thing, Penny, perhaps sensing the fragility of their relationship, reportedly chose cohabitation with Mark over a legal marriage on the grounds that they were both too young to commit to each other in that way.
Mark and Penny moved into a house two blocks away from Penny’s parents. Mark found employment as a plumber while Penny gave up all prospects of school and career to be a stay-at-home mother-in-waiting.
The ensuing months must have been an emotional roller coaster for the couple. Penny’s heart was obviously not in the relationship, and she saw few prospects for the future. It might have also been a case of realizing that any hope for a creative life in the arts was going by the wayside. This would have been in stark contrast to Mark’s determination to make the relationship work. It would not have been the best circumstances for bringing a child into the world.
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on May 5, 1988.
The arrival of the newborn did little to salve the erratic nature of Mark and Penny’s relationship. By his own estimation, Mark was very young and wild and, once the novelty of a child wore off, he would be a regular at the local pubs, preferring the company of his friends and a pint to that of Penny and Adele.
However, in theSuninterview, Evans did relate some warm father and daughter moments in which he may well have given his daughter a subconscious sense of musical influences that would shape her life and career.
“I’d lie on the sofa, all night, cradling Adele in my arms and listening to my favorite music … Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, and Nina Simone. Night after night I would play those records and I am certain that is what shaped Adele’s music.”
As the years passed, Penny could sense that the relationship had run its course. When Adele was three years old, Mark left the house and never came back.
Penny did little to stop him from leaving.

Copyright © 2012 by Marc Shapiro