The niche role-playing game Burning Wheel characterizes persuasion as the art of convincing someone else that what you want is to their benefit.

And that’s exactly what Sting did when he came out for his encore at Wolf Trap recently and asked the audience what they wanted to hear, and they cried out for The Police’s first big hit, “Roxanne.”

If you look at the setlists from Sting’s current tour, you’ll see that his encores have all started with “Roxanne.” Sting, a canny and masterful performer, got his audience there by playing all his other hits in the main set, making “Roxanne” the logical choice for fans to request. It’s both true that fans really wanted to hear the song and that Sting worked them into requesting it.

That kind of command of an audience comes from roughly 50 years of playing music. Sting has been making music since before he took on the mononym Sting, when he was just Gordon Sumner, a working-class British musician. He began as a jazz bassist; it was with The Police that he blossomed into a singer and songwriter. He also became a genuine cultural figure who expanded beyond music into acting; he memorably played the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in the 1984 version of Dune directed by David Lynch and recently appeared as himself in Only Murders In The Building.

But he’s primarily a songwriter, and what a songwriter he is. Just about everything Sting performed at Wolf Trap on Sept. 1 was a hit, and the songs were so familiar I didn’t have to search on my phone to determine what they were. The set covered the entire span of his career, kicking off with a song from his Police days, “Message In A Bottle.” Several other songs from his days with that band made it into the show:  the love song “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic;” the lamenting “King of Pain,” for which he was joined on vocals by his son, Joe Sumner; “Every Breath You Take,” which closed the main set; and the aforementioned “Roxanne” in the encore.

Watch the official music video for “Roxanne” by The Police on YouTube:

The content of some of these songs makes them unusual for big pop hits. “Every Breath You Take” is about a stalker and the object of of his obsession. Somehow, the sound of the song has obscured, for many, how fundamentally creepy and disturbing this song is. The BBC refused to play “Roxanne,” which is about a man in love with a prostitute.

After his tenure with the Police, Sting went on to a celebrated solo career that saw him to continue to mix rock with reggae as well as jazz and pop. For me, the pinnacle of his solo work is his 1993 album, Ten Summoner’s Tales, the title of which puns on his last name. “Fields of Gold,” Sting explained, is about his home in the English countryside, which is surrounded by barley fields and is majestic at certain times of year. Ballads figure prominently on this album, which also included the standouts “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You,” “Shape of My Heart,” and “Heavy Cloud No Rain.”

Sting’s hits continued to roll in with his last album of the 20th century, Brand New Day, which included the title cut and “Desert Rose.” I remember clearly when these songs came out and were on the radio. Sting noted that Stevie Wonder played harmonica on the former, and challenged his harmonica player to fill those very big shoes. Other songs in the set included “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” “Why Should I Cry,” “Mad About You,” and “So Lonely.” He closed his encore with “Fragile.”

When artists go solo after a tenure with a band, they often gravitate to playing guitar, especially rhythm guitar.  Sting is a bit unusual in that, even as he embarked on a solo career, he stuck with the bass. While he’s not a virtuous on the instrument — no one would mistake him for the late Jaco Pastorius — he’s more than competent as a player.

While the melodies and playing are great, Sting’s excellence come down — as it does with most — to the quality of his songs. Both with the Police and as a solo artist, he’s crafted numerous instantly recognizable classics. And at Wolf Trap Friday night (the first of two nights at the venue), he didn’t shy away from giving the audience exactly what they wanted: the hits.

Here are some photos of Sting performing at Wolf Trap on Sept. 1, 2023. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Ari Strauss.