Richard (Dick) Halligan (born August 29, 1943 in Troy, New York) is an American musician and composer, best known as a founding member of the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears.

Halligan was BS&T's trombonist on their first album, Child Is Father to the Man. When Al Kooper left the band after that first album, Halligan began playing other instruments including piano, organ, and flute. He received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance for "Variations On A Theme By Erik Satie" from the album Blood, Sweat & Tears. Halligan also arranged many of the band's charts during this time period, and he wrote several songs including "Redemption" and "Lisa Listen To Me." Halligan left BS&T in 1971 after recording their fourth album, when the band began to shift to more rock-oriented music.

In the 1970s and 1980s Halligan composed and arranged music for a number of motion pictures, television, and commercials.

As of 2006 he is active as a composer and performer for various types of music, including jazz and chamber music.

Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt; February 5, 1944) is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears (although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity), providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to record the Super Session album. He has had a successful solo career since then, written music for film soundtracks, and has also lectured in musical composition. He continues to perform live to this day.

Kooper, born in Brooklyn, grew up in a Jewish family in Hollis Hills, Queens, New York. His first musical success was as a fourteen-year-old guitarist in The Royal Teens, best known for their novelty twelve-bar blues riff, "Short Shorts". In 1960, he joined the songwriting team of Bob Brass and Irwin Levine, and wrote "This Diamond Ring", which became a hit for Gary Lewis and the Playboys. When he was twenty-one, Kooper moved to Greenwich Village.

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings.

Mia Martini (born Domenica Bertè; 20 September 1947 - 12 May 1995) was an Italian singer.

Born Domenica Bertè in 1947 in Bagnara Calabra (province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy), she moved to Rome with her sister (Loredana Bertè) and her friend Renato Zero.^{[citation needed]}

She recorded her first records as Mimì Bertè, but she soon decided to change her name to Mia Martini.^{[citation needed]}

Her biggest hits were "Piccolo Uomo" (little man), which was recorded in several languages, "Almeno tu nell'universo" written by Bruno Lauzi, which has been covered by several Italian singers including Mina and Elisa, and "Minuetto".^{[citation needed]}

She represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest twice: in 1977 with "Libera" (13th out of 18), and in 1992 with "Rapsodia" (4th out of 23).^{[citation needed]}

In 1995 Martini was found dead in her apartment at Cardano al Campo (province of Varese), near Milan after overdosing on painkillers.

John Ford Coley (born October 13, 1951) is a singer, classically trained pianist, guitarist, actor, and author most known for his partnership in the musical duo England Dan & John Ford Coley.

John Ford Coley was born John Edward Colley in Dallas, Texas. He grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry, early rock and roll, singing church hymns and was trained as a classical pianist. At 16, while at W.W. Samuell High School in Dallas, John along with fellow schoolmate Dan Seals joined the group "Theze Few" which later became "The Southwest FOB" (Freight On Board) and toured the Texas music scene where they had one hit "The Smell of Incense" that in 1969 rose to number 43 on the charts. This band played on the bill with such acts as Led Zeppelin and others.

While in the band, Seals and Coley began their own acoustic act: Colley and Wayland. The act was renamed England Dan & John Ford Coley, and the duo was signed by A&M Records. In 1971, the two moved to Los Angeles where they opened for numerous bands. Their first break came in 1972 with the song "Simone". It became a number one hit in Japan and was quite popular in France. However, "Simone" did not fare as well in the United States, and the two were released from their contract with A&M after three albums.