Kenneth Colyer (18 April 1928 – 8 March 1988) was a British jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted totally to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.

He was born in Great Yarmouth, grew up in Soho, London and was a member of a church choir. When his older brother Bill (born William John Colyer in 1922 — died January 2009) went off to serve in World War II he left his jazz records behind, which influenced Ken Colyer. He joined the Merchant Navy at 17, travelled around the world and heard famous jazz musicians in New York and Montreal.

In Britain, Colyer played with various bands and joined, in 1949, the Crane River Jazz Band (CRJB) with Ben Marshall, Sonny Morris and Monty Sunshine. The band played at the Royal Festival Hall on 14 July 1951 in the presence of HRH Princess Elizabeth.

Parts of that group merged with other musicians including Keith Christie and Ian Christie to form the Christie Brothers' Stompers. Colyer rejoined the Merchant Navy and in New Orleans played with his idols in the George Lewis Band. He was offered the job of lead trumpeter on a tour, but was then put in prison and deported.

Donald Christopher 'Chris' Barber (born 17 April 1930, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England) is best known as a jazz trombonist. As well as scoring a UK top twenty trad jazz hit he helped the careers of many musicians, notably the blues singer Ottilie Patterson, who was at one time his wife, and vocalist/banjoist Lonnie Donegan, whose appearances with Barber triggered the skiffle craze of the mid 1950s and who had his first transatlantic hit, "Rock Island Line", while with Chris Barber's band. His providing an audience for Donegan and, later, Alexis Korner makes Barber a significant figure in the British rhythm and blues and "Beat boom" of the 1960s.

The son of a statistician father and headmistress mother, Barber was educated at St Paul's School in London and the Guildhall School of Music.

Barber and Monty Sunshine (clarinet) formed a band in 1953, calling it Ken Colyer's Jazzmen to capitalise on their trumpeter's recent escapades in New Orleans: the group also included Donegan, Jim Bray (bass), Ron Bowden (drums) and Barber on trombone. The band played Dixieland jazz, and later ragtime, swing, blues and R&B. Pat Halcox took over on trumpet in 1954 when Colyer moved on after musical differences and the band became "The Chris Barber Band".

Monty Sunshine (9 April 1928 – 30 November 2010) was an English jazz clarinetist, whose main claim to fame was his clarinet solo on the track "Petite Fleur", a million seller for the Chris Barber Jazz Band in 1959. Sunshine variously worked with The Eager Beavers, The Crane River Jazz Band, Beryl Bryden, George Melly, Chris Barber, Johnny Parker^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Diz Disley and Donegan's Dancing Sushine Band.

Born in Stepney, London, he along with Lonnie Donegan, Jim Bray and Ron Bowden, formed the back line of what was the embryo Chris Barber Band. Ken Colyer was the first trumpet player, with Sunshine on clarinet, and the original 1953 band took the Colyer name until there was a split from Colyer in May 1954. Pat Halcox - who only turned the band down originally as he wanted to carry on his studies - took over the spot, and the band formally adopted the Chris Barber Jazz Band as its title.

The band quickly made an international reputation following their inaugural tour of Denmark, before their professional debut in the United Kingdom. Sunshine stayed with the band for several years, until he left around 1960, to be replaced by Ian Wheeler. He formed his own band, staying true to the original six man line up, whilst Barber expanded his band membership to seven, then eight and finally to eleven.

John Luther ("Casey") Jones (March 14, 1863 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee, who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad (IC). As a boy, he lived near Cayce, Kentucky, where he acquired the nickname of "Cayce" which he chose to spell as "Casey." On April 30, 1900, he alone was killed when his passenger train, the Cannonball Express, collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night.

His dramatic death, trying to stop his train and save lives, made him a hero; he was immortalized in a popular ballad sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African American engine wiper for the IC.

Dark-haired Mary Joanna ("Janie") Brady, daughter of the boarding house owner, noticed Jones' remarkable appetite and the way he blushed whenever she flashed him a smile. Jones soon fell in love with her and decided to propose marriage. Since she was Catholic, he decided to be baptized on November 11, 1886 at St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Whistler, Alabama, to please her. They were married at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Jackson on November 25, 1886, and bought a house at 211 West Chester Street in Jackson, where they raised three children. By all accounts he was a devoted family man and teetotaler.

Philip Street (born 1959) is a Canadian cartoonist and animator who lives in Toronto. He lived in Blyth, Ontario during his childhood and studied at St. Michael's College in Toronto. Throughout his career he has also lived in Kingston, Ontario.

He currently draws the comic strip Fisher, which appears daily in The Globe and Mail. An earlier strip, Rip Trousers, ran in the Kingston Whig-Standard in 1993 and 1994.