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• 
  

• 
  Abbey Wood
  Coordinates: 51°29′11″N 0°06′39″E / 51.4864°N 0.1109°E / 51.4864; 0.1109
  Abbey Wood is a district of South-East London, England, located mostly in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and partly within the London Borough of Bexley. It is situated 9.3 miles (15 km) east of Charing Cross.
  The district takes its name from Lesnes Abbey Woods, located to the east.
  The Abbey of St Mary and St Thomas the Martyr at Lesnes (or Lesnes Abbey) was founded in 1178 by Richard de Luci, Chief Justiciar of England. The Abbott of Lesnes Abbey was an important local landlord, and took a leading part in draining the marshland. However, this and the cost of maintaining river embankments was one of the reasons given for the Abbey's chronic financial difficulties. It never became a large community, and was closed by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525, under a licence to suppress monasteries of less than seven inmates. It was one of the first monasteries to be closed after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1524, and the monastic buildings were all pulled down, except for the Abbott's Lodging. Henry Cooke acquired the site in 1541 and it eventually passed to Sir John Hippersley who salvaged building materials, before selling the property to Thomas Hawes of London in 1632. It was then bequeathed to Christ's Hospital in 1633.
  
  wn.com/Abbey_Wood
• Bexley College
  Bexley College is a general further education college in the London Borough of Bexley, England. It has two campuses at Tower Road and Upper Holly Hill Road.
  It opened in 1907 as Erith Technical Institute.
  It was formerly known as Erith College of Technology (ECOT) running Ordinary National Diplomas OND in Technology & Ordinary National Certificates ONC as well as Higher National Certificates HNC in Electrical & Electronic Engineering alongside A Levels and other vocational courses in Mechanical Engineering, Beauty, Hairdressing, Management and Construction.
  In 1971, it moved to Tower Road in Belvedere and became known as Bexley College in 1993. The Holly Hill Campus offers engineering and construction courses.
  The former St Joseph's Campus at 269 Woolwich Road (A206) near Bostall Heath in Abbey Wood used to be the St Joseph's Convent Grammar School (a Catholic girls' school) until the 1980s; there also was the Main Road campus in Sidcup. Both sites were sold off for housing developments principally to earn revenue for the College.
  
  wn.com/Bexley_College
• 
  Bexleyheath
  Coordinates: 51°27′32″N 0°08′18″E / 51.4589°N 0.1384°E / 51.4589; 0.1384
  Bexleyheath is a main suburban district of Southeast London, England, in the London Borough of Bexley. Bexleyheath is located on the border of Inner London and Outer London. It is 12 miles (19.3 km) east south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
  Until the early 19th century, Bexley Heath comprised an area of scrub-land with few buildings, although Bexley Heath windmill stood at the corner of what is today Erith Road and Mayplace Road. The heath bordered Watling Street. In 1766 Sir John Boyd had Danson House built in parkland (now Danson Park between Bexleyheath and Welling). In 1814 the land to the north of Bexley that would become Bexleyheath became subject to an Enclosure Act. In 1859 architect Philip Webb designed Red House for the artist, reforming designer and socialist William Morris on the western edge of the heath, in the hamlet of Upton — before Upton became largely developed as a London suburb. The National Trust acquired the house in 2003.
  
  wn.com/Bexleyheath
• 
  Devon
  Coordinates: 50°42′N 3°48′W / 50.7°N 3.8°W / 50.7; -3.8
  Devon ( /ˈdɛvən/) is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although it has never been officially "shired" and that use often indicates a traditional or historical context. Nowadays, "Devonshire" is mostly a demonym.
  The county shares borders with Cornwall to the west and Dorset and Somerset to the east. Its southern coast abuts the English Channel and its northern coast the Bristol Channel and Celtic Sea. The name "Devon" derives from the ancient Dumnonia, which was home to the independent kingdom of Brythonic Celtic speaking people who inhabited this area of the southwestern peninsula of Britain continuously from through the Roman era until partial absorption into the English-speaking Kingdom of Wessex some time in the eighth or ninth century, with some emigration to the sister Kingdom of Domnonee in Brittany taking place.
  Devon is the fourth largest of the English counties by area and has a population of 1,141,600 making it the 11th most populous. The county town is the cathedral city of Exeter. In addition to Devon County Council, the county contains two unitary authorities (independent from Devon County Council's control): the port city of Plymouth and Torbay, a conurbation of seaside resorts. Plymouth is also the largest city in Devon. Much of the county is rural (including national park) land, with a low population density by British standards. It contains Dartmoor 954 km² (368 sq mi), the largest open space in southern England. It is the only English county to have two separate coastlines – a north and southern coastline.
  
  wn.com/Devon
• East Portlemouth
  East Portlemouth is a small Devon village situated at the southern end of the Kingsbridge Estuary. The village is sited on a hill giving views to the north to Kingsbridge and on a clear day as far as Dartmoor. There is a small ferry that runs to Salcombe and a beach that is popular with holiday makers.
  The village is popular with celebrities as a second-home base, where home owners include Steve Rider, Kate Bush and Michael Parkinson.
  Coordinates: 50°14′N 3°45′W / 50.233°N 3.75°W / 50.233; -3.75
  
  
  
  wn.com/East_Portlemouth
• 
  East Wickham
  Coordinates: 51°28′08″N 0°05′46″E / 51.469°N 0.096°E / 51.469; 0.096
  East Wickham is a place and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bexley. It is a part of the Welling post town. West Wickham is several miles to the south, in the London Borough of Bromley.
  Welling originally formed part of the ancient manor of East Wickham, which was centred on St Michael’s Church, Upper Wickham Lane, built in the 13th century. In the Domesday Book (1086) East Wickham was included as part of the return for Plumstead and the church was originally a chapel of St Nicholas’ Church in Plumstead. East Wickham is the birthplace and childhood residence of the singer-songwriter Kate Bush.
  
  wn.com/East_Wickham
• 
  Royal Festival Hall
  The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected (in 1981) . The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestras perform the majority of their London concerts in the hall.
  The hall was built as part of the Festival of Britain by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts for London County Council, and was officially opened on 3 May 1951. When the Greater London Council (LCC's successor) was abolished in 1986, the Hall was taken over by the Arts Council. Since the late 1980s the hall has operated an 'open foyers' policy, opening up the substantial foyer spaces to the public throughout the day, even if there are no performances. This has proved very popular and the foyers are now one of the most used public spaces in London.
  Each year Southbank Centre puts on a festival known as "Meltdown". In 2010 the festival was curated by Richard Thompson and featured events across the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall.
  
  wn.com/Royal_Festival_Hall
• 
  Sulhamstead
  Coordinates: 51°24′49″N 1°05′25″W / 51.4137°N 1.0904°W / 51.4137; -1.0904
  Sulhamstead is a village, electoral district (ward) and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies off the A4 national route between Reading and Thatcham, some 74 km (46 mi) west of central London.
  It is located at grid reference SU632687, in the district of West Berkshire. Prior to 1782, the area consisted of two ecclesiastical parishes, Sulhamstead Abbots and Sulhamstead Bannister, based on the ancient manors. It is bounded by Burghfield Parish to the East, and Ufton Nervet Parish to the West. It also borders Englefield parish to the North and Stratfield Mortimer Parish to the South
  There are three centres of population in Sulhamstead. The greatest number of houses stand on Sulhamstead Hill which runs from the top of the hill by Ufton Church down to the water meadows by the Kennet and the Bath Road (A4). The other two centres are Sulhamstead Abbots and Sulhamstead Bannister with other residences scattered about the parish. Sulhamstead Abbots Church, St.Mary's, to the south, is now the parish church. Sulhamstead Bannister consists of two detached regions, "Upper End" and "Lower End". The former lies between Wokefield and Grazeley, although this has since been absorbed into Wokefield civil parish. The core of its village was around the old demolished church, where the inventor Samuel Morland's father was once the vicar.
  
  wn.com/Sulhamstead
• 
  West Berkshire
  West Berkshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England, governed by a unitary authority (West Berkshire Council). Its administrative capital is Newbury, located almost equidistantly between Bristol and London.
  Apart from Newbury, the other main centres in the district include Thatcham, Hungerford, Pangbourne and Lambourn. Larger villages include Theale, Purley-on-Thames, Burghfield, Mortimer and Hermitage. The West Berkshire district borders Hampshire to the south, Wiltshire to the west, Oxfordshire to the north and both the Reading and Wokingham unitary districts to the east.
  The highest point in southeast/south-central England is located in West Berkshire at Walbury Hill with a summit height of 297 m (974 ft) 2 km to the south of the village of Inkpen. West Berkshire is also home to the UK Atomic Weapons Establishment, based near Aldermaston to the east of the district and the worldwide headquarters of Vodafone on the outskirts of Newbury. The area around Lambourn in the far west of the district is noted for its numerous horse racing stables and training grounds.
  
  wn.com/West_Berkshire

• 
  Adam Darius
  Adam Darius (born 10 May 1930) is an American dancer, mime artist, writer and choreographer. As a performer, he has appeared in over 85 countries across six continents. As a writer, he has published 14 books and written 22 plays.
  In a program devoted to his career, the BBC World Service described him as "one of the most exceptional talents of the 20th century".
  Adam Darius currently lives in Espoo, Finland.
  Adam Darius was born in Manhattan, New York City, into a family of Turkish and Russian ancestry.
  Adam Darius began his ballet and contemporary dance training in 1945, at the age of 14, and went on to study with, among others, Anatole Oboukhov, George Goncharov, Olga Preobrajenska and José Limón.
  His professional career began in 1946 with appearances at New York's Metropolitan Opera House, and then with numerous ballet companies including Britain's International Ballet (1953), Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1954), and Denmark's Scandinavian Ballet (1962). He was also choreographer of the Israel National Opera (1963–1964), where he choreographed four operas for opera star Plácido Domingo; (Don Giovanni, Carmen, La Traviata and The Pearl Fishers, all of which premièred at the Israel National Opera in Tel-Aviv in 1963). From 1964-1966, Adam Darius was the director of his own company, the Israeli Ballet.
  
  wn.com/Adam_Darius
• 
  Adolf Hitler
  Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II, and the Holocaust.
  A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
  
  wn.com/Adolf_Hitler
• Alan Murphy
  Alan Murphy (28 November 1953 – 19 October 1989) was an English rock session guitarist, best remembered for his collaborations with Kate Bush and Go West. In 1988 he joined the group Level 42 as a full time band member, and played with them until his death in 1989. He also played lead guitar on select recordings by Mike + The Mechanics, including the hit single "Silent Running".^{[citation needed]}
  Alan Murphy's first musical group was called Blackmass and consisted of Murphy, Roy Phillips, James Hedges, Terry Eden, Steve Paget, and Vincent Duffy. Blackmass were named in tribute to Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, an early influence of Murphy's, and existed for about two years until some of the band's equipment was stolen and the group disbanded.
  SFX was an instrumental jazz-rock fusion band featuring Murphy and fellow luminaries of the session world, Felix Krish on bass, Tony Beard on drums and Richard Cottle on keyboards. SFX originated from the covers band "The Stapleton Allstars", morphing into SFX after creating a set of original instrumental fusion tunes. They played the occasional interrupted residency at the Cricketers pub, near The Oval cricket ground in London. The band recorded an album which was subsequently released after Murphy's death.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Murphy
• 
  Alan Stivell
  Alan Stivell (born Alan Cochevelou January 6, 1944) is a Breton musician and singer, recording artist and master of the celtic harp who from the early 1970s revived global interest in the Celtic (specifically Breton) harp and Celtic music as part of world music.
  Alan was born in the Auvergnat town of Riom. His father Georges (Jord in Breton) Cochevelou was a civil servant in the French Ministry of Finance who achieved his dream of recreating a Celtic or Breton harp in the small town of Gourin, Brittany. In 1953, Alan began playing the instrument at the age of nine under the tutelage of his father and Denise Megevand, a concert harpist. Alan also learned Celtic mythology, art and history as well as the Breton language, traditional Breton dance and the Scottish bagpipe and the bombarde, a traditional Breton instrument, from the oboe family. Alan began playing concerts at eleven years and studying traditional Breton, English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh folk music, also learning the drum, Irish flute, and tin whistle. He competed in and won several Breton traditional music competitions in the Bleimor Pipe band. Alan spent his childhood in Paris, with its cosmopolitan influences from France, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere. But he fell in love with Breton music and Celtic culture in general, and often went back in his teens to Brittany.
  
  wn.com/Alan_Stivell
• 
  Alison Goldfrapp
  Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp (born 13 May 1966) is an English singer-songwriter and record producer, best known as the lead singer of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp.
  Alison Goldfrapp was born in Enfield, Middlesex, England, the youngest of six children. Her father, Nick, had been an army officer, and subsequently worked for Scope and English Heritage. Her mother, Isabella, was a nurse. While Goldfrapp was growing up, her family moved frequently, eventually settling in Alton, Hampshire, where Goldfrapp attended the independent Alton Convent School.^{[citation needed]}
  Goldfrapp's interest in music began in Alton, where she sang briefly in a band called Fashionable Living Death, formed with anarchist friends, and was involved in other bands, including Demented Children and Waste Product.^{[citation needed]}
  Alison Goldfrapp was introduced to composer Will Gregory in 1999 after he had listened to her vocal contribution to trip hop artist Tricky's 1995 song "Pumpkin". Gregory felt a connection with Goldfrapp and invited her to record a demo for the film soundtrack he was composing, to see if they could work together. The demo was never completed, but the recording session had been pleasant. Following several months of phone calls, they decided to form a band and began performing under Goldfrapp's last name.
  
  wn.com/Alison_Goldfrapp
• Andrew Powell
  Andrew Powell – musical composer, arranger and performer – was born 18 April 1949 in London, England of Welsh parents.
  He began taking piano lessons at the age of four and later attended Kings College School, Wimbledon by which time he was also learning the viola, violin and orchestral percussion. He was writing music by the age of eleven and went on to study composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen and György Ligeti at Darmstadt in Germany before taking a masters degree in music Kings College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he joined an electronic music group, Intermodulation, with Roger Smalley, Tim Souster and Robin Thompson, and joined the local progressive rock group Henry Cow, formed by Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson, in which he alternated between bass and drums.
  After leaving Cambridge he performed as a soloist at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, London. He later worked with several orchestras, including at Covent Garden and with the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Welsh Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra where he worked with Pierre Boulez. He had also begun working as a session player, as well as founding the group "Come to the Edge" with Robin Thompson and Morris Pert, which performed regularly with the Japanese percussion virtuoso Stomu Yamashta.
  
  wn.com/Andrew_Powell
• Anthony Van Laast
  Anthony Van Laast is a choreographer, mainly for the stage, concerts, television and film. His works have appeared in the West End and on Broadway.
  Van Laast was born in Sussex, UK. He received dance training at the London School of Contemporary Dance, and both performed and choreograhed with the Company.
  Among his prominent stage works as a choreographer are the musicals Sister Act (2011 on Broadway, also 2009 West End),Bombay Dreams (2004),Mamma Mia! (2001),Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1993), Song & Dance (1982, West End). He received a nomination for the Tony Award, Best Choreography, jointly with Farah Khan for Bombay Dreams. For his work on the musical Hair (Old Vic) and for The Beggar's Opera (the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican), he was nominated for the Olivier Award, Best Theatre Choreographer in 1994.
  His television and film work includes the concert Sarah Brightman: Symphony in Vienna (2008) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
  He co-directed and choreographed EFX, the Las Vegas stage show at the MGM Grand starring Michael Crawford in 1995. He has choreographed for Holiday on Ice, including "Extravaganza" in 1997, "Hollywood" (2002), and he is the artistic director for "Mystery" (2009).
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Van_Laast
• 
  Ariel Pink
  Ariel Pink (born Ariel Marcus Rosenberg; June 24, 1978) is a Los Angeles-based recording artist who is sometimes associated with the freak folk scene.
  Ariel Pink was raised in the Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles, attending Beverly Hills High School and later the California Institute of the Arts. In high school, Pink was a fan of such Gothic rock acts as Christian Death, Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, and The Cure (whom he cites as his favorite band). He started writing songs "around age 10" and has recorded over 500 songs on hundreds of cassette tapes since 1996.
  Pink produces and plays almost all of his own music, and is noted for creating drum sounds using primarily his mouth, and sometimes his armpits. His home recording technique gives his music a very lo-fi sound, to the point where new listeners may mistake the era of his music. Pink's influences range from R. Stevie Moore--friend, mentor, and "father of home recording"—to Michael Jackson.
  Aside from his music, Pink creates and sells semi-abstract and surreal grotesque drawings which can be viewed at his unofficial website.
  
  wn.com/Ariel_Pink
• Ary Barroso
  Ary Barroso(Portuguese pronunciation: [a'ɾi ba'ʁozu]) (November 7, 1903 – February 9, 1964) was a Brazilian composer, pianist, soccer commentator, and talent-show host on radio and TV. He was one of Brazil's most successful songwriters in the first half of the 20th century.
  Barroso's two best-known compositions are the sambas "Aquarela do Brasil" ("Watercolor of Brazil"), written in 1939, and "Na Baixa do Sapateiro" ("Bahia"), composed a year earlier. "Watercolor of Brazil" was featured in Saludos Amigos (1942) and "Na Baixa do Sapateiro" in The Three Caballeros (1944), both Disney films. The two songs became international hits, and have been recorded by hundreds of artists around the world. Among his major interpreters are Carmen Miranda and João Gilberto.
  In 1945, his song "Rio de Janeiro", featured in the 1944 film Brazil, was one of the five finalists nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
  His song "Aquarela do Brasil" was used as the main theme of the 1985 film "Brazil".
  
  wn.com/Ary_Barroso
• 
  Atom Egoyan
  Atom Egoyan, OC (Armenian: Աթոմ Եղոյեան; born July 19, 1960) is a critically acclaimed Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica (1994). His most critically acclaimed film is The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and his biggest commercial success is Chloe (2009).
  Egoyan has been nominated for two Academy Awards - The Sweet Hereafter for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. He also won several awards at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Genie Awards.
  His work often explores themes of alienation and isolation, featuring characters whose interactions are mediated through technology, bureaucracy or other power structures. Egoyan's films often follow non-linear plot-structures, in which events are placed out of sequence in order to elicit specific emotional reactions from the audience by withholding key information.
  In 2008 Egoyan received the Dan David Prize for "Creative Rendering of the Past".
  Egoyan was born Atom Yeghoyan in Cairo, Egypt, the son of Shushan (née Devletian) and Joseph Yeghoyan, artists who operated a furniture store. His parents were Armenian-Egyptians, and he was named Atom to mark the completion of Egypt's first nuclear reactor. In 1962, however, his parents left Egypt for Canada, where they settled in Victoria, British Columbia, and changed their last name to Egoyan. Atom and his sister, Eve, now a concert pianist based in Toronto, were raised by their parents in British Columbia.
  
  wn.com/Atom_Egoyan
• 
  Björk
  Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( /ˈbjɜrk/; [ˈpjœr̥k ˈkvʏðmʏntsˌtoʊhtɪr] ( listen); born 21 November 1965), known as Björk, is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her musical style is eclectic and she has achieved recognition in rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical, and folk.
  Björk's 1990s singles "It's Oh So Quiet", "Army of Me" and "Hyperballad" charted in the UK Top 10.^{[citation needed]} Her record label, One Little Indian, reported that by 2003 she had sold more than 15 million albums worldwide. She has acquired a high level of critical acclaim. She has won four BRIT Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, one MOJO Award, three UK Music Video Awards, and, in 2010, the Polar Music Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, in recognition for her "deeply personal music and lyrics, her precise arrangements and her unique voice".
  Björk has also been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, one Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. She won the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for her performance in Dancer in the Dark. She was ranked thirty-sixth in VH1's "The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll", eighth in MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music", and sixtieth in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Singers of All Time".
  
  wn.com/Björk
• 
  Brett Anderson
  Brett Lewis Anderson (born 29 September 1967) is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Suede. After Suede disbanded in 2003, he briefly fronted The Tears, and has released four solo albums. Suede reformed in 2010. In Suede's early days, Anderson's androgynous style and unique, wide ranging vocals were an instant phenomenon in the UK.
  Born in Haywards Heath, West Sussex into a working class family, Anderson's mother was an artist and his father was a classical music fan. He was brought up in a small council estate in Lindfield, a village adjoining Haywards Heath, attending Lindfield Junior School then Oathall Comprehensive School.
  In his teens, Anderson played guitar for garage bands such as The Pigs and Geoff, the latter featuring future Suede bassist Mat Osman. In the late-1980s, Anderson and Osman formed Suede with Anderson's girlfriend, Justine Frischmann, soon recruiting guitarist Bernard Butler through an advertisement in the NME. After receiving percussional help from former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, in 1991, Simon Gilbert joined Suede as their official drummer. It was around this time that Frischmann left Anderson for Blur frontman Damon Albarn, which created an early rift in the burgeoning Britpop scene of the early 1990s. After missing too many rehearsals and flaunting her relationship with Albarn while still living with Anderson, Frischmann was fired from the group, going on to front Elastica.
  
  wn.com/Brett_Anderson
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  Carole King
  Carole King (born February 9, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, her Tapestry album topped the U.S. album chart for 15 weeks in 1971, and remained on the charts for more than six years.
  She was most successful as a performer in the first half of the 1970s, although she was a successful songwriter long before and long after. She had her first number 1 hit as a songwriter in 1961 at age 18, with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", which she wrote with Goffin. In 1997, she co-wrote "The Reason" for Aerosmith, but instead it was sung by Celine Dion.
  In 2000, Joel Whitburn, a Billboard Magazine pop music researcher, named her the most successful female songwriter of 1955–99, because she wrote or co-wrote 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
  King has made 25 solo albums, the most successful being Tapestry. Her most recent non-compilation album is Live at the Troubadour, a collaboration with James Taylor, which reached number 4 on the charts in its first week, and has sold over 600,000 copies.
  
  wn.com/Carole_King
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  Charles Dickens
  Charles John Huffam Dickens ( /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈdɪkɪnz/; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic who is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period and the creator of some of the world's most memorable fictional characters. During his lifetime Dickens' works enjoyed unprecedented popularity and fame, but it was in the twentieth century that his literary genius was fully recognized by critics and scholars. His novels and short stories continue to enjoy an enduring popularity among the general reading public.
  Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens left school to work in a factory after his father was thrown into debtors' prison. Though he had little formal education, his early impoverishment drove him to succeed. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels and hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Dickens
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  Charlotte Church
  Charlotte Maria Church (born Charlotte Maria Reed; 21 February 1986) is a Welshsinger-songwriter, actress and television presenter. She rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before branching into pop music in 2005. By 2007, she had sold more than 10 million records worldwide including over 5 million in the United States. In 2010 she was reported to be worth as much as £11m (though one 2003 report quoted her worth at £25m). She hosted a Channel 4 chat show titled The Charlotte Church Show. Church released her first album in five years, titled Back To Scratch, on 17 October 2010. She is also mentioned as one of the Bohemians in Ben Elton's musical We Will Rock You.
  Charlotte Church was born Charlotte Maria Reed in Llandaff, a district of Cardiff, Wales. She was brought up as a Roman Catholic by her mother, Maria, who was separated from Church's biological father, Stephen Reed. Church was adopted by her mother's second husband, James Church in 1986. Her break came at 11 when she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu" over the telephone on the television show "This Morning" in 1997, followed by her performance on ITV's Big, Big Talent Show in 1997. This led to concerts at Cardiff Arms Park, the Royal Albert Hall and opening for Shirley Bassey in Antwerp. She also received a vocal scholarship to Howell's School Llandaff in Cardiff where she started in 1998 after leaving The Cathedral School, Llandaff. She balanced performing and school with help from tutors for when she was on the road and said in many interviews that she was "just like every other girl her age".
  
  wn.com/Charlotte_Church
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  Cocteau Twins
  Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals. The original members were Elizabeth Fraser (vocals), Robin Guthrie (guitar, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass guitar), who was replaced by Simon Raymonde (also bass guitar) early in the band's career.
  While the entire band earned much critical praise, Elizabeth Fraser's distinctive vocals received the most attention. At times barely decipherable, Fraser seemed to veer into glossolalia and mouth music. Allmusic reviewer Ned Raggett writes that "part of her appeal is how she can make hard-to-interpret lyrics so emotionally gripping."
  Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie (bass guitar), both from Grangemouth, Scotland, formed the band in 1979. At a local disco, Nash, they met Elizabeth Fraser, who would eventually provide vocals. The band's influences at the time included Joy Division, The Birthday Party, Sex Pistols, Kate Bush, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The band was named after the song "The Cocteau Twins" by fellow Scotsmen 'Johnny and the Self-Abusers' (who later renamed themselves Simple Minds; the song "The Cocteau Twins" was also re-penned as "No Cure"). Their debut recording, Garlands (released by 4AD Records in 1982), was an instant success, as was the subsequent Lullabies EP. Around that time, NME's Don Watson compared the style of the band to goth bands like Gene Loves Jezebel and Xmal Deutschland.
  
  wn.com/Cocteau_Twins
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  Danny Thompson
  Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson (born 4 April 1939, Teignmouth, Devon) is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman. He has had a long musical career playing with a large variety of other musicians, particularly Richard Thompson (no relation) and John Martyn, but including many others: at various times has for example played with Nick Drake, Roy Orbison, Julie Felix, Freddie and the Dreamers, Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, Tom Paxton, Donovan, Vivian Stanshall, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Mary Hopkin, Loreena McKennitt, Tim Buckley, and Davey Graham. For five years, he was a member of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, and he was a founding member of the British folk rock band Pentangle. Since 1987, he has also recorded four solo albums. He converted to Islam in 1990.
  His father, a miner, joined the Royal Navy at the start of World War II and was lost in action whilst crewing submarines. When Thompson was aged 6, the family moved to London and he was brought up in the working-class area of Battersea. At school he excelled at football and played as a junior for Chelsea, the team he has supported ever since. Whilst at school he learnt guitar, mandolin, trumpet and trombone before settling on the Upright bass as his instrument of choice.
  
  wn.com/Danny_Thompson
• Dave Hazard
  Dave Hazard born in Bow, east London, in 1952 is a well known British 7th Dan Karateka and instructor of Shotokan karate and was one of the few students present at the very beginning of British Karate. He is a former KUGB national champion and British team member. Like many of the early karateka he first trained in judo before starting karate in 1969 at the Blackfriers club in London, where he trained under Keinosuke Enoeda, Hirokazu Kanazawa, Kato and Takahashi.
  In 1977 Hazard went to Japan where he studied in JKA instructor classes under Masatoshi Nakayama
  In 1984 Hazard joined with Mick Dewey to found SEKU, the South of England Karate Union, later the Shotokan of England Karate Union, as grading examiner and technical director.^{[citation needed]} At this time he lived in Brighton and ran a black and brown belt club there, which is now run by Jess Lavender a 6th Dan.
  Hazard later left SEKU and is now the chief instructor of an international association in the form of the Academy of Shotokan Karate, which he founded in 2003, feeling in need of an environment that would allow him personally to evolve his approach to Shotokan Karate-Do. He is assisted within the ASK by senior instructors and karate-ka like Jeff Westgarth, Jess Lavender, Simon Staples and Paul Herbert. He is also the former Kata coach for the English national squad, due to the restructuring of the EKGB. He brings to many training courses his expertise in kata and their applications to differing situations.
  
  wn.com/Dave_Hazard
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  David Bowie
  David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.i/ BOH-ee; born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. He is known for his distinctive voice and the intellectual depth and eclecticism of his work.
  Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture." The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.
  
  wn.com/David_Bowie
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  David Gilmour
  David Jon Gilmour,CBE (born 6 March 1946) is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 250 million records worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.
  In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charities over the course of his career.
  In 2003, he was appointed CBE for his charity work and was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards. In 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time.
  Gilmour was born in Cambridge, England. His father, Douglas Gilmour, was a senior lecturer in zoology at the University of Cambridge and his mother, Sylvia (née Wilson), was a teacher and film editor who raised her family at Grantchester Meadows, later immortalised by a Roger Waters song on Pink Floyd's Ummagumma. He has a younger brother who is also a musician.
  
  wn.com/David_Gilmour
• Del Palmer
  Del Palmer is a British bass guitarist and sound engineer, best known for his work with Kate Bush, with whom he also had a long-term relationship between the late 1970s and early 1990s.
  Born in Greenwich south London he began playing bass in 1967, joining friend Brian Bath's band Cobwebs and Strange. In 1969, Palmer and Bath formed Tame with Victor King on drums. The band lasted until 1970. From 1972, Palmer and Bath were in Company with Barry Sherlock (guitar) and Lionel Azulay (drums). They signed to Cube Records in 1973, but Azulay was injured in a road accident. Charlie Morgan joined on drums in 1974 and the band changed its name to Conkers. A series of singles followed on Cube.
  In 1977, the KT Bush Band began with Bush, Palmer, Bath and Vic King, playing the pub circuit. Their live set included material that would later appear on Bush's first album. With her second album, Lionheart, Palmer began working in a studio engineer capacity for Bush. He also toured with her in 1979.
  He is credited as an engineer on Kate Bush's The Sensual World, The Red Shoes and Aerial. He also engineered on three further albums involving Bush: Midge Ure's Answers to Nothing (where Palmer engineered her vocal guest recordings),Roy Harper's Once^{[citation needed]} and Alan Stivell's Again. He played bass guitar on Lionheart, Never for Ever, The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, The Sensual World and Aerial (on 5 tracks).
  
  wn.com/Del_Palmer
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  Dolly Parton
  Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. As a songwriter, she has composed over 3,000 songs, the best known of which include "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper for Parton, as well an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", "9 to 5" and "My Tennessee Mountain Home". As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel and Joyful Noise. She is one of the most successful female country artists of all time; with an estimated 100 million in album sales, Dolly Parton is also one of the best selling artists of all time. She is known as "The Queen of Country Music".
  She was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children of Avie Lee Parton (née Owens; October 5, 1923 – December 5, 2003) and Robert Lee Parton (March 22, 1921 – November 12, 2000), a tobacco farmer. Her siblings are: Willadeene Parton (born March 24, 1940), David Wilburn Parton (born March 30, 1942), Coy Denver "Denver" Parton (born August 16, 1943), Bobby Lee Parton (born February 18, 1948), Stella Mae Parton (born May 4, 1949), Cassie Nan Parton (February 12, 1951), Randel Huston "Randy" Parton (born December 15, 1953), Larry Gerald Parton (born and died July 6, 1955), Floyd and Frieda Estelle Parton (born June 1, 1957), and Rachel Ann Parton (born August 31, 1959). Her family was, as she has described them, "dirt poor". She outlined her family's lack of money in a number of her early songs, notably "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". They lived in a rustic, dilapidated one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a hamlet just north of the Greenbrier Valley, in the Locust Ridge area of the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevier County, a predominantly Pentecostal area.
  
  wn.com/Dolly_Parton
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  Donald Sutherland
  Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in popular war movies such as The Dirty Dozen, MASH and Kelly's Heroes, as well as characters in other popular films such as Klute, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, JFK, Ordinary People and, more recently, The Hunger Games. He is the father of actor Kiefer Sutherland.
  Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of Dorothy Isobel (née McNichol; 1892–1956) and Frederick McLea Sutherland (1894–1983), who worked in sales and ran the local gas, electricity, and bus company. His ancestry includes Scottish, as well as German and English. His teenage years were spent in Nova Scotia. He got his first part time job at age 14 as a news correspondent for local radio station CKBW in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. He then studied at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where he met his first wife Lois Hardwick (not the child star of the same name), and graduated with a double major in engineering and drama. He had at one point been a member of the "UC Follies" comedy troupe in Toronto. He changed his mind about becoming an engineer, and subsequently left Canada for England to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
  
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  Eberhard Weber
  Eberhard Weber (born January 22, 1940 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a German double bassist and composer. As a bass player, Weber is known for his highly distinctive tone and phrasing. Weber's compositions blend chamber jazz, European classical music, minimalism and ambient music, and are regarded as characteristic examples of the ECM Records sound.
  He began recording in the early 1960s, and released his first record, The Colours of Chloë (ECM 1042), as a leader under his own name in 1973. In addition to his career as a musician, he also worked for many years as a television and theater director. He has designed an electric-acoustic bass featuring an extra C-string.
  His music, often in a melancholic tone, follows simple ground patterns (frequently ostinatos), yet is highly organized in its colouring and attention to dramatic detail.
  Weber was a notable early proponent of the solid-body electric double bass, which he has played regularly since the beginning of the 1970s.
  From the early 1960s to the early 1970s, his closest musical association was with pianist Wolfgang Dauner. Their many mutual projects were very diverse, from mainstream jazz to jazz-rock fusion to avant-garde sound experiments. During this period he also played and recorded with (among many others) pianists Hampton Hawes and Mal Waldron, guitarists Baden Powell de Aquino and Joe Pass, The Mike Gibbs Orchestra and violinist Stephane Grappelli.
  
  wn.com/Eberhard_Weber
• Elizabeth Fraser
  Elizabeth Davidson Fraser (born 29 August 1963) is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins. Described by critic Jason Ankeny as "an utterly unique performer whose swooping, operatic vocals relied less on any recognizable language than on the subjective sounds and textures of verbalized emotions," Fraser's distinctive singing earned much critical praise. She was once described as "the voice of God." Fraser's lyrics range from straight forward English to semi-comprehensible sentences and abstract mouth music. For some recordings, she used foreign words without knowing what they meant – the words acquired meaning for her only as she sung them. Fraser has a soprano vocal range. She is as well known for her voice as her perfectionism and reclusive nature.
  Fraser was the vocalist and lyricist in Cocteau Twins, a group founded in 1981 by Robin Guthrie and Will Heggie. At the time, she was 17 years old, and had never thought of herself as a singer. Guthrie and Heggie noticed her dancing at a club one night, and asked her to join their band. After an on-off phase, the band recorded some tracks which were sent as demos to John Peel and Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD which led to their being signed by the London-based label and a successful career in music. Fraser and Guthrie formed a relationship, and had a daughter, Lucy Belle, in 1989. Guthrie liberally used drugs and alcohol throughout the years they were together, and Fraser suffered a nervous breakdown during the recording of Four-Calendar Café. The couple broke up in 1992, still opting to continue a musical relationship until 1998, when Cocteau Twins were disbanded.
  
  wn.com/Elizabeth_Fraser
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  Elton John
  Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriter partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.
  In his four-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, and is the best selling single in Billboard history. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won six Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.
  John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Having been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, John received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1998.
  
  wn.com/Elton_John
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  Eric Clapton
  Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, (born 30 March 1945) is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time.
  In the mid 1960s, Clapton departed from the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. In his one-year stay with Mayall, Clapton gained the nickname "Slowhand". Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed Cream, a power trio with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop." For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of J.J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded by Derek and the Dominos, another band he formed and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded by Cream. A recipient of seventeen Grammy Awards, in 2004 Clapton was awarded a CBE for services to music. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.
  
  wn.com/Eric_Clapton
• Faith and the Muse
  Faith and the Muse is an American, underground gothic/darkwave band composed of two musicians, Monica Richards and William Faith. Their music encompasses many genres, from folk-style songs to darker compositions. Richards is the primary singer, although Faith sings one or two tracks on each album. Their influences include dark alternative, gothic rock, Celtic, and other folk influences. Welsh and Irish mythology have often served as inspiration to many of the band's songs.
  Monica Richards, a native of Washington, D.C., is a musician/artist/poet/scholar. She met William Faith in 1993 when her band, Strange Boutique, opened for Shadow Project in Norfolk, VA. Before starting Faith and the Muse, both had had experience in the gothic rock and post-punk culture of the 1980s. Richards had sung for the band Strange Boutique, while Faith had performed with gothic/death rock icons Shadow Project, Christian Death, Mephisto Walz, and Sex Gang Children. Faith and the Muse was started in 1993 with Richards and Faith exchanging tapes while Richards was still living on the east coast. Shortly thereafter she moved to Los Angeles where the duo is still based.
  
  wn.com/Faith_and_the_Muse
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  Florence Welch
  Florence Leontine Mary Welch (born 28 August 1986) is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer of Florence and the Machine.
  Born in Camberwell, Florence is the niece of the satirist Craig Brown and granddaughter of former deputy editor of The Daily Telegraph and former Daily Mail parliamentary sketchwriter Colin Welch. She is the daughter of Evelyn Welch, a Professor of Renaissance Studies and Academic Dean of Arts at Queen Mary, University of London, and Nick Welch, an advertising executive.Her father Nick contributed a "rock and roll element to the family mix"; in his 20s he used to live in a West End squat and attended the Squatters' Ball organised by Heathcote Williams where The 101ers played regularly. A self-confessed "frustrated performer", if Nick, as he put it, "nudged Flo in any way, it's only been to listen to the Ramones rather than Green Day". Evelyn had an equally strong yet completely different influence on her daughter. A visit to one of her mother's lectures left teenage Florence deeply impressed. She explained, "I aspire to something like that but with music. I hope that my music has some of the big themes—sex, death, love, violence—that will still be part of the human story in 200 years' time."
  
  wn.com/Florence_Welch
• Frances Barber
  Frances Barber (born on 13 May 1958 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England) is an Olivier Award-nominated British actress with a long and distinguished stage career. She has also appeared in numerous television productions.
  Barber studied drama at Bangor University, where she was a contemporary of director Danny Boyle, who became her boyfriend.. One of her closest friends is the actor Ian McKellen, who funded a library in her name in India. In 2006, she received an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Wolverhampton.
  With Pet Shop Boys, she starred in their musical Closer to Heaven in 2001 as well as guest singer for the song "Friendly Fire" on their 2006 live concert at the Mermaid Theatre. She also appeared alongside Ian McKellen and Roger Allam in the Old Vic's pantomime production of Aladdin over the 2005-06 Christmas season. She again starred with Ian McKellen in 2007 playing Goneril in Trevor Nunn's production of King Lear and as Arkadina in Chekhov's The Seagull with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon followed by a world tour throughout the year. They again performed the two plays in repertory at the New London Theatre on Drury Lane, opening in November 2007 and closing mid-January 2008. She appeared in Madame de Sade opposite Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike at the Wyndham's Theatre, and will soon be appearing opposite Niall Buggy in Brian Friel's Afterplay, in a celebration of the author's work.
  
  wn.com/Frances_Barber
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  François Truffaut
  François Roland Truffaut (6 February 1932 – 21 October 1984) was an influential film critic and filmmaker, one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five films.
  Truffaut was born in Paris on 6 February 1932. His mother was Janine de Montferrand. His mother's future husband, Roland Truffaut, accepted him as an adopted son and gave him his surname. He was passed around to live with various nannies and his grandmother for a number of years. It was his grandmother who instilled in him her love of books and music. He lived with his grandmother until her death when Truffaut was ten years old. It was only after his grandmother's death that he lived with his parents for the first time. The identity of Truffaut's biological father was unknown, though a private detective agency in 1968 revealed that their enquiry into the matter led to a Roland Levy, a Jewish dentist from Bayonne. Truffaut's mother's family disputed the findings but Truffaut himself believed and embraced them.
  
  wn.com/François_Truffaut
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  Gary Brooker
  Gary Brooker, MBE, (born 29 May 1945) is an English singer, songwriter, pianist and founder of the rock band Procol Harum. Brooker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 14 June 2003, in recognition of his charitable services.
  Brooker was born in Hackney, East London. He grew up in the seaside resort of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As a youngster, he learned to play piano, cornet and trombone.
  Brooker founded The Paramounts in 1962 with his guitarist friend Robin Trower. The band gained respect within the burgeoning 1960s British R&B scene, which yielded The Beatles, The Animals, The Spencer Davis Group, The Rolling Stones, and many others. The Rolling Stones, in particular, were Paramounts fans, giving them guest billing on several memorable shows in the early 1960s.
  In 1966, Brooker founded Procol Harum with his friend Keith Reid. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is the worldwide hit that Procol Harum is best known for, but Brooker's melancholic vocals and emotive, eclectic piano playing were a key part of Procol's musical mix for the entire course of the band's career. In the early years Brooker, Hammond organist Matthew Fisher, and Trower were the guiding musical forces behind the band, but after disparities in style became too much and Fisher and Trower left, Brooker was the clear leader until the band broke up in 1977. Brooker started a solo career and released the album No More Fear of Flying in 1979.
  
  wn.com/Gary_Brooker
• Geoff Emerick
  Geoffrey Emerick (born 1946 in London) is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road. He is widely regarded as one of the best engineers in all of recording history.
  Emerick first started working as an assistant engineer at EMI at the age of 15. To familiarize with his work, he was placed under the supervision of another assistant engineer, Richard Langham. On his second day of work at EMI, Richard Langham was assigned to be the assistant engineer of Norman Smith who will be doing the first recording session of the Beatles in the evening. As a new recruit, Emerick was not entitled to get over-time pay, but was lucky enough to witness the first-ever EMI recording session by the finalised line-up of The Beatles in 1962, during which the group recorded for the first time with new drummer Ringo Starr on what would eventually become their first hit single "Love Me Do". As assistant engineer, Emerick worked on numerous early recordings by the Beatles, and also helped record other artists for the label, including Judy Garland. He assisted at the EMI artist test of The Hollies.
  
  wn.com/Geoff_Emerick
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  Happy Rhodes
  Happy Rhodes (born Kimberley Tyler Rhodes; August 9, 1965) is an American singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and electronic musician with a four-octave vocal range. She has released 11 albums since 1986.
  Born Kimberley Tyler Rhodes but called "Happy" since infancy, she legally changed her name to Happy Tyler Rhodes at age 16. Through her father, Vernon H. Rhodes Jr., Rhodes is a distant relative of Cecil Rhodes and her first name "Kimberley" is after the Kimberley diamond mines. Her middle name "Tyler" is after the American actress Mary Tyler Moore, who was a friend of Rhodes' mother, Susan D. Stamper, while both took dance classes at the New York City Ballet. Rhodes' maternal grandfather Dave Stamper wrote songs for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 through 1931, as well as composing the music for several other Broadway shows. A family legend claims that Stamper wrote the well-known song "Shine On, Harvest Moon" in 1903 for Nora Bayes when he was working as her Vaudeville piano accompanist, but sold the rights and credit to Bayes and her husband Jack Norworth. Rhodes' parents divorced when she was young. Rhodes has two brothers who are twins.
  
  wn.com/Happy_Rhodes
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  Harry Houdini
  Harry Houdini (born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-born American stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. He first attracted notice as Handcuff Harry, on a tour of Europe, where he would sensationally challenge different police-forces to try to keep him locked up. This revealed a talent for gimmickry and for audience involvement that would characterise all his work. Soon he was extending his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, straitjackets under water, and having to hold his breath inside a sealed milk-can.
  In 1904, thousands watched as he tried to escape from a special handcuff commissioned by London's Daily Mirror, keeping them in suspense for an hour. Another stunt saw him buried alive and only just able to claw himself to the surface, emerging in a state of near-breakdown. While many suspected that these escapes were fabricated, it is ironic that Houdini was meanwhile presenting himself as the scourge of fake magicians and spiritualists. As President of the Society of American Magicians, he was keen to uphold professional standards and expose fraudulent artists who gave practitioners a bad name. He was also quick to sue anyone who pirated his own escape-stunts.
  
  wn.com/Harry_Houdini
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  Hayley Westenra
  Hayley Dee Westenra (born 10 April 1987) is a New Zealand soprano, classical crossover artist, songwriter and UNICEF Ambassador. Her first internationally released album, Pure, reached No. 1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 and has sold more than two million copies worldwide. Pure is the fastest-selling international début classical album to date, having made Westenra an international star at age 16. In August 2006, she joined the Irish group Celtic Woman, was featured on their Celtic Woman: A New Journey CD and DVD, toured with them on their 2007 Spring Tour, and also was featured on their DVD, The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection, released in 2008.
  Across classical music to easy listening, folk and pop style songs, Westenra has performed songs in English, Irish, Welsh, Italian, German, French, Portuguese, Latin, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese and Māori from west to east, north to south all around the world.
  Westenra has performed for dignitaries around the world. She is the second youngest UNICEF Ambassador to date and has contributed to charities around the world.
  
  wn.com/Hayley_Westenra
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  Hussein Chalayan
  Hussein Chalayan MBE (English: /huˌseɪn ˈʃʌləjɑːn/; given name Hüseyin Çağlayan, Turkish: [hyseˌjin ʧaːlaˈjan]) (born 1970) is a British/Turkish Cypriot fashion designer. He has won the British Designer of the Year twice (in 1999 and 2000) and was awarded the MBE in 2006.
  Hussein Chalayan was born in Nicosia in 1970 and graduated from the Türk Maarif Koleji of his hometown. He moved with his family to England in 1978, obtaining British citizenship. He first studied for a National Diploma in fashion and clothing at Warwickshire School of Arts, and proceeded to study Fashion Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. His graduate collection in 1993, titled "The Tangent Flows", contained clothes which he had buried in his back yard and dug up again. An instant sensation, the whole collection was purchased and displayed in luxury designer store Browns in London.
  In 1995, Chalayan beat 100 competitors to clinch a top London fashion design award. In the contest, organised by the company "Absolut", Chalayan, aged 25, won financial backing to the tune of £28,000 to develop creations for the British capital's Fashion Week in October 1995.
  
  wn.com/Hussein_Chalayan
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  James Joyce
  James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominently the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His complete oeuvre includes three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.
  Joyce was born to a middle class family in Dublin, where he excelled as a student at the Jesuit schools Clongowes and Belvedere, then at University College Dublin. In his early twenties he emigrated permanently to continental Europe, living in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent abroad, Joyce's fictional universe does not extend beyond Dublin, and is populated largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends from his time there; Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses he elucidated this preoccupation somewhat, saying, "For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."
  
  wn.com/James_Joyce
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  Jamie Cullum
  Jamie Cullum (born 20 August 1979) is a British pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter, of Anglo-Burmese and Jewish extraction. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.
  Cullum was born in Rochford, Essex. He was brought up in Hullavington, Wiltshire.
  His mother, Yvonne, is a secretary of Anglo-Burmese origin, whose family settled in North England after Burma's independence; his father, John Cullum, worked in finance. His paternal grandfather was a British Army officer, while his paternal grandmother was a Jewish refugee from Prussia who sang in Berlin nightclubs.
  Cullum was educated at Grittleton House School, an independent school in the village of Grittleton, near the market town of Chippenham in Wiltshire, followed by the sixth form of Sheldon School, a state comprehensive school in the same county. He then rejected a place at the University of Oxford to go on to study English Literature and Film Studies at the University of Reading, where he graduated with First Class Honours.
  
  wn.com/Jamie_Cullum
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  Jane Birkin
  Jane Mallory Birkin, OBE (born 14 December 1946) is an English actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.
  Jane Mallory Birkin was born on 14 December 1946, in Marylebone, London. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an English actress, best known for her work on stage. Her father, David Birkin, was a Royal Navy lieutenant-commander and World War II spy. Her brother is the screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin. She was educated at Upper Chine School, Isle of Wight.
  Birkin emerged in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s, appearing briefly in the 1966 film Blowup, and as the fantasy-like model in the psychedelic Wonderwall from 1968. That same year, she auditioned in France for the lead female role in Slogan. Though she did not speak French, she won the role. She co-starred with Serge Gainsbourg, and performed with him on the film's theme song, "La chanson de slogan" — the first of many collaborations between the two. In 1969, she and Gainsbourg released the duet "Je t'aime... moi non plus" ("I love you... me neither"). Gainsbourg originally wrote the song for Brigitte Bardot. The song caused a scandal for its sexual explicitness, and was banned by radio stations in Italy, Spain, and the UK.
  
  wn.com/Jane_Birkin
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  Jeff Beck
  Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck (born 24 June 1944) is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds (Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page are the other two). Beck also formed The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice.
  Much of Beck's recorded output has been instrumental, with a focus on innovative sound and his releases have spanned genres ranging from blues-rock, heavy metal, jazz fusion and an additional blend of guitar-rock and electronica. Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck has not established or maintained the sustained commercial success of many of his contemporaries and bandmates. Beck appears on albums by Mick Jagger, Kate Bush, Roger Waters, Donovan, Stevie Wonder, Les Paul, Zucchero, Cyndi Lauper, Brian May and ZZ Top. In 1988, he made a cameo appearance in the movie Twins.
  He was ranked 5th in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and the magazine has described him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock".MSNBC has called him a "guitarist's guitarist". Beck has earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times and Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance once. He has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of The Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).
  
  wn.com/Jeff_Beck
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  Jim Moray
  Jim Moray is an English folk singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
  While studying classical composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire, Moray released the home-recorded I Am Jim Moray EP. During 2002 he appeared at the Glastonbury festival and the Cambridge Folk Festival gaining notice in the music press. A nomination for the "Horizon Award" at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2003 followed before he began work on his first full length album, Sweet England. The album was recorded in his bedroom while completing his final year of study. During this time Moray toured with Oysterband.
  Sweet England was released in June 2003 on his own Niblick Is A Giraffe record label. Over the next year Moray toured internationally visiting Canada, Australia, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. He also completed two headline tours of the UK and supported Richard Thompson and Will Young.
  At the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2004 he was presented with the Album of the Year Award for Sweet England and the Horizon Award for best newcomer. He was also nominated twice in the Best Traditional Song category for Early One Morning and Lord Bateman.
  
  wn.com/Jim_Moray
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  John Forté
  John Forté (born January 30, 1975) is a Grammy-nominated American recording artist, composer, music producer, educator and activist. He achieved fame while writing, producing and performing with the celebrated hip hop group The Fugees during the 1990s, and has released four solo albums, including his most recent effort, Water Light Sound, released in September 2011.
  Forté has collaborated with a range of diverse musicians and is known for a profound understanding and appreciation of a broad range of musical genres, spanning from hip hop to indie folk to classical music.
  Forté is also Chief Executive Officer of Le Castle, a company he founded in 2011 to manage his upcoming projects in music, film and other creative fields.
  Forté was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York. Forté excelled in school and studied classical violin, coming under the spell of Vivaldi. Eventually he earned a full scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he graduated in 1993.
  After high school, Forté returned to New York City, enrolling in NYU as a music business major, where he roomed with rapper Talib Kweli, before dropping out to work as an artist & repertoire executive at Rawkus Records.
  
  wn.com/John_Forté
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  John Lydon
  John Joseph Lydon (born 31 January 1956), also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s. He is the lead singer of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd, which he founded and fronted from 1978 until 1993, and again from 2009. Throughout his career, Lydon has made controversial or dismissive comments about the royal family and other subjects. There has been a recent revival of a 1980s movement to have Lydon knighted for his achievements with the Sex Pistols. Q Magazine remarked that "somehow he's assumed the status of national treasure."
  Lydon's personally crafted image and fashion style led to him being asked to become the singer of the Sex Pistols by their manager, Malcolm McLaren. With the Pistols, he penned singles including "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and "Holidays in the Sun", the content of which precipitated the "last and greatest outbreak of pop-based moral pandemonium" in Britain. The band caused nationwide uproar in much of the media, who objected to the content of Lydon’s lyrics, and their antics, which included swearing on live television, in which Steve Jones called Bill Grundy a "fucking rotter". Due to the band's appearance in the media, Lydon was largely seen as the figurehead of the punk movement in the public image although this idea was not widely supported amongst the punk movement itself. Despite the negative reaction that they provoked, they are now regarded as one of the most influential acts in the history of popular music.
  
  wn.com/John_Lydon
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  Kate Bush
  Catherine "Kate" Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.
  In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written song. She has since released ten albums, three of which topped the UK Albums Chart, and has had 25 UK Top 40 hit singles including the Top 10 hits "Wuthering Heights", "Running Up that Hill", "King of the Mountain", "Babooshka", "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and "Don't Give Up".
  In 1987, she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, and in 2002, her songwriting ability was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. During the course of her career, she has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards. After her 1979 tour – the only concert tour of her career – Bush released the 1980 album Never for Ever, which made her the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at Number 1. She is also the first (and to date only) female artist to have Top 5 albums in the UK charts in 5 successive decades.
  
  wn.com/Kate_Bush
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  Ken Livingstone
  Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is a British Labour Party politician who has twice held the leading political role in London local government, first as the Leader of the Greater London Council from 1981 until the Council was abolished in 1986, and then as the first elected Mayor of London from the creation of the office in 2000 until 2008. He also served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent East from 1987 to 2001. He stood unsuccessfully as the Labour Party candidate in the London mayoral elections of 2008 and 2012.
  Born into a working class family in Lambeth, he first joined the Labour Party in 1968 and was elected to represent Norwood at the Greater London Council in 1973, before moving to represent Hackney North and Stoke Newington in 1977, and then to Paddington in 1981, the same year he also became the Leader of the Council itself. In 1999, Livingstone sought the Labour nomination to be the first elected Mayor of London, although his candidacy was opposed by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Despite losing the Labour candidacy to Frank Dobson, Livingstone contested the 2000 election successfully as an independent candidate regardless, which led to his expulsion from the Labour Party.
  
  wn.com/Ken_Livingstone
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  KT Tunstall
  Kate Victoria "KT" Tunstall (born 23 June 1975, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. She broke into the public eye with a 2004 live solo performance of her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland. She has enjoyed commercial and critical success since, picking up three nominations before winning a BRIT Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. She is also the recipient of an Ivor Novello Award. Tunstall has a contralto vocal range.
  She has released four albums internationally: Eye to the Telescope (2004), KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza (2006),Drastic Fantastic (2007) and Tiger Suit (2010). She has also done a guest appearance in an episode (S1E04) of the comedy series This is Jinsy on BBC Three.
  Kate has a half-Chinese, half-Scottish mother and an Irish father. She was 18 days old when she was adopted by an English family in St Andrews, Scotland. Kate never got to meet her biological father. Her adoptive father was employed as a physics lecturer at the University of St Andrews, and her adoptive mother was a school teacher. Tunstall's family also includes an older brother named Joe and a younger brother named Daniel. Her parents had no interest in music and owned no records — the only tape her father owned was a comedy recording by mathematician and musical satirist Tom Lehrer.
  
  wn.com/KT_Tunstall
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  Lenny Henry
  Lenworth George "Lenny" Henry, CBE (born 29 August 1958) is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.
  Henry, the son of Jamaican immigrants, was born at Burton Road Hospital in Dudley in 1958. He was a pupil at St John's Primary School and later The Blue Coat School outside Dudley, before completing his school education at W.R. Tuson College (now Preston College).
  His first manager was Robert Luff, who signed him in 1975 and gave him the opportunity to perform as part of the Luff-produced touring stage version of The Black and White Minstrel Show. In July 2009, Lenny Henry stated he was contractually obliged to perform and regretted his part in the show.
  Shortly before this, on 17 December 1974, the then 16-year-old Henry had been voted Britain's top non-smoker for his declaration aimed at teenagers that smoking was not fashionable.
  His earliest television appearance was on the New Faces talent show, which he won in 1975 with an impersonation of Stevie Wonder. The following year he appeared with Norman Beaton in LWT's sitcom The Fosters, Britain's first comedy series with predominantly black performers. His formative years were spent in working men's clubs, where his act was as a young black man impersonating white characters such as the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em character Frank Spencer (whom he impersonated on New Faces). He also made guest appearances on television programmes including Celebrity Squares, Seaside Special and The Ronnie Corbett Show.
  
  wn.com/Lenny_Henry
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  Lily Allen
  Lily Rose Beatrice Cooper (born 2 May 1985), better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist, actress and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative. Allen abandoned school and concentrated on improving her performing and compositional skills. Afterwards, she created several demo songs and, near the end of 2005, she created a profile on MySpace where she made some of her recordings public.
  A contract was signed with the label Regal Recordings, as the views on MySpace rose to tens of thousands. In 2006, she began to work on completing what would be her first studio album and its first mainstream single "Smile" reached the top position on the UK Singles Chart in July 2006. Her debut record, Alright, Still, was well received on the international market, selling over 2.6 million copies and brought Allen a nomination at the Grammy Awards, BRIT Awards and MTV Video Music Awards. She then began hosting her own talk-show, Lily Allen and Friends, on BBC Three.
  
  wn.com/Lily_Allen
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  Lindsay Kemp
  Lindsay Kemp is a British dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist and choreographer.
  Born in South Shields on May 3, 1938, Kemp's father, a seaman, was lost at sea in 1940. According to Kemp, he danced from early childhood: "I'd dance on the kitchen table to entertain the neighbours. I mean, it was a novelty in South Shields to see a little boy in full make-up dancing on pointe. Finally it got a bit too much for my mother, and she decided to send me to boarding school at the age of eight, hoping that it would knock some sense into me."
  Kemp's mother moved away from South Shields, and Kemp attended Bearwood College, near Wokingham, a school for the sons of merchant seaman. He and his mother later moved to Bradford, Yorkshire where Kemp attended Bradford Art College before studying dance with Hilde Holger and mime with Marcel Marceau.^{[citation needed]}
  Kemp formed his own dance company in the early sixties and first attracted attention with an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968. Kate Bush and David Bowie were students of Kemp.
  
  wn.com/Lindsay_Kemp
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  Little Boots
  Victoria Christina Hesketh (born 4 May 1984), better known by her stage name Little Boots, is an English electropop singer-songwriter. Her stage name comes from a nickname given to her by a friend, a reference to her unusually small feet. As a musician, Boots sings and plays the piano, keyboards, synthesizer, Stylophone and a Japanese electronic instrument called Tenori-on. After a return to college to focus on her studies, Hesketh along with two of her fellow students formed the electropunk band Dead Disco. The band had limited releases of their four singles but due to increasingly different ideas about the band's musical direction Hesketh left to pursue a solo career. Hesketh has cited as influences The Human League, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd, Kylie Minogue, Britney Spears and Jean Michel Jarre.
  Hesketh began writing her own songs and posting covers on social networking sites such as YouTube and Myspace. After appearing on several shows including Later... with Jools Holland and Last Call with Carson Daly, Hesketh entered production on her debut album Hands. With increasing media attention regarding her then-yet-to-be-released debut album, Hesketh topped the BBC Sound of 2009 poll and received a Critics' Choice nomination at the 2009 BRIT Awards. With the release of her debut, she was linked to a recent wave of breakthrough female artists in their twenties playing 1980s-influenced music, including Lady Gaga, Ladyhawke, Florence and the Machine and Elly Jackson of La Roux.
  
  wn.com/Little_Boots
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  Lol Creme
  Lol Creme (born Laurence Neil Creme 19 September 1947 in Prestwich, England) is an English musician and music video director, best known for his work in 10cc. He sings, plays guitar and keyboards.
  Creme was born to a family of Jewish descent, and later took up the nickname Lolagon. While attending art school in Manchester, he met Kevin Godley. They became part of several bands together, most significantly 10cc, and in 1976 departed 10cc together to record as Godley & Creme. The pair later became prolific music video directors, working with bands including Yes. Creme would later direct the 1991 Jamaican comedy film The Lunatic.
  In 1998, Creme became a member of the band Art of Noise, along with Trevor Horn, and directed videos for such artists who recorded with them as Tom Jones. Further work with Horn followed, including forming The Producers, also with Chris Braide and Steve Lipson.
  Lol's son Lalo was a member of the 1990s indie-dance band Arkarna and has also worked on a number of projects with his father. His wife Angie is the sister of ex-10cc member Eric Stewart's wife Gloria.
  
  wn.com/Lol_Creme
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  Lynsey De Paul
  Lynsey de Paul (born 11 June 1950) is an English singer-songwriter. Allmusic journalist Craig Harris stated that "one of the first successful female singer-songwriters in England, de Paul has had an illustrious career".
  Born Lynsey Monckton Rubin in Cricklewood, London to Meta and Herbert Rubin, a property developer. She grew up in a Jewish family in Cricklewood, North London, and attended South Hampstead High School followed by Hornsey College of Art, now part of Middlesex University.
  de Paul took an unusual route to becoming the UK's first commercially successful female singer-songwriter. While attending Hornsey College of Art, and wanting to leave home, she started to design album sleeves for artists which required her to listen to the tracks. From income earned from album sleeve design, she got her first flat, where she turned to songwriting. Three of her earliest songs were co-written with Ed Adamberry and recorded by Jack Wild: "E.O.I.O." from the album A Beautiful World (and also released as a single by The Beads) plus "Takin' It Easy" and "Bring It on Back to Me" from the album Everything's Coming Up Roses.
  
  wn.com/Lynsey_De_Paul
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  Marc Almond
  Peter Mark Sinclair "Marc" Almond (/ˈɑːmənd/; born 9 July 1957, Southport) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. Almond first began performing and recording in the synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell. He has sold over 30 million records worldwide.
  Almond was born in 1957 in Southport (then Lancashire, now part of Merseyside), the son of Sandra Mary Dieson and Peter John Sinclair Almond, a Second Lieutenant in the King's Liverpool Regiment. He was brought up at his grandparents' house in Birkdale with his younger sister, Julia, and as a child suffered from bronchitis and asthma. When he was four, they left their grandparents' house and moved to Starbeck on the edge of Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Two years later they returned to Southport, and then moved to Horsforth (near Leeds).^{[citation needed]}
  At age 11 he attended Aireborough Grammar School near Leeds. Almond found solace in music, listening to British radio pioneer John Peel. The first album he purchased was the soundtrack of the stage musical Hair and the first single "Green Manalishi" by Fleetwood Mac. He later became a great fan of Marc Bolan and David Bowie and got a part time job as a stable boy to fund his musical tastes.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Marc_Almond
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  Mark Radcliffe
  Mark Radcliffe (born 29 June 1958) is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2, where he presents Mark Radcliffe's Music Club every Tuesday 11pm - midnight. He is also a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music, where he hosts an afternoon show five times a week (Monday to Friday 1pm - 4pm) alongside Stuart Maconie, called the Radcliffe & Maconie. The pair had previously presented an evening show on BBC Radio 2.
  Radcliffe was born in Bolton, Lancashire and educated at Bolton School and The University of Manchester, where he studied English and American studies and classical civilisation. He took an interest in music from a young age; playing drums in numerous bands while at school and university and into his working life. As of 2007, he lives in Whitley, Cheshire is married with three daughters and became a grandfather in October 2008. Radcliffe is a supporter of Manchester City Football Club. He has a pet Cocker Spaniel called Toto. In July 2011 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from The University of Bolton. He is a Patron of the Cheshire charity The Joshua Tree, which provides respite care for parents of children with special needs.
  
  wn.com/Mark_Radcliffe
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  Marvin Gaye
  Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (he added the 'e' as a young man), was an acclaimed American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range, who achieved major success in the 1960s and 1970s as an artist for the Motown Records label. He was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984.
  Starting his career as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late 1950s, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960, signing with Motown Records subsidiary, Tamla. He started off as a session drummer, but later ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the 1960s. He was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". because of solo hits such as "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell.
  His work in the early- and mid-1970s included the albums, What's Going On, Let's Get It On, and I Want You, which helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early 1980s, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death.
  
  wn.com/Marvin_Gaye
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  Menahem Golan
  Menahem Golan (born May 31, 1929) (Hebrew: מנחם גולן‎) is an Israeli director and producer. He has produced movies for such stars as Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Charles Bronson, and was known for a period as a producer of comic book-style movies like Masters of the Universe, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Captain America, and his aborted attempt to bring Spider-Man to the silver screen. Using the pen name of Joseph Goldman, Golan has also written and "polished" film scripts. He was co-owner of Golan-Globus with his cousin Yoram Globus. Golan produced about 200 films, directed 44, won 8 times the Violin David Awards and The Israel Prize in Cinema.
  Menahem Golan (Globus) was born on May 31, 1929, in Tiberias, then Mandate Palestine. He studied directing at the Old Vic School and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and filmmaking at New York University. During the Israeli War of Independence he served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. Golan is married and has three children.
  
  wn.com/Menahem_Golan
• Michael Kamen
  Michael Arnold Kamen (April 15, 1948 – November 18, 2003) was an American composer (especially of film scores), orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician.
  Kamen was born in New York City, USA. He was the second of four sons. His father Saul Kamen was a dentist, and his mother was a teacher.
  While attending the The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Michael Kamen met and became friends with Martin Fulterman (later known as Mark Snow, who composed the theme music for The X-Files among other projects). While studying the oboe, he formed a rock classical fusion band called New York Rock & Roll Ensemble, together with classmates Fulterman and Dorian Rudnytsky. The group performed their music while dressed in tuxedos. In the middle of the concert, Fulterman and Kamen would play an oboe duet. The group backed up friend and classmate Janis Ian in a concert at Alice Tully Hall in late 1967.
  After graduating high school, Kamen attended The Juilliard School, also in New York City.
  
  wn.com/Michael_Kamen
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  Mick Karn
  Andonis Michaelides (24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, who came to fame as the bassist for the art rock band Japan, from 1974 to 1982.
  In June 2010, he was diagnosed with advanced stage cancer, and died in January 2011.
  Karn was born into a Greek Cypriot family, in Nicosia, Cyprus, as Andonis Michaelides, which was later modified to Antony Michaelides. He had an older brother and sister. In late October 1961, the family emigrated to London, England, when Andonis was three years old. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London where he failed academically. Karn remained based in London until 24 May 2004, when he moved back to Cyprus with his wife and son, remaining there for six years before moving back to London in late 2010.^{[citation needed]}
  The band Japan, whose other members included David Sylvian, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Sylvian's brother Steve Jansen as drummer, began as a group of friends, who all studied at Catford Boys' School. As youngsters they played music as a means of escape, playing Sylvian's two-chord numbers – sometimes with Karn as the front man, sometimes with Sylvian at the fore, guitarist Rob Dean joined the band later.
  
  wn.com/Mick_Karn
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  Midge Ure
  James "Midge" Ure, OBE (born 10 October 1953, Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland) is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter. His stage name, Midge, is a phonetic reversal of Jim, the diminutive form of his real name.
  Ure enjoyed particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in bands including Slik, Thin Lizzy, The Rich Kids, Visage, and most notably as frontman of Ultravox. Ure co-wrote and produced the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", whose reissue won an Ivor Novello Award in 2005 for Best Selling UK Single. Ure co-organised Band Aid, Live Aid and Live 8 with Bob Geldof. Ure acts as trustee for the charity, and serves as ambassador for Save the Children.
  Born to a working-class family in Cambuslang, he attended Cambuslang Primary School and Rutherglen Academy in Glasgow until he was 15 years old. After leaving school Ure attended Technical College and then began to work as an engineer, training at the National Engineering Laboratory, (NEL), in nearby East Kilbride. He started playing music in a Glasgow band called Stumble (c. 1969 – c. 1971), that included a girl-singing duet, Christine and Agnes. The band's line-up included lead guitar John McMenemy, Alan Wright on harmonica, Fraser Spiers on bass, Kenny Ireland on drums, Alec Baird on vocals Gordon Appacellie.
  
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  Miranda Richardson
  Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an English stage, film and television actor. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has won two Golden Globes (with seven nominations) and a BAFTA (with seven nominations) during her career.
  Richardson was born in Southport, Lancashire, to Marian Georgina (née Townsend), a housewife, and William Alan Richardson, a marketing executive. The second daughter of a middle class family, she revealed a talent for acting as a girl.
  Richardson enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where she studied alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, having started out with juvenile performances in Cinderella and Lord Arthur Savile's Crime at the Southport Dramatic Club. Richardson enjoyed a successful and extensive theatre career, making her stage debut in Moving at the Queen's Theatre in 1981. Soon afterwards, she appeared in repertory theatre, until she found recognition in the West End for a series of stage performances, ultimately receiving an Olivier Award nomination for her performance in A Lie of the Mind, and in 1996, she is cited as "the greatest actress of our time in any medium" by one critic after she appeared in Orlando at the Edinburgh Festival. She returned to the London stage in May 2009 to play the lead role in Wallace Shawn's new play, Grasses of a Thousand Colours at the Royal Court Theatre.
  
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  Miss Havisham
  Miss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations (1861). She is a wealthy spinster who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place."
  Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties. However, it is also indicated that her long life away from the sunlight has in itself aged her, and she is said to look like a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton, with moving eyes.
  Miss Havisham's mother died when her daughter was a baby. Her father, a wealthy brewer, spoiled their daughter as a result. When he died, he left most of his money as inheritance for her.
  As an adult, she fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was only out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin Matthew Pocket warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. At twenty minutes to nine on their wedding day, while she was dressing, Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realized that he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar.
  
  wn.com/Miss_Havisham
• Monty Python
  Monty Python (sometimes known as The Pythons) was a British surreal comedy group who created Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed from the television series into something larger in scope and impact, spawning touring stage shows, films, numerous albums, several books and a stage musical as well as launching the members to individual stardom. The group's influence on comedy has been compared to The Beatles' influence on music.
  The television series, broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974, was conceived, written and performed by members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Loosely structured as a sketch show, but with an innovative stream-of-consciousness approach (aided by Gilliam's animation), it pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in style and content. A self-contained comedy team responsible for both writing and performing their work, the Pythons' creative control allowed them to experiment with form and content, discarding rules of television comedy. Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.
  
  wn.com/Monty_Python
• Morris Pert
  Morris David Brough Pert (8 September 1947 – 27 April 2010) was a Scottish composer, drummer/percussionist, and pianist who composed in the fields of both contemporary classical and jazz-rock music. His compositions include three symphonies, piano music, chamber and solo instrumental music, choral music and "sonic landscapes" for electronic media; a recent major work is "Ankh" for Carnyx and electronics. He was born and raised in Arbroath where he played in percussion, folk and rock bands and began to compose. After a BMus from Edinburgh University, he studied in London on a scholarship at the RAM with Alan Bush and James Blades. He was a prize winning student, notably for his orchestral work "Xumbu-Ata". He worked with Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta and was a member of the ensembles "Come to the Edge" and "Suntreader" and later the jazz-rock band Brand X, composing three numbers for their Masques album. As a session musician he played with many musicians, including Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber, John Williams, Kate Bush, Mike Oldfield, Sally Oldfield, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Elvis Costello. A truly original composer, he eschewed the excesses of post war modernism, believing sound and emotional communication to be of fundamental importance; his style is nevertheless marked by a degree of rhythmic and metric complexity and a non-ideological use of serial technique that remains open to aspects of tonality. Another important feature of his music is the degree of improvisation required of soloists,generally in response to a pre recorded tape. The extramusical stimuli were often cosmological, ranging from generally solar or lunar themes to the more specifically astronomical: "Alpha Centauri", "Omega Centauri", "Chromosphere" etc. or inspired by the wisdom, culture and artefacts of the ancient and medieval world, especially his Pictish forebears, but also drawing on Lucretius, Taoism, witchcraft lore and the Bible.
  
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  Natalie Cole
  Natalie Maria Cole (born February 6, 1950) is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)", "Inseparable" and "Our Love". After a period of failing sales and performances due to a heavy drug addiction, Cole reemerged as a pop artist with the 1987 album, Everlasting, and her cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Pink Cadillac". In the 1990s, she re-recorded standards by her father, resulting in her biggest success, Unforgettable... with Love, which sold over seven million copies and also won Cole numerous Grammy Awards.
  Natalie Cole was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of crooner Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Cole. Raised in the affluent Hancock Park district of Los Angeles; regarding her childhood, Cole has referred to her family as "the black Kennedys" and was exposed to many great singers of jazz, soul, and blues. At the age of six Natalie sang on her father's Christmas album and later began performing at age 11.
  
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  Nerina Pallot
  Nerina Pallot (born Nerina Natasha Georgina Pallot, 26 April 1975, London) is a platinum selling, BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award nominated British singer and songwriter. Although born in London, Pallot was brought up in Jersey to a half-French father and mother from Allahabad, India.
  Pallot played piano as a child and wrote her first song aged 13. She has identified seeing singer and pianist Kate Bush perform her hit song "This Woman's Work" on television as a catalyst for her to pursue a music career. She attended Jersey College for Girls.
  Pallot released her debut album, Dear Frustrated Superstar, on Polydor records in August 2001. This spawned two commercial singles, "Patience" and "Alien", with a third, "If I Know You" mooted, a video for which was filmed, but has never been publicly shown. Her album was withdrawn shortly before an arena tour with Bryan Adams, pending a planned reissue.
  Subsequently she was dropped from the label partly as a result of a message she wrote on the Tipsheet message board relating to the actions of her A&R man around remixes of "Photograph", a track intended to be on the re-issued Dear Frustrated Superstar. This incident and many others related to the industry and her experiences with her debut album are discussed in stories on her official website.
  
  wn.com/Nerina_Pallot
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  Nigel Kennedy
  Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is a British-born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti. He later included jazz, klezmer, and other genres in his repertoire.
  Nigel Kennedy's grandfather was Lauri Kennedy, a British-born musician and principal cellist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who played with Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Rubinstein, and others. His grandmother was Dorothy Kennedy, a pianist, who accompanied John McCormack and taught Enrico Caruso's children. Lauri and Dorothy settled in Australia, where their son, the cellist John Kennedy, was born. At the age of 24, John moved to England and joined the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, later becoming the principal cellist of Sir Thomas Beecham's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. While in England, John developed a relationship with an English pianist, Scylla Stoner, with whom he eventually toured in 1952 as part of the Llewellyn-Kennedy Piano Trio (with the violinist Ernest Llewellyn; Stoner was billed as "Scylla Kennedy" although she and John never married). However, John ultimately left Stoner and returned to Australia, unaware she was pregnant by him. John remained unaware of the existence of his son, Nigel Kennedy, until they met for the first time when Nigel was 11. Nigel Kennedy has about 30 close relatives in Australia, whom he visits whenever he tours there.
  
  wn.com/Nigel_Kennedy
• Nigel Williamson
  Nigel Williamson (born 1954) is a British journalist.
  Educated at University College London, Williamson worked as a reporter on Tribune (1982–84) and was then briefly its literary editor (1984) before becoming editor (1984–87) as successor to Chris Mullin. Just before the 1987 general election he was hired as the editor of the Labour Party's members' magazine Labour Party News (1987–89), to which he added the editorship of the party's monthly New Socialist (1987–89) replacing Stuart Weir. He also served as a press officer to Labour leader Neil Kinnock during the 1987 general election.
  In 1989 Williamson joined The Times as a reporter, becoming diary editor (1990–92), then home news editor (1992–95) and Whitehall correspondent (1995–96). He writes on pop and world music for a variety of publications, including the magazines Uncut and Songlines. He has also written books, including Journey Through The Past: The Stories Behind The Classic Songs Of Neil Young, The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan, The Rough Guide to Led Zeppelin, The Rough Guide to The Best Music You've Never Heard and The Rough Guide to the Blues.
  
  wn.com/Nigel_Williamson
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  Noel Fielding
  Noel Fielding (born 21 May 1973) is a British surrealist, comedian, actor, artist, DJ and musician. He is known for his role as Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh, which he co-wrote with comedy partner Julian Barratt, and as a team captain on the music panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. His solo comedy sketch show Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy began broadcasting in January 2012 on the UK's E4.
  Born in Westminster, London, Fielding performed regularly as a stand-up comedian during the late 1990s, and appeared repeatedly on the television stand-up showcase Lee Mack's Gas. His highly animated stand-up routine included surreal stories, physical comedy, characters, and songs, much like his later work in The Mighty Boosh.
  In 2010, Fielding was to perform a solo tour across the country. It was cancelled, however, so he could concentrate on writing The Mighty Boosh film and album with Barratt. Fielding announced via Twitter that he was too busy to do the tour.
  In 2010, Fielding took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.
  
  wn.com/Noel_Fielding
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  Nolwenn Leroy
  Nolwenn Leroy, (born 28 September 1982 in Saint-Renan, Finistère, Brittany), is a French singer and songwriter, discovered by the French television reality show Star Academy. She is best known for her two Number One singles "Cassé" and "Nolwenn Ohwo!".
  Leroy's parents left Saint-Renan, with her, when she was four years old. After living in Paris, Lille, and Guingamp, her mother Murielle Leroy and her younger sister settled with Leroy's grandparents in Saint-Yorre. Her mother had been divorced from her father, professional footballer Jean-Luc Le Magueresse, in 1993.
  She studied at the "Collège des Célestins" in Vichy. When Leroy was eleven, her music teacher noticed her musical talents and encouraged her to learn the violin. At the age of thirteen she won "Les écoles du désert", a contest sponsored by the Cora supermarket chain, consequently travelling with a humanitarian mission from Gao to Timbuktu, Mali; she later claimed this had a profound influence on her.
  In July 1998, she was awarded a scholarship by the Vichy Rotary Club to travel to Cincinnati, Ohio, as an exchange student. While there, she also attended the Performing Arts School. Returning to France, and speaking fluent English, she began classical singing classes at the Vichy music conservatory. From 2001 she studied law at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, for a potential alternative career to music.
  
  wn.com/Nolwenn_Leroy
• Paddy Bush
  Paddy Bush (born 9 July 1952) is an English musician, instrument maker, and artist. He is best known for his work with his sister, Kate Bush, and appeared on all of her studio albums up to The Red Shoes. Bush often plays standard instruments such as the guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, along with more exotic and unusual instruments, such as the balalaika, sitar, koto, and digeridoo. Bush was an original member of the KT Bush Band, and was one of the only members from the band to have appeared on all of Kate Bush's albums. In 1993, Bush collaborated with Colin Lloyd-Tucker to form the band Bushtucker.
  
  
  
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  Pat Benatar
  Pat Benatar (born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski; January 10, 1953) is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success, particularly in the United States. During the 1980s, Benatar had two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums and 19 Top 40 singles, including "Love Is a Battlefield", "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", and "We Belong". Benatar was one of the most heavily played artists in the early days of MTV.
  Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City. Her Polish father, Andrew, was a sheet-metal worker, and her Irish mother, Mildred, a beautician. Her family later moved to North Hamilton Avenue in Lindenhurst, New York, a village within the Long Island town of Babylon.
  Patti (as she was known)^{[citation needed]} became interested in theater and began voice lessons, singing her first solo at age eight, at Daniel Street Elementary School, a song called "It Must Be Spring".^{[citation needed]} At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967–71),^{[citation needed]} Benatar participated in musical theater, playing Queen Guinevere in the school production of Camelot, marching in the homecoming parade, singing at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, and performing a solo of "The Christmas Song" on a holiday recording of the Lindenhurst High School Choir her senior year.^{[citation needed]}
  
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  Patrick Wolf
  Patrick Wolf (born Patrick Denis Apps on 30 June 1983) is an English singer-songwriter from South London. Patrick utilises a wide variety of instruments in his music, most commonly the ukulele, piano and viola. Known for combining electronic sampling with classical instruments, Wolf's styles range from romantic folk to techno-pop.
  Patrick Wolf was born in St Thomas' Hospital,South London, into a creative family. He started his musical education with Piano lessons but soon got bored and progressed onto violin lessons and church choirs and made his first theremin at age eleven, and first began recording songs with his violin, voice, and car boot sale organs on a four-track tape recorder at age twelve. At fourteen, he joined and performed with pop art collective Minty. Two years later, he dropped his music A-Levels, which he was studying at Davies Laing and Dick Sixth Form College off Bond Street, and left home. During this period, as well as working in Super Lovers clothing store in Covent Garden, Wolf earned money from busking in a string quartet and formed a group called 'Maison Crimineaux', a noisy trio built on destructive ethics around white noise and pop music. He also continued to write and record his own material. A Maison Crimineaux gig in Paris was attended by electronic maestro Kristian Robinson (aka Capitol K), who would then go on to release Wolf's debut album Lycanthropy.
  
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  Paul Shaffer
  Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, CM (/ˈʃeɪfər/, born November 28, 1949) is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer who has been David Letterman's sidekick since 1982.
  Shaffer was born and raised in Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley and Bernard Shaffer, a lawyer. Shaffer was raised in a Jewish family. As a child, Shaffer had lessons on the piano, and moved on to playing the organ by his teenage years, in a band (Fabulous Fugitives) with his schoolmates in Thunder Bay. Later he performed with the "Flash Landing Band" at different venues around Edmonton and the Interior of B.C. Educated at the University of Toronto, he began playing with jazz guitarist Tisziji Muñoz, performing in bands around the bars there, where he found an interest in musicals, and completed his studies, with a B.A. degree in Sociology in 1971.
  Shaffer began his music career in 1972 as the musical director for the Toronto production of Godspell, starring Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Andrea Martin. He went on to play piano for a Broadway show called The Magic Show in 1974, then became a member of the house band on NBC's popular Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program from 1975 to 1980 (except for a brief departure in 1977). Though Shaffer was at the piano and appeared to be directing the band's actions, Howard Shore was credited as SNL's musical director, eventually turning the actual conducting of the band to sax player Howard Johnson. Shaffer also regularly appeared in the show's sketches, notably as the pianist for Bill Murray's Nick the Lounge Singer character, and as Don Kirshner.
  
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  Paula Cole
  Paula Cole (born April 5, 1968) is an American singer-songwriter. Her single "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, and the following year she won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
  Cole was raised in Rockport, Massachusetts; her mother was an elementary school art teacher, and her father was a professor of biology and ecology at Salem State College and a polka musician. She attended Rockport High School, where she was president of her senior class and performed in school theatrical productions such as South Pacific. Cole then attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she studied jazz singing and improvisation. She was offered a record deal by a jazz label, but decided to turn it down.
  Cole got her first big professional break when she was invited to perform on Peter Gabriel's 1993-1994 Secret World Live tour. Shortly after this, she was signed on with her first record company Imago Records. Through this record company, she released her first album Harbinger in 1994. Within that year of Harbinger's release, Imago Records went out of business. In 1995, she was signed on to Warner Bros. Records. The record company reissued Harbinger in the Autumn of 1995.
  
  wn.com/Paula_Cole
• Percy Edwards
  Percy Edwards MBE (1 June 1908, Ipswich, Suffolk - 7 June 1996, Hintlesham, Suffolk), was an English animal impersonator,ornithologist, and entertainer.
  As a child, Edwards was fascinated by the wildlife he found in his local area, and by the age of 12 was accomplished enough at imitating many of them that this became his "party piece".
  In 1930 he debuted on the BBC radio series Vaudeville, the start of a career that would last the best part of 60 years. During World War II, Edwards worked at Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies in Ipswich.
  Edwards became a household name after his animal imitations in the radio shows Ray's a Laugh with Ted Ray; and playing Psyche the dog in the radio series A Life of Bliss. It was said that at the height of his career he could accurately imitate over 600 birds, as well as many other animals. Among other things, he provided the voices for the Whales in Orca (1977), the Reindeer in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), sheep and bird sounds on Kate Bush's song The Dreaming, and the alien in the film of the same name. One of his last stage appearances was in the Grand Order of Water Rats centenary show at the London Palladium in 1989.
  
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  Pete Townshend
  Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career. His career with The Who spans more than 40 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 1960s and 1970s, and, according to Eddie Vedder, "possibly the greatest live band ever."
  Townshend is the primary songwriter for The Who, having written well over 100 songs for the band's 11 studio albums, including concept albums and the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia, plus popular rock and roll radio staples like Who's Next, and dozens more that appeared as non-album singles, bonus tracks on reissues, and tracks on rarities compilations like Odds & Sods. He has also written over 100 songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles and television theme songs. Although known primarily as a guitarist, he also plays other instruments such as keyboards, banjo, accordion, synthesiser, bass guitar and drums, on his own solo albums, several Who albums, and as a guest contributor to a wide array of other artists' recordings. Townshend has never had formal lessons in any of the instruments he plays.
  
  wn.com/Pete_Townshend
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  Peter Erskine
  Peter Erskine (born June 5, 1954) is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report. Erskine also produces teaching materials, such as books, videos, and online content.
  Peter Erskine was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, U.S.. He began playing the drums at the age of four. He graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, then studied percussion at Indiana University.
  His professional career started in 1972 when he joined the Stan Kenton Orchestra. After three years with Kenton he joined Maynard Ferguson for two years. In 1978 he joined Weather Report, joining the legendary Jaco Pastorius to form a formidable rhythm section. After four years and five albums with Weather Report and the Jaco Pastorius big band Word of Mouth, he joined Steps Ahead. His big band recordings with the Bob Mintzer Big Band are excellent modern big band jazz/funk performances studied by many students of drums and drumming.
  
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  Peter Gabriel
  Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career. His 1986 album, So, is his most commercially successful, and the album's biggest hit, "Sledgehammer", won a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and the song is the most played music video in the history of the station.
  More recently, Gabriel has focused on producing and promoting world music and pioneering digital distribution methods for music. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel has won numerous music awards throughout his career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male in 1987, six Grammy Awards, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards, and in 2007 he was honoured as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI London Awards for his “influence on generations of music makers.” Gabriel was also awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2009, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.
  
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  Phil Collins
  Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist.
  Collins sang the lead vocals on several chart hits in the United Kingdom and the United States between 1975 and 2010, either as a solo artist or with Genesis. His singles, sometimes dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", dance pop of "Sussudio", piano-driven "Against All Odds", to the political statements of "Another Day in Paradise".
  Collins's professional music career began as a drummer, originally in a band called The Real Thing with Andrea Bertorelli, who later became his first wife. Collins played drums and shared lead vocals (with Brian Chatton) in Flaming Youth which recorded one album, (Ark II). In 1970, he took over drums for Genesis, which had already recorded two albums. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. Following Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer.
  
  wn.com/Phil_Collins
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  PJ Harvey
  Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, harmonica, and most recently, the autoharp.
  Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automatic Dlamini, whose vocalist and saxophone player, John Parish, would become her long-term collaborator. In 1991, she formed an eponymous trio and subsequently began her professional career. The trio released two studio albums, Dry (1992) and Rid of Me (1993) before disbanding, after which Harvey continued as a solo artist. Since 1995, she has released a further six studio albums with collaborations from various musicians including John Parish, former bandmate Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, and Eric Drew Feldman and has also worked extensively with record producer Flood.
  Among the accolades she has received are the 2001 and 2011 Mercury Prize for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) and Let England Shake (2011) respectively—the only artist to have been awarded the prize twice—eight BRIT Award nominations, six Grammy Award nominations and two further Mercury Prize nominations. Rolling Stone awarded her 1992's Best New Artist and Best Singer Songwriter and 1995's Artist of the Year, and listed Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love (1995) on its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution To Music at the NME Awards.
  
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  Robbie Coltrane
  Robbie Coltrane, OBE (born Anthony Robert McMillan, March 30, 1950) is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr. Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the British TV series Cracker during the 1990s and as Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter films.
  Coltrane was born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, the son of Jean McMillan Ross (née Howie), a teacher and pianist, and Ian Baxter McMillan, a general practitioner who also served as a forensic police surgeon. He has an older sister, Annie, and a late younger sister, Jane. Coltrane is the great-grandson of Scottish businessman Thomas W. Howie. He was educated at the prestigious Glenalmond College in Perthshire, from which he was nearly expelled after hanging the prefects' gowns from the school clocktower. Though he later described his experiences there as deeply unhappy, he played for the rugby First XV, was head of the school's debating society and won prizes for his art. From Glenalmond, Coltrane went on to Glasgow School of Art, where he was ridiculed for "having an accent like Prince Charles" (which he quickly disposed of, though not before gaining the nickname "Lord Fauntleroy") and then the Moray House College Of Education in Edinburgh. Coltrane later called for public schools to be banned and used to be known as "Red Robbie", rebelling against his conservative upbringing through involvement with Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Labour Party and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
  
  wn.com/Robbie_Coltrane
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  Rolf Harris
  Rolf Harris, CBE, AM (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.
  Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the characters. He also began a musical career initially with the piano accordion. He wrote the famous song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", and when performing in Canada he introduced his popular routine around his song "Jake the Peg". He often uses unusual instruments in his performances: he plays the didgeridoo, has been credited with the invention of the wobble board, a rhythmic percussion instrument, and was associated with the Stylophone, a small electronic keyboard instrument.
  From the 1960s he has become a popular television personality, presenting shows including Rolf's Cartoon Club, Animal Hospital and various programmes about serious art. In late 2005 he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was the subject of a special episode of Rolf on Art.
  
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  Rowan Atkinson
  Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedians ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday and in Johnny English and its sequel Johnny English Reborn. He also starred in the film Never Say Never Again (a spy film based on the James Bond novel Thunderball) in 1983.
  Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935, which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006. First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, while at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.
  
  wn.com/Rowan_Atkinson
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  Roy Harper
  Roy Harper (born 12 June 1941) is an English folk/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since 1964. He has released a large catalogue of albums (21 studio albums and 10 live albums) most of which are available on his record label Science Friction (as CD and / or Music download).
  Musically, American blues musician Leadbelly and folk singer Woody Guthrie were his earliest influences, and whilst in his teens, jazz musician Miles Davis. Harper was also exposed to classical music in his childhood and has pointed to the influence of Jean Sibelius' Karelia Suite. Lyrical influences include the 19th century Romantics (especially Percy Shelley), and John Keats poem Endymion. Harper has also cited the Beat poets as being highly influential, particularly Jack Kerouac. As a musician, Harper is known for his distinctive fingerstyle playing and lengthy, lyrical, complex compositions, a result of his love of jazz and Keats.
  His influence has been acknowledged by many musicians including Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin (who named the song "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" after him), Pete Townshend of The Who, Kate Bush, Pink Floyd (who invited him to sing guest lead vocals on their song "Have a Cigar"), and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull; who stated Harper was his "...primary influence as an acoustic guitarist and songwriter."
  
  wn.com/Roy_Harper
• 
  Rufus Wainwright
  Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer. He has recorded seven albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written a classical opera and set Shakespeare sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson.
  Wainwright was born in Rhinebeck, New York, to folk singers Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III. His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his mother in Montreal for most of his youth. Wainwright has dual US and Canadian citizenship. He attended high school at the Millbrook School in New York (which would later inspire his song "Millbrook"), and later briefly studied piano at McGill in Montreal. He began playing the piano at age six, and started touring at 13 with "The McGarrigle Sisters and Family", a folk group featuring Rufus, his sister Martha, his mother Kate, and aunt Anna. His song "I'm a-Runnin'", which he performed in the film Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller at the age of 14, earned him a nomination for a 1989 Genie Award for Best Original Song. He was nominated for a 1990 Juno Award for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year.
  
  wn.com/Rufus_Wainwright
• Sean Mayes
  Sean Mayes (17 March 1945 – 1995) was a British pianist and writer.
  Born in Stone Allerton, Somerset, Mayes was schooled in Bristol. He won a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in philosophy.
  Mayes played in a rock and roll band called Fumble, which supported David Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust tour in 1972. He made three albums with Fumble, and featured in the original cast of Elvis! at the Astoria Theatre.
  In 1978, Mayes played for Bowie on the Isolar II - The 1978 World Tour, recorded and released as Stage, and on Lodger, released in 1979. In 1983 he joined Tom Robinson for "War Baby" and further album tracks.
  He wrote a biography of Joan Armatrading and co-wrote a visual documentary about Kate Bush with Kevin Cann. He also wrote the book Life on Tour with David Bowie: We Can Be Heroes, which was published in 1999, four years after his death.
  Mayes died in London in 1995, at the age of 49.
  
  wn.com/Sean_Mayes
• 
  Simon Drake
  Simon Drake is the stage name of Simon Alexander; a British magician based in London. He is best known for the innovative and shocking television series Secret Cabaret made for Britain's Channel 4.
  Drake is the son of a GP and both sides of his family were connected to the medical profession for some generations. In an interview included in a recent book about Arthur Brown, Drake was working as an office boy at the Gull record company (a record plugger at Decca Records in fact, Ms Marshall is incorrect. SD) when he met Arthur Brown:
  Arthur's single 'Fire' was the first record I bought at the age of 12. As the years went on I saw Arthur at the Rainbow with Kingdom Come. I was a huge fan...I was promoted to plugger. I took Arthur round for interviews with the radio, and got to know him as a person and he mentored my crossover between the security of a day job and the craft of magic.
  
  wn.com/Simon_Drake
• 
  Stephen Dalton
  Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Gary George Dalton, KCB, ADC (born 23 April 1954) is a senior Royal Air Force officer. As commanding officer of XIII Squadron, he deployed on Operation Jural, the UK contribution to Operation Southern Watch, enforcing the No-Fly Zone over Southern Iraq. He then moved on to high command, serving as Head of Air Operations at the Ministry of Defence during the preparations for and conduct of Operation Telic in Iraq. Most recently he was appointed Chief of the Air Staff, the professional head of the Royal Air Force, in which role he advised the British Government on the deployment of air power during the Libyan conflict. Since then he has been implementing 2,700 redundancies, as determined by the Strategic Defence and Security Review.
  Dalton was educated at Clarendon Park Junior School and Lancaster School in Leicester, and then the University of Bath, where he studied Aeronautical Engineering. He was commissioned as a University Cadet on 16 September 1973, before being regraded as a pilot officer following graduation on 15 July 1976. Dalton was promoted to flying officer on 15 January 1977, and then flight lieutenant on 15 October 1977. He flew the SEPECAT Jaguar on three tours, operating from the UK and Germany in both ground attack and tactical reconnaissance roles. Dalton was promoted to squadron leader on 1 July 1984, and awarded a Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in the 1987 New Year Honours.
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Dalton
• 
  Stephen Fry
  Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.
  After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.
  He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.
  As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.
  
  wn.com/Stephen_Fry
• 
  Stephen King
  Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books. As of 2011, King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories. Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.
  King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Society Awards, his novella The Way Station was a Nebula Award novelette nominee, and in 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He has also received awards for his contribution to literature for his whole career, such as the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (2004), the Canadian Booksellers Association Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America (2007).
  
  wn.com/Stephen_King
• 
  Steve Gadd
  Steve Gadd (born April 9, 1945 in Irondequoit, New York) is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.
  Gadd is a native of Irondequoit, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York. When he was seven years old, his uncle, who was a drummer in the US army, encouraged him to take drum lessons. By the age of eleven he had sat in with Dizzy Gillespie.
  After graduating from Irondequoit's Eastridge High School, he attended the Manhattan School of Music for two years before transferring to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, playing in wind ensembles and concert bands. After Gadd finished college in the late 1960s, he played regularly with Chuck Mangione and his brother Gap Mangione. His first recording was on Gap Mangione's debut solo album, Diana in the Autumn Wind (1968).
  Gadd was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent three years as a drummer in the Army Music Program, most of which was spent with the Jazz Ambassadors of the U.S. Army Field Band in Ft. Meade, MD. While living in the Washington DC area, he briefly took lessons from the noted jazz drummer, Michael S. Smith. Following his military service, Gadd played and worked with a band in Rochester. In 1972, Gadd formed a trio with Tony Levin and Mike Holmes, traveling to New York with them. The trio eventually broke up, but Gadd began to work mainly as a studio musician. Gadd also played with Chick Corea's Return to Forever but left the group.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Gadd
• Steve Harley
  Steve Harley (born Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice, 27 February 1951,Deptford, London, England) is an English singer and songwriter, best known for his work with the 1970s rock group Cockney Rebel, with whom he still occasionally tours (albeit with many personnel changes through the years).
  As a child, Harley suffered from polio, spending four years in hospital up to the age of 16. It was in hospital that he first heard Bob Dylan, inspiring him to a career of words and music. At the age of 10, he received a guitar from his parents, and he played violin with the school orchestra. He left the Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College without completing his advanced level exams and took an A-level in English in his mid-30s.
  In 1968, at the age of 17, Harley began work as an accountant with the Daily Express, from which he progressed to become a reporter in a number of local Essex newspapers for a duration of three years. Later, he returned to London to work for the East London Advertiser.
  Harley started out playing in bars and clubs in the early 1970s, mainly at folk venues on open-mike nights. He also busked around London on the Underground and in Portobello Road. While auditioning for folk band Odin in 1971, he met violinist John Crocker, with whom he formed Cockney Rebel in late 1972.
  
  wn.com/Steve_Harley
• The Comic Strip
  The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents... which was labelled as an example of alternative comedy. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Alexei Sayle with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and others.
  Two double acts, Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall under the name "20th Century Coyote" and Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson ("The Outer Limits"), started performing at the newly opened Comedy Store in London in mid 1980, alongside compere Alexei Sayle who had been resident there since the Comedy Store opened in 1979. Concurrently Richardson searched for a venue to mount a play he had produced with Michael White. He planned to run The Comic Strip late at night after the play's performances. He sourced the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho, but realising it was unsuitable for a theatrical production and running out of enthusiasm for the play he decided to continue with the idea of a cabaret night. He persuaded the double acts and Sayle to move from the Comedy Store along with Arnold Brown, an older standup comic who did not fit so obviously into the alternative comedy scene. Sayle again resumed his compere duties and decided running order, with Richardson having behind the scenes control. Richardson put out an advert for female performers which was answered by French and Saunders.
  
  wn.com/The_Comic_Strip
• 
  Theo Bleckmann
  Theo Bleckmann (born Theodor Raoul Bleckmann May 28, 1966 in Dortmund, Germany) is a vocalist and composer.
  Theo Bleckmann is a jazz singer and new music composer, he was GRAMMY NOMINATED and received the ECHO award in 2010. His work was described as “from another planet” (New York Times), as “magical, futuristic,” (AllAboutJazz), “limitless” (Citypaper, Philadelphia) “transcendent” (Village Voice) and “brilliant” (New York Magazine).
  Bleckmann has released a series of very well received albums on Winter & Winter, including recordings of Las Vegas standards, of Berlin Kabarett, and of popular “bar songs” (all with pianist Fumio Yasuda), a recording of newly arranged songs by Charles Ives (with jazz/rock collective Kneebody), and his new acoustic Solos for Voice “I dwell in possibility”.
  Bleckmann has worked with such artists as Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Steve Coleman, Dave Douglas, Phillip Glass, Meredith Monk, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Zorn and The Bang on a Can All-Stars and was a guest vocalist with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Estonian Radio Choir, Merce Cunningham Dance Company and Mark Morris Dance and most prominently, Meredith Monk, with whom Bleckmann worked as a core ensemble member for fifteen years. He has recently been interview by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.
  Recognized as both a performer and composer, his work spans concerts, installations, theater, cabaret and performance art. He has sung worldwide on some of the great stages including Carnegie Hall's, Zankel Hall, and the Sydney Opera House. The New Yorker called him a 'local cult favorite', The New York Times 'excellent' and according to OUT Magazine Bleckmann is 'a singer who's only recently fallen to earth' and indeed Bleckmann's style has something otherworldly and ethereal.
  Bleckmann is also an educator. He is professor of Jazz Voice at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and Adjunct Assistant Professor at The New School, Queens College and New York University.
  
  wn.com/Theo_Bleckmann
• 
  Tori Amos
  Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. Amos originally served as the lead singer of 1980s synthpop group Y Kant Tori Read, and as a solo artist was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s. She was also noteworthy early in her solo career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument. Some of her charting singles include "Crucify", "Silent All These Years", "God", "Cornflake Girl", "Caught a Lite Sneeze", "Professional Widow", "Spark", "1000 Oceans", and "A Sorta Fairytale", her most commercially successful single in the U.S. to date.
  As of 2005, Amos had sold 12 million albums worldwide. She has been nominated for 8 Grammy Awards. Amos was also named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1996.
  Amos was born in Newton, North Carolina. When she was two, her family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she began to play the piano. By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Her scholarship was discontinued at age 11 and she was asked to leave. Amos has asserted that she lost the scholarship because of her interest in rock and popular music, coupled with her dislike for reading from sheet music. In 1972, The Amos family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where her father, Reverend Edison Amos, became pastor of the Good Shepherd United Methodist church. At the age of 13 she began playing at gay bars and piano bars, chaperoned by her father.
  
  wn.com/Tori_Amos
• 
  Tricky
  Tricky (born Adrian Nicholas Matthews Thaws, 27 January 1968) is an Englishmusician and actor. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering sprechgesang lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky blends different styles, particularly in his musical fusion of rock and hip hop, high art and pop culture. His debut album Maxinquaye was nominated for the Mercury Prize and voted Album of the Year by NME Magazine.
  Tricky was born in Knowle West, Bristol, England to a Jamaican father and a mixed-race Ghanaian-English mother. His father left the family before he was born and his mother, Maxine Quaye, committed suicide when he was only four. He named his solo album after her - Maxinquaye - and once said that though he hardly knew her, he feels like she's speaking through him with his words.
  He spent his youth in the care of his grandmother, who often let him watch old horror movies instead of going to school. At 15 he began to write lyrics ("I like to rock, I like to dance, I like pretty girls taking down their pants" MixMag 1996).^{[citation needed]} At 17, he spent some time in prison because he bought forged £50 notes from a friend, who later informed the police. In an interview, Tricky said: "Prison was really good. I'm never going back".
  
  wn.com/Tricky
• Trio Bulgarka
  Trio Bulgarka (also known as "Three Golden Coins", previously known as "Bulgarka Folk Trio") is a Bulgarian vocal ensemble.
  They gained international prominence through their contributions to the groundbreaking 1975 world music album Balkana: The music of Bulgaria, originally released on the now defunct Hannibal label.
  The trio comprises Stoyanka Boneva from Pirin, Yanka Rupkina from Strandja and Eva Georgieva from Dobroudja. Their diversity of regional backgrounds enabled them to create a unique sound to their music. They signed to record labels Bulgaria Balkanton and Hannibal in 1987. In 1988 their album The Forest Is Crying was released.
  In 1990 they featured on The Sensual World album by Kate Bush on the songs "Deeper Understanding", "Never Be Mine", and "Rocket's Tail". In 1993 they appeared on another Kate Bush album, The Red Shoes, in the songs "You're the One", "The Song of Solomon", and "Why Should I Love You?", which also featured Prince.
  The trio have since concentrated on solo projects but often re-form for concert appearances.
  
  wn.com/Trio_Bulgarka
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
• 
  Wilhelm Reich
  Wilhelm Reich (March 24, 1897 – November 3, 1957) was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry. He was the author of several notable books, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism and Character Analysis, both published in 1933.
  Reich worked with Sigmund Freud in the 1920s and was a respected analyst for much of his life, focusing on character structure rather than on individual neurotic symptoms. He tried to reconcile Marxism and psychoanalysis, arguing that neurosis is rooted in the physical, sexual, economic, and social conditions of the patient, and promoted adolescent sexuality, the availability of contraceptives, abortion, and divorce, and the importance for women of economic independence. His work influenced a generation of intellectuals, including Saul Bellow, William S. Burroughs, Paul Edwards, Norman Mailer, and A. S. Neill, and shaped innovations such as Fritz Perls's Gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen's bioenergetic analysis, and Arthur Janov's primal therapy.
  
  wn.com/Wilhelm_Reich
• 
  Woody Allen
  Woody Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg, December 1, 1935) is an award-winning American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, and playwright, whose career spans over half a century.
  He began as a comedy writer in the 1950s, penning jokes and scripts for television and also publishing several books of short humor pieces. In the early 1960s, Allen started performing as a stand-up comic, emphasizing monologues rather than traditional jokes. As a comic, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he insists is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics, while a UK survey ranked Allen as the third greatest comedian.
  By the mid-1960s Allen was writing and directing films, first specializing in slapstick comedies before moving into more dramatic material influenced by European art films during the 1970s. He is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late '70s. Allen often stars in his own films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup. The best-known of his over 40 films include the Academy Award-winners Annie Hall (1977), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Midnight in Paris (2011); and the Golden Globe-winning The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Critic Roger Ebert has described Allen as "a treasure of the cinema."
  
  wn.com/Woody_Allen

• Snowflake
• Lake Tahoe
• Misty
• Wild Man
• Snowed in at Wheeler Street
• 50 Words for Snow
• Among Angels

• Flower of the Mountain
• Song of Solomon
• Lily
• Deeper Understanding
• The Red Shoes
• This Woman’s Work
• Moments of Pleasure
• Never Be Mine
• Top of the City
• And So Is Love
• Rubberband Girl

• The Sensual World
• Love and Anger
• The Fog
• Reaching Out
• Heads We're Dancing
• Deeper Understanding
• Between a Man and a Woman
• Never Be Mine
• Rocket's Tail
• This Woman's Work
• Walk Straight Down the Middle

• King of the Mountain
• π
• Bertie
• Mrs. Bartolozzi
• How to Be Invisible
• Joanni
• A Coral Room

• Sat in Your Lap
• There Goes a Tenner
• Pull Out the Pin
• Suspended in Gaffa
• Leave It Open
• The Dreaming
• Night of the Swallow
• All the Love
• Houdini
• Get Out of My House

• Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
• Hounds of Love
• The Big Sky (single mix)
• Mother Stands for Comfort
• Cloudbusting
• And Dream of Sheep
• Under Ice
• Waking the Witch
• Watching You Without Me
• Jig of Life
• Hello Earth
• The Morning Fog

• Rubberband Girl
• And So Is Love
• Eat the Music
• Moments of Pleasure
• The Song of Solomon
• Lily
• The Red Shoes
• Top of the City
• Constellation of the Heart
• Big Stripey Lie
• Why Should I Love You?
• You're the One

• Babooshka
• Delius (Song of Summer)
• Blow Away (For Bill)
• All We Ever Look For
• Egypt
• The Wedding List
• Violin
• The Infant Kiss
• Night Scented Stock
• Army Dreamers
• Breathing

• Moving
• The Saxophone Song
• Strange Phenomena
• Kite
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• Wuthering Heights
• James and the Cold Gun
• Feel It
• Oh to Be in Love
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You
• Them Heavy People
• Room for the Life
• The Kick Inside

• Moving
• Them Heavy People
• Violin
• Strange Phenomena
• Hammer Horror
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak
• Wow
• Feel It
• Kite
• James and the Cold Gun
• Oh England My Lionheart
• Wuthering Heights

• I'm Still Waiting
• Ken
• One Last Look Around the House Before We Go...
• Wuthering Heights (new vocal)
• Experiment IV
• Them Heavy People (live)
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake (live)
• James and the Cold Gun (live)
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You (live)
• Running Up That Hill
• Cloudbusting (The Organon mix)
• Hounds of Love (alternative)
• The Big Sky (Meteorological mix)
• Experiment IV (12" mix)

• Wuthering Heights (new vocal)
• Cloudbusting
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• Breathing
• Wow
• Hounds of Love
• Running Up That Hill
• Army Dreamers
• Sat in Your Lap
• Experiment IV
• The Dreaming
• Babooshka

• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• Moving

• Cloudbusting (video mix)
• Eat the Music (extended mix)
• You Want Alchemy
• Shoedance (The Red Shoes dance mix)
• Show a Little Devotion
• Moments of Pleasure (instrumental version)
• Home for Christmas
• Rubberband Girl (extended mix)
• Candle in the Wind (instrumental version)
• Don't Give Up

• The Kick Inside
• Hammer Horror
• A Rose Growing Old
• Keep Me Waiting
• Davy
• Disbelieving Angel
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak
• Kite
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You
• Strange Phenomena
• Moving
• Really Gets Me Going
• Kashka From Baghdad

• Moving
• Them Heavy People
• Violin
• Strange Phenomena / Hammer Horror
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• Wow
• Feel It
• Kite / James and the Cold Gun
• Oh, England My Lionheart
• Wuthering Heights

• I'm Still Waiting
• Ken
• One Last Look Around the House Before We Go
• Wuthering Heights (new vocals)
• Experiment IV
• Them Heavy People
• Don't Put Your Foot on the Heartbreak
• James and the Cold Gun
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You
• Running Up That Hill
• Cloudbusting (The Organon mix)
• Hounds of Love (alternative)
• The Big Sky (Meteorological mix)
• Experiment IV (12" mix)
• Rubberband Girl

• Sing Children Sing
• Rainbow Games
• Another Day
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• The King is Dead
• Once
• Don't Give Up
• Let It Be
• Flowers
• You (The Game, Part III)
• Do Bears
• The Seer
• The Kick Inside
• This Woman's Work

• Something Like a Song
• Passing Through Air
• Humming
• You Were the Stars
• The Gay Farewell
• Cussi Cussi
• Atlantis
• Sunsi
• Maybe
• Before the Fall
• The Magician of Lublin
• Under the Ivy

• Where Are the Lionhearts
• Violin
• The Craft of Life
• The Gay Farewell
• Something Like a Song
• Frightened Eyes
• The Disbelieving Angel
• Nevertheless You'll Do
• Come Closer to Me Babe
• So Soft
• Pick the Rare Flower
• While Davy Dozed
• Organic Acid
• Moving
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You
• Kite
• Strange Phenomena
• Scares Me Silly
• Babooshka Piano

• The Kick Inside
• Hammer Horror
• It Hurts Me
• Stranded at the Moonbase
• Kashka From Baghdad
• Surrender Into the Roses
• Oh to Be in Love
• Rinfy the Gypsy
• On Fire Inside a Snowball
• Dali
• Where Are the Lionhearts
• Violin
• The Craft of Love
• The Gay Farewell
• Something Like a Song
• Frightened Eyes
• The Disbelieving Angel
• Nevertheless, You'll Do
• Come Closer to Me Babe
• So Soft
• The Rare Flower
• While Davy Dozed
• Organic Acid

• Moving
• Them Heavy People
• Violin
• Strange Phenomena
• Hammer Horror
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• Wow
• Feel It
• Kite
• James and the Cold Gun
• Oh England, My Lion Heart
• Wuthering Heights

• Wuthering Heights
• The Wedding List
• The Man with the Child in His Eyes
• Them Heavy People
• Under the Ivy
• Breathing
• Do Bears
• Running Up That Hill
• Moving
• The Long and Winding Road
• She's Leaving Home
• Room for the Life
• Strange Phenomena
• Violin
• In the Warm Room
• Kite
• Wuthering Heights

• The Kick Inside
• Hammer Horror
• It Hurts Me
• Stranded at the Moonbase
• Kasha From Baghdad
• Surrender Into the Roses
• Oh to Be in Love
• Rinfy the Gypsy
• On Fire Inside a Snowball
• Dali
• Where Are the Lionheart
• Violin
• The Craft of Love
• The Gay Farewell
• Something Like a Song
• Frightened Eyes
• The Disbelieving Angel
• Nevertheless, You'll Do
• Come Closer to Me Babe
• So Soft
• The Rare Flower
• While Davy Dozed

• Babooshka
• Kashka From Baghdad
• Surrender Into the Roses
• Oh, to Be in Love
• Rinfy the Gypsy
• On Fire Inside a Snowball
• Dali
• Where Are the Lionhearts
• Violin
• The Craft of Love
• The Gay Farewell
• Something Like a Song
• Frightened Eyes
• Nevertheless, You'll Do
• Come Closer To Me Babe
• So Soft
• The Rare Flower
• Babooshka (Version 2)
• The Kick Inside
• Hammer Horror
• It Hurts Me
• Stranded at the Moonbase
• While Davy Dozed
• The Disbelieving Angel
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• Kite
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You
• Strange Phenomena
• Scares Me Silly

• Violin
• Symphony in Blue
• Them Heavy People
• Here Comes the Flood
• Ran Tan Waltz
• December Will Be Magic Again
• The Wedding List
• Just Another Day
• Egypt
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake

• The Empty Bullring
• Ran Tan Waltz
• Passing Through Air
• December Will Be Magic Again
• Warm and Soothing
• Lord of the Reedy River
• Ne t'enfuis pas
• Un baiser d'enfant
• Under the Ivy
• Burning Bridge
• My Lagan Love
• The Handsome Cabin Boy
• Not This Time
• Walk Straight Down the Middle
• Be Kind to My Mistakes
• Rocket Man
• Candle in the Wind

• Army Dreams
• Oh England My Lionheart
• The Heavy People
• December Will Be Magic Again
• Running Up That Hill
• And So Is Love
• Ran Tan Waltz
• Wuthering Heights
• Babooshka
• The Man With the Child in His Eyes
• Under Ice
• Egypt
• Moving
• The Wedding List
• Symphony in Blue
• Cloudbusting
• L'amour Looks Something Like You
• The Sensual World
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• Strange Phenomena

• Moving
• Them Heavy People
• Violin
• Strange Phenomena
• Hammer Horror
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak
• Wow
• Feel It
• Kite
• James and the Cold Gun
• Oh England My Lionheart
• Wuthering Heights
• Them Heavy People
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbreak
• James and the Cold Gun
• L'Amour Looks Something Like You

• Symphony in Blue
• In Search of Peter Pan
• Wow
• Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
• Oh England My Lionheart
• Fullhouse
• In the Warm Room
• Kashka From Baghdad
• Coffee Homeground
• Hammer Horror