Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3–6 players. The game is also known as Black Lady,The Dirty, Slippery Anne, Chase the Lady, Crubs, and Black Maria, though any of these may refer to the similar but differently-scored game Black Lady. The game is regarded^{[by whom?]} as a member of the Whist family of trick-taking games (which also includes Bridge and Spades), but the game is unique among Whist variants in that it is an evasion-type game.

The game of Hearts as currently known originated with a family of related games called Reversis, which became popular around 1750 in Spain. In this game, a penalty point was awarded for each trick won, plus additional points for capturing the Jack of Hearts or the Queen of Hearts. A similar game called Four Jacks centered around avoiding any trick containing a Jack, which were worth one penalty point, and the Jack of Spades worth two.

Over time, additional penalty cards were added to Reverse, and around 1850, the game gave way to a simple variant of Hearts, where each Heart was worth 1 point. The Queen of Spades (sometimes referred to as "Calamity Jane") was introduced in a variant called Black Maria which then became known as the standard Hearts game, and soon thereafter, the idea of "shooting the moon" was introduced to the game to add depth to the gameplay. In the 1920s, the Jack of Diamonds variation (ten positive points) was introduced, and some time later the scoring was reversed so that penalty points were expressed as positive instead of negative. Passing cards, breaking Hearts, and leading the Two of Clubs are more recent additions.

Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald; January 30, 1942) is an American musician. He is best known as the founder and one of the lead singers of the psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane.

Balin was born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Catherine Eugenia "Jean" (née Talbot) and Joseph Buchwald. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Eastern Europe. His father was Jewish and his mother was Episcopalian. Balin is mildly autistic, and as a child he struggled with this while growing up in Ohio, and it affected him into his adulthood. Marty attended Washington High School in San Francisco, California and is a member of the Washington Hall of Fame.

In 1962, Martyn renamed himself Marty Balin and began recording with Challenge Records, releasing the singles "Nobody But You" and "I Specialize in Love". By 1964, Balin was leading a folk music quartet called The Town Criers, with fellow band members Larry Vargo, Jan Ellickson and Bill Collins.

Balin was the founder and one of the lead vocalists for Jefferson Airplane from 1965 to 1971.

Christina Judith Perri (born August 19, 1986) is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Philadelphia. Her song "Jar of Hearts" charted in the United States after it was featured on the Fox television show So You Think You Can Dance in 2010. Rolling Stone named her the "Band of the Week" on October 26, 2010. On May 10, 2011, Perri's "Jar of Hearts" was featured on Glee (Season 2, Episode 20 "Prom Queen"). Also, on June 27, 2011, Perri's "Jar of Hearts" was featured on Switched at Birth (Season 1, Episode 4 "Dance Amongst Daggers"). One of her songs, "A Thousand Years", has been in the Twilight saga movie Breaking Dawn.

Perri grew up in Bensalem, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) with her older brother, Nick Perri, who formerly played guitar with Shinedown, Silvertide, Perry Farrell and Matt Sorum. Her father is from Italy. She attended Archbishop Ryan High School as a member of the class of 2004. She taught herself how to play guitar as a 16-year-old by watching a videotape of Shannon Hoon from the group Blind Melon performing on VH1.

James Hillier Blount (born 22 February 1974), better known by his stage name James Blunt, is an English singer-songwriter and former army officer, whose debut album, Back to Bedlam and single releases, including "You're Beautiful" and "Goodbye My Lover", brought him to fame in 2005. His repertoire can be best described as a mix of acoustic-tinged pop, rock and folk. After recording on the independent American label Custard Records, Blunt won two Brit Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, two Ivor Novello Awards, and by 2006 was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The following year, he released his second album All the Lost Souls (2007). Blunt's third studio album, Some Kind of Trouble, was released in November 2010. Worldwide, Blunt has sold over 18 million albums, and his debut album, Back to Bedlam, is the best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK.

Blunt was an officer in the Life Guards, a cavalry regiment of the British Army, and served under NATO in Kosovo during the conflict there in 1999. While posted to Kosovo, Blunt was introduced to the work of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF or "Doctors Without Borders"). Since then, Blunt has supported MSF by holding meet-and-greet auctions at many of his concerts.

Dan Black (born 16 November 1976) is a British wonky pop artist. He was also a member of alternative rock band The Servant, before their 2007 split. He has also been a guest vocalist for the Italian group Planet Funk.

After releasing his breakthrough song "HYPNTZ", he signed to The:Hours, releasing his first two singles – "Alone" and "Yours" – in 2008. The next year, he released his most commercially successful single to date, "Symphonies".

Black was originally the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of alternative rock band The Servant. He was a member of the band from their conception in 1998 to their split in 2007.

In 2008, Black released a solo single, "HYPNTZ". The song's lyrics were taken from rapper The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize", while its instrumental sampled a cover of "Starman" by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Rihanna's "Umbrella". used. The single received positive reviews, with one critic commenting: "It achieves its magic formula in a manner that is both arbitrary and obvious, which is a part of its brilliance. The Umbrella break + Starman soundtrack + a beautiful melodic rendering of a gangsta rap staple: we know exactly what has been done here, and this is why it sounds so good". However, before a planned music video could be shot, The Notorious B.I.G.'s estate informed Black's team of their objection to the use of the "Hypnotize" lyrics. The "HYPNTZ" single was consequently taken out of circulation and the video scrapped.