Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure. The lead is the featured guitar, which usually plays single-note-based lines or double-stops. In rock, heavy metal, blues, jazz, punk, fusion, some pop, and other music styles, lead guitar lines are usually supported by a second guitarist who plays rhythm guitar, which consists of accompaniment chords and riffs.

To create lead guitar lines, guitarists use scales, modes, arpeggios, licks, and riffs that are performed using a variety of techniques. In rock, heavy metal, blues, jazz and fusion bands and some pop contexts as well as others, lead guitar lines often employ alternate picking, sweep picking, economy picking and legato (e.g., hammer ons, pull offs), which are used to maximize the speed of their solos or riffs. Such "tricks" can employ the picking hand used in the fret area (such as tapping), and even be augmented and embellished with devices such as bows, or separate electronic devices such as an EBow (electronic bow).

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

Alex Shaw (born 31 March 1987 in Ajax, Kent, England) is a rugby union player for Nottingham in the Aviva Championship. He previously played for Sale Sharks in the Premiership. He plays in the back-row.

Daren Jay "DJ" Ashba (born November 10, 1972) is an American musician, producer, songwriter and CEO of Ashba Media. He is the lead guitarist in Guns N' Roses and Sixx:A.M. He is also known for his work with hard rock bands BulletBoys and Beautiful Creatures. Ashba has worked with various artists including Mötley Crüe, Drowning Pool, Marion Raven, Aimee Allen and Neil Diamond.

Ashba was born in Monticello, Indiana and was raised in rural Fairbury, Illinois by his religious single-mother, a classically trained pianist, who began teaching him about music as a toddler. Dj performed in his first piano recital at the age of five, where he played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Ashba’s next ambition was to learn the drums. He built kits out of garbage cans and pots and pans, until he finally acquired a real set at the age of six. When he was eight, Dj took a job detasseling corn in the fields in order to earn enough money to buy his first guitar out of the Sears catalog. He would ride to his job in the corn fields on the bus with a guitar player from a local band, who would teach him a new chord each day on a “fret” that they had carved into the back of a bus seat with a pocketknife. His friend would take the knife and make three holes in the fret and say, “That’s an A chord, go home and practice.” Dj sometimes spent 17 hours a day practicing guitar in his bedroom as a teenager. For his 16th birthday, Ashba’s father took him to his first concert, the Mötley Crüe Girls, Girls, Girls tour and his life was forever changed. “The crowd, the music, the lights! It was the night I realized that no matter what it takes, I was gonna be on that stage one day.” At the age of 19, Dj packed up his possessions and set out for Hollywood to make it as a rockstar.

Ronald "Ron" Dean Butler, Jr. (born 1962) is a Bahamian-born American television actor and comedian who is best known for portraying Oscar, the clever receptionist, on the television series True Jackson, VP, from 2008 to 2011. He often portrays President Barack Obama in comedy sketches. He has performed with the Atlantic Theater Company for over 20 years.

Butler is originally from the Bahamas. He is named after his father Ronnie Butler, Sr., a calypso singer–songwriter and recording artist. As a child, Butler sometimes performed with his father. Butler grew up partly in the United States (Washington, DC, Virginia, and the suburbs of Syracuse, New York) and partly in the Bahamas. He attended high school in the Bahamas and was graduated, magna cum laude, from Trinity International University near Chicago, Illinois, receiving a B.A. in History and Economics in 1985.

Butler worked as an economic consultant for a law firm based in Washington, D.C., before beginning his acting career. While in Washington, Butler studied acting privately with Vera Katz of Howard University and performed in regional theatre around Washington. Later, he studied with David Mamet, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Scott Zigler and Robert Bella of the Atlantic Theater Company.