• Abruzzo
• Addicted to Black
• Albert Hall
• American Pie (album)
• American Pie (song)
• Andy Breckman
• Archtop
• Aretha Franklin
• Arista Records
• Bachelor's degree
• Billboard 200
• Billboard Hot 100
• Billboard magazine
• Billy Joel
• Bing Crosby
• Boney M
• Buddy Holly
• Caffè Lena
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• Christmas Dreams
• Christmastime!
• Cissy Houston
• Clive Davis
• CNN
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• Curb Records
• Defamation
• Don McLean
• Don McLean (album)
• E.Y. "Yip" Harburg
• Elvis Presley
• EMI
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• Erik Darling
• Fillmore East
• Folk music
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• Garth Brooks
• George Michael
• George Reeves
• Glastonbury festival
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• Harold Arlen
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• Josh Groban (album)
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• Music genre
• Nanci Griffith
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• Record label
• Respect (song)
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• Songs of the Century
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• Yusef Lateef
• 
  

• 
  Columbia University
  Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in New York City, New York, United States. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago and Nairobi.
  The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University. That same year, the university's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km²). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.
  
  wn.com/Columbia_University
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  Fillmore East
  Coordinates: 40°43′39″N 73°59′19″W / 40.7276°N 73.9886°W / 40.7276; -73.9886
  The Fillmore East was rock promoter Bill Graham's rock venue on Second Avenue near East 6th Street in the East Village neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City. It was open from 1968 to 1971, and featured some of the biggest acts in rock music at the time. The Fillmore East was a companion to Graham's Fillmore Auditorium, and its successor, the Fillmore West, in San Francisco, Graham's home base.
  The theatre that became the Fillmore East was originally built as a Yiddish theater in 1926, a time when this part of Second Avenue was known as the "Jewish Rialto" because of the numerous theatres that catered to a Yiddish-speaking audience. Called the Commodore Theater, it eventually was taken over by Loews Inc. and became a movie theatre, the Loews Commodore. It later became the Village Theatre, and in 1967 began to present rock bands, including Cream, the Who and the Doors. When Graham took over the theatre, it had fallen into disrepair. Despite the deceptively small marquee and façade, the theater had a capacity of almost 2,700.
  
  wn.com/Fillmore_East
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  Glastonbury festival
  The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.
  The festival organiser Michael Eavis, a farmer in a Somerset valley stated that he decided to host the first festival, then called Pilton Festival, after seeing an open air Led Zeppelin concert at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music 1970. Fourteen people, including John Hoare, invested everything they had to build the stage.
  The first festivals in the 1970s were influenced by hippie ethics and the free festival movement. The festival retains vestiges of this tradition such as the Green Fields area which includes the Green Futures and Healing Field. After the 1970s the festival took place almost every year and grew in size, with the number of attendees sometimes being swollen by gate-crashers.
  
  wn.com/Glastonbury_festival
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  Houston
  Houston ( /ˈhjuːstən/) (Alibamu: Yosti ) is the largest city in the state of Texas, and the fourth-largest city in the United States. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of 656.3 square miles (1,700 km²). Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown, which is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with 6.08 million people as of July 1st, 2011.
  Houston was founded in 1836 on land near the banks of Buffalo Bayou. It was incorporated as a city on June 5, 1837, and named after then-President of the Republic of Texas—former General Sam Houston—who had commanded at the Battle of San Jacinto, which took place 25 miles (40 km) east of where the city was established. The burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the city's population. In the mid-twentieth century, Houston became the home of the Texas Medical Center—the world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions—and NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located.
  
  wn.com/Houston
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  Italy
  Italy ⁱ/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km² (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
  Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
  
  wn.com/Italy
• 
  Villanova University
  Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Named for Saint Thomas of Villanova, the school is the oldest Catholic university in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
  Founded in 1842 by the Order of Saint Augustine, the university traces its roots to old Saint Augustine's Church, Philadelphia, which the Augustinian friars founded in 1796, and to its parish school, Saint Augustine's Academy, which was established in 1811.
  In October 1841, two Augustinian friars from Saint Augustine's Church in Philadelphia purchased the 200-acre (0.81 km²) "Belle Air" estate in Radnor Township with the intention of starting a school. The school, which was called the "Augustinian College of Vilanova," opened in 1842. However, the Philadelphia Nativist Riots of 1844 that burned Saint Augustine's Church in Philadelphia caused financial difficulties for the Augustinians, and the college was closed in February 1845. The college reopened in 1846 and graduated its first class in 1847. In March 1848, the governor of Pennsylvania incorporated the school and gave it the power to grant degrees. In 1859, the first master's degree was conferred on a student. In 1857, the school closed again as the demand for priests in Philadelphia prevented adequate staffing, and the crisis of the Panic of 1857 strained the school financially. The school remained closed throughout the Civil War and reopened in September 1865; since then it has operated continuously.
  
  wn.com/Villanova_University
• WAXQ
  WAXQ (104.3 FM, "Q-104.3") is a radio station with a classic rock format in New York City. The station is owned by Clear Channel Communications.
  The 104.3 frequency originally signed on in 1949 as WFDR, a non-profit station owned by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. However, like most early FM stations, WFDR lost money, and the station ceased operations in 1952.
  The WFDR calls now reside in Georgia, via an AM station (1370) in Manchester and an FM outlet (94.5) in Woodbury.
  The callsign WNCN was first issued by the Federal Radio Commission (precursor to the FCC in 1934) to a Great Lakes passenger steamer City of Detroit III and shows up on a list of maritime calls published in 1931. In those days the three and four letter callsigns were used by ships, broadcast stations, and police departments.
  The FM station first took to the air on December 1, 1956 as WFMX, and within a year adopted the call letters WNCN. As such, it was a part of a group of classical music stations in the northeastern United States, the Concert Network, programmed from WBCN, Boston and carried by affiliates in Providence, Hartford (WHCN), Riverhead (WRCN) and other markets. Later, WNCN was acquired by the National Science Network, which added daily medical news reports to the schedule since it was believed that Classical Music was the choice of the medical and dental professions. It also moved the antenna from the Hotel Pierre to the Empire State Building, increasing the station's coverage. National Science sold the station to Starr Broadcast Group in 1974. The station would retain a classical music format for many years, except for a short period during 1974–1975 when it took up a rock format with the call letters WQIV. The station's ownership history can be found at www.wncn.org.
  
  wn.com/WAXQ

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  Andy Breckman
  Andy Breckman (born March 3, 1955) is an American television and film writer and a radio personality. He is the co-creator (with David Hoberman) and executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning television series Monk on the USA Network, and is co-host of WFMU radio's long-running conceptual comedy program Seven Second Delay. He has written screenplays for a number of comedy films including Sgt. Bilko (starring Steve Martin) and Rat Race (directed by Jerry Zucker), and is frequently hired as a "script doctor" to inject humorous content into scripts written by other screenwriters.
  Although he started out professionally as a comedy writer, Breckman's biggest success to date, Monk, is a murder-mystery with a humorous edge. Breckman told New Jersey Monthly that he was a voracious reader of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, John D. MacDonald, and other authors of “solvable” mysteries, as well as being a big fan of the TV series Columbo. “In a way, it’s similar to comedy writing,” he says. “It’s puzzles and puzzle solving. Very logical.”
  
  wn.com/Andy_Breckman
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  Aretha Franklin
  Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist. In a recording career that has spanned over half a century, Franklin's repertoire has included gospel, jazz, blues, R&B, pop, rock and funk. Franklin is known as one of the most important popularizers of the soul music genre and is referred to as the Queen of Soul, a title she was given early in her career. Franklin, the daughter of prominent Baptist minister and activist C. L. Franklin, began her singing career singing in her father's church at the age of ten and started recording four years later. After several years in the gospel circuit and with her father's blessing, she formed a secular pop music career at the age of eighteen, signing with Columbia Records, where she was branded by its CEO John Hammond as his most important act since Billie Holiday. Franklin's Columbia period wasn't as successful as hoped and in late 1966, Franklin switched over to Atlantic Records, where she began recording a string of popular hits including "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman", "Think", "Chain of Fools" and what later became her signature song, "Respect".
  
  wn.com/Aretha_Franklin
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  Billy Joel
  William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American pianist, singer-songwriter, and composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man," in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to the RIAA.
  Joel had Top 40 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, achieving 33 Top 40 hits in the United States, all of which he wrote himself. He is also a six-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and has sold over 150 million records worldwide. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame (1992), the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1999), the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2006), and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame (2009). In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary, with Billy Joel positioned at No. 23. With the exception of the 2007 songs "All My Life" and "Christmas in Fallujah," Joel stopped recording pop/rock material after 1993's River of Dreams, but he continued to tour extensively until 2010.
  
  wn.com/Billy_Joel
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  Bing Crosby
  Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artistes of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.
  A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses. His early career coincided with technical recording innovations; this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como,Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.
  
  wn.com/Bing_Crosby
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  Buddy Holly
  Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll." His works and innovations inspired and influenced contemporary and later musicians, notably The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, and exerted a profound influence on popular music. Holly was among the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".
  Charles Hardin Holley was born on September 7, 1936, in Lubbock, Texas, to Lawrence Odell and Ella Pauline (Drake) Holley. In Philip Norman's biography it is stated that his mother's family claimed to be descended from the English navigator Francis Drake.
  
  wn.com/Buddy_Holly
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  Cissy Houston
  Emily "Cissy" Houston (born September 30, 1933) is a Grammy Award–winning American soul and gospel singer. She led a successful career as a backup singer for such artists as Elvis Presley, Mahalia Jackson, Wishbone Ash and Aretha Franklin, and is now primarily a solo artist. She is mother to the late singer and actress Whitney Houston, aunt of Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick and a cousin of Leontyne Price.
  Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey to Nitcholas and Delia Mae Drinkard (née McCaskill) who had seven older children: sons William, Hansom, Nicky, and Larry, and daughters Lee, Marie and Anne. Houston's father Nitcholas Drinkard was born to a part Dutch, part African-American, mother Susan Bell Drinkard (née Fuller) and a Native American father John Drinkard, Jr. The Drinkards owned a substantial amount of farmland in Blakely, Georgia during a time when it was unusual for blacks to own large portions of land. The asset was gradually depleted as small portions of the land were sold, over time, to resolve the continued legal troubles of a close relative.
  
  wn.com/Cissy_Houston
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  Clive Davis
  Clive Davis (born April 4, 1932) is an American record producer and music industry executive. He won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. From 1967 to 1973 he was the President of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1975 through 2000 until founding J Records. From 2002 until April 2008, Davis was the Chairman and CEO of the RCA Music Group (which included RCA Records, J Records and Arista Records), Chairman and CEO of J Records, and Chairman and CEO of BMG North America. Currently Davis is the Chief Creative Officer of Sony Music Entertainment. He currently plays a part in the careers of Alicia Keys, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Hudson, Christina Aguilera, Carlos Santana, Kelly Clarkson, Harry Connick, Jr., Leona Lewis, Barry Manilow, BC Jean and Seattle De Luca. Davis is credited with bringing Whitney Houston to prominence. Clive Davis is an alumnus of New York University, and the recorded music division of its Tisch School for the Arts is named after him.
  
  wn.com/Clive_Davis
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  Don McLean
  Donald "Don" McLean (born October 2, 1945, New Rochelle, New York) is an American singer-songwriter. He is most famous for the 1971 album American Pie, containing the renowned songs "American Pie" and "Vincent".
  Both McLean's grandfather and father were also named Donald McLean. The Buccis, the family of McLean's mother, Elizabeth, came from Abruzzo in central Italy. They left Italy and settled in Port Chester, New York, at the end of the 19th century. He has other extended family in Los Angeles and Boston.
  As a teenager, McLean became interested in folk music, particularly the Weavers' 1955 recording At Carnegie Hall. Childhood asthma meant that McLean missed long periods of school, particularly music lessons, and although he slipped back in his studies, his love of music was allowed to flourish. He often performed shows for family and friends. By age 16 he had bought his first guitar (a Harmony acoustic archtop with a sunburst finish) and begun making contacts in the music business, becoming friends with folk singer Erik Darling, a latter-day member of the Weavers. McLean recorded his first studio sessions (with singer Lisa Kindred) while still in prep school.
  
  wn.com/Don_McLean
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  Elvis Presley
  Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King".
  Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley moved to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family at the age of 13. He began his career there in 1954, working with Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African American music to a wider audience. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was the most important popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country and rhythm and blues. RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage the singer for over two decades. Presley's first RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel", released in January 1956, was a number one hit. He became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll with a series of network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs, many from African American sources, and his uninhibited performance style made him enormously popular—and controversial. In November 1956, he made his film debut in Love Me Tender.
  
  wn.com/Elvis_Presley
• Erik Darling
  Erik Darling (September 25, 1933 – August 3, 2008) was an American songwriter and a folk music artist. He was an important influence on the folk scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
  Darling was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Inspired by the folk music group The Weavers, in the '50s, he formed The Tunetellers, which evolved into The Tarriers with actor/singer Alan Arkin. Their version of the "Banana Boat Song" reached #4 on the Billboard charts.
  In April 1958 Darling replaced Pete Seeger in The Weavers, although he continued working club dates with The Tarriers until November 1959. Darling also recorded three solo albums. His second solo effort, True Religion for Vanguard in 1961 was influential on younger folkies of the day. Darling left the Weavers in June 1962 to work as a soloist on the emerging coffeehouse circuit. That summer he formed a jazz-folk trio, The Rooftop Singers, with longtime friend Bill Svanoe and jazz singer Lynn Taylor. Intended as a studio-only project for Vanguard, the group landed an unexpected number one pop hit with the song "Walk Right In." Don McLean who became friends with Darling in 1961, looked back on Darling as “a genuine philosopher and perfectionist.” He said, “I appreciated the time he spent with me so long ago. Undivided mental attention to every aspect of music making and performing is a hallmark of Erik’s work, and I believe some of that rubbed off on me.”.
  
  wn.com/Erik_Darling
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  Frank Sinatra
  Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra,  /sɨˈnɑːtrə/, (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and film actor.
  Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the "bobby soxers", he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity.
  He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 (finding success with albums such as Ring-a-Ding-Ding!, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally, was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. Sinatra turned 50 in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way".
  
  wn.com/Frank_Sinatra
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  Fred Astaire
  Fred Astaire (born Frederick Austerlitz; May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
  Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that "the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his importance and influence.
  Astaire was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Johanna "Ann" (née Geilus) and Frederic "Fritz" Austerlitz (born September 8, 1868, as Friedrich Emanuel Austerlitz). Astaire's mother was born in the United States to Lutheran German immigrants from East Prussia and Alsace, while Astaire's father was born in Linz, Austria, to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism.
  
  wn.com/Fred_Astaire
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  Garth Brooks
  Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music artist. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Brooks' integration of rock elements into his recordings and live performances has earned him immense popularity. This progressive approach allowed him to dominate the country single and album charts while quickly crossing over into the mainstream pop arena, exposing country music to a larger audience.
  Brooks has enjoyed one of the most successful careers in popular music history, breaking records for both sales and concert attendance throughout the 1990s. Garth Brooks still continues to sell well and according to Nielsen Soundscan, his albums sales through October 2011 are at 68,561,000, which makes him the best-selling albums artist in the United States in the SoundScan era (since 1991), a title held since 1991, well over 5 million ahead of his nearest rival, The Beatles. Furthermore, according to RIAA he is the second best-selling solo albums artist in the United States of all time behind Elvis Presley (overall is third to the Beatles and Elvis Presley) with 128 million units sold. Brooks has released six albums that achieved diamond status in the United States, those being: Garth Brooks (10× platinum), No Fences (17× platinum), Ropin' the Wind (14× platinum), The Hits (10× platinum), Sevens (10× platinum) and Double Live (21× platinum). Since 1989, Brooks has released 19 records in all, which include; 9 studio albums, 1 live album, 4 compilation albums, 3 Christmas albums and 2 box sets, along with 77 singles. He won several important awards in his career as 2 Grammy Awards, 16 American Music Awards (not including the poll of "Artist of the '90s") and the RIAA Award as Best selling solo albums artist of the Century in the United States. As of 2010, Brooks' world-wide sales now exceed 190 million albums, singles and videos.
  
  wn.com/Garth_Brooks
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  George Michael
  George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου); 25 June 1963) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Michael rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley. His first solo single, "Careless Whisper", was released when he was still in the duo and sold about six million copies worldwide.
  As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Michael has sold more than 100 million records worldwide as of 2010. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith, has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and made several records and achievements in the United States. Michael has garnered seven number one singles in the UK and eight number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Michael the 40th most successful artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists list.
  Michael has won numerous music awards throughout his 30-year career, including three Brit Awards—winning Best British Male twice, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards, three American Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards from eight nominations.
  
  wn.com/George_Michael
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  George Reeves
  George Reeves (born George Keefer Brewer, January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.
  His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a polarizing issue. The official finding was suicide, but some believe he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.
  Reeves was born George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, the son of Don Brewer and Helen Lescher (his death certificate erroneously lists his birthplace as Kentucky). Reeves was born five months into their marriage (the reason Reeves's mother subsequently claimed a false April birth date for her son, something he was unaware of until adulthood). They separated soon afterward and Helen moved back to her home at Galesburg, Illinois.
  Later, Reeves' mother moved to California to stay with her sister. There, Helen met and married Frank Bessolo. George's father married Helen Schultz in 1925 and had children with her. Don Brewer apparently never saw his son again.
  
  wn.com/George_Reeves
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  Glen Campbell
  Glen Travis Campbell (born April 22, 1936) is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.
  During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums. He has sold 45 million records and accumulated no less than 12 RIAA Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and 1 Double-Platinum album. Of the 74 trips up the country charts, 27 landed in the Top 10.^{[citation needed]} Campbell's hits include John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind", Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston", Larry Weiss's "Rhinestone Cowboy" and Allen Toussaint's "Southern Nights".
  Campbell made history by winning four Grammys in both country and pop categories in 1967.^{[citation needed]} For "Gentle on My Mind" he received two awards in country & western, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" did the same in pop. He owns trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and took the CMA's top honor as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. In 1969 Campbell was hand picked by actor John Wayne to play alongside him in the film True Grit, which gave Campbell a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. Campbell sang the title song which was nominated for an Academy Award.
  
  wn.com/Glen_Campbell
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  Harold Arlen
  Harold Arlen (February 15, 1905 - April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. "Over the Rainbow," in fact, was voted the twentieth century's No. 1 song by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
  Arlen was born Hyman Arluck, in Buffalo, New York, the child of a Jewish cantor. His twin brother died the next day. He learned the piano as a youth and formed a band as a young man. He achieved some local success as a pianist and singer and moved to New York City in his early 20s. He worked as an accompanist in vaudeville. At this point, he changed his name to Harold Arlen. Between 1926 and about 1934, Arlen appeared occasionally as a band vocalist on records by The Buffalodians, Red Nichols, Joe Venuti, Leo Reisman and Eddie Duchin, usually singing his own compositions.
  
  wn.com/Harold_Arlen
• Harold Leventhal
  Harold Leventhal (May 24, 1919 – October 4, 2005) was an American music manager. He died in 2005 at the age of 86. His career began as a song plugger for Irving Berlin. He managed The Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez.
  Born in Ellenville, New York, to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Lithuania, Leventhal was eight weeks old when his father died. His mother moved the family to the Lower East Side, where she worked as their tenement's janitor. They then moved to the Bronx, where in 1935, at James Monroe high school, Leventhal, already a member of the Young Communist League, was arrested for organising an "Oxford Pledge" strike, aimed at persuading students to refuse to fight further wars.
  He lost his first factory job for union organising, but was hired as an office boy by the songwriter Irving Berlin. Soon he was working as Berlin's "plugger", taking his songs around the nightclubs to be bought by band leaders such as Harry James, the Dorsey Brothers and Benny Goodman. He then joined Goodman's Regent Music Company, before enlisting in the army when the U.S. joined the Second World War. Assigned to India with the Signal Corps, Leventhal sought out the Congress movement, meeting Nehru and Gandhi. He founded American Friends of India, and, at a 1954 party hosted by the Indian delegation to the United Nations, Leventhal met Nathalie Buxbaum, a UN guide, who was to become his wife.
  
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  Helen Reddy
  Helen Reddy (born 25 October 1941) is an Australian-American singer and actress often referred to as the "Queen of 70s Pop". In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six of those 15 songs made the Top 10 and three of those songs reached No. 1, including her signature hit "I Am Woman." She also placed 25 singles on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. Fifteen of those singles made the Top 10 and 8 of those reached No. 1. She was also the first Australian to win a Grammy Award and to have three #1 hits in the same year. In television, Helen was the first Australian to host her own one-hour weekly primetime variety show on an American network, along with several specials that were seen in over forty countries. Helen retired from live performance in 2002 and now practices as a clinical hypnotherapist and motivational speaker. In 2011, Billboard named her the #28 AC artist (#9 among women) of all time. She lives in Australia.
  
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  Howard Keel
  Harold Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919 – November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s. He is best known to modern audiences for his starring role in the CBS television series Dallas (1981-1991)as Clayton Farlow, opposite Barbara Bel Geddes's character, but to an earlier generation, he was known as the star of some of the most famous MGM film musicals ever made, with a rich baritone singing voice.
  Keel was born Harold Clifford Keel in Gillespie, Illinois, to Navyman-turned-coalminer Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Osterkamp Keel. (It is often erroneously stated—by the MGM publicity department of the 1950s—that Keel's birth name was Harold Leek).
  Young Harold spent his childhood in poverty. One of his teachers, Miss Rosa Burke, noticed one day that he was not eating his lunch. From that day forward, Miss Burke would pack two lunches - one for herself and one for Harold. When he became famous and would perform near Gillespie, Burke always received tickets to attend his performances.
  
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  Irving Berlin
  Irving Berlin (May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history. He published his first song, "Marie from Sunny Italy", in 1907 and had his first major international hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1911.
  "Alexander's Ragtime Band" sparked an international dance craze in places as far away as Berlin's native Russia, which also "flung itself into the ragtime beat with an abandon bordering on mania." Over the years he was known for writing music and lyrics in the American vernacular: uncomplicated, simple and direct, with his aim being to "reach the heart of the average American" whom he saw as the "real soul of the country."
  He wrote hundreds of songs, many becoming major hits, which made him "a legend" before he turned thirty. During his 60-year career he wrote an estimated 1,500 songs, including the scores for 19 Broadway shows and 18 Hollywood films, with his songs nominated eight times for Academy Awards. Many songs became popular themes and anthems, including "Easter Parade", "White Christmas", "Happy Holiday", "This is the Army, Mr. Jones", and "There's No Business Like Show Business". His Broadway musical and 1942 film, This is the Army, with Ronald Reagan, had Kate Smith singing Berlin's "God Bless America" which was first performed in 1938. Smith still performed the song on her 1960 CBS television series, The Kate Smith Show. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Celine Dion recorded it as a tribute, making it #1 on the charts.
  
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  Jack Kerouac
  Jean-Louis "Jack" Kerouac ( /ˈkɛruːæk/ or /ˈkɛrɵæk/; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969) was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. His writings have inspired other writers, including Ken Kesey, Bob Dylan, Richard Brautigan, Curtis Meanor, Morrissey, Thomas Pynchon,Lester Bangs, Tom Robbins, Will Clarke, Ben Gibbard, Haruki Murakami, Jacquelyn Landgraf.^{[citation needed]} Kerouac became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from internal bleeding due to long-standing abuse of alcohol. Since his death Kerouac's literary prestige has grown and several previously unseen works have been published. All of his books are in print today, among them: On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody and Big Sur.
  
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  Jim Croce
  James Joseph "Jim" Croce (/ˈkroʊtʃi/; January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973) was an American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
  Croce was born in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 10, 1943, to Jim and Flora Croce, and grew up in a family of Italian background. Croce took a strong interest in music at a young age. At five, he learned to play his first song on the accordion, "Lady of Spain."
  Croce attended Upper Darby High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. After his graduation in 1960, Croce went to Malvern Preparatory School for one year before deciding to enroll at Villanova University in 1961. During his time as a student, Croce became a member of the Villanova Singers and the Spires. When the Spires performed off-campus gigs or made professional recordings, it was under the name, "The Coventry Lads". Jim was also a student disc jockey at WKVU.
  
  wn.com/Jim_Croce
• Joel Dorn
  Joel Dorn (April 7, 1942 – December 17, 2007) was an American jazz and R&B music producer and record label entrepreneur. He worked at Atlantic Records, and later founded the 32 Jazz, Label M, and Hyena Records labels. He called himself "The Masked Announcer".
  From an early age, Joel Dorn knew he wanted to be in the music business, and not just anywhere in the business; Dorn knew he wanted to work specifically for Atlantic Records. At 14-years old, he began correspondence with the label's co-founder Nesuhi Ertegun. "I'd send letters telling Nesuhi that I thought Ray Charles should do a duet. What talent they were missing out on, all sorts of critiques and suggestions," remembered Dorn.
  In 1961, he officially began his career as a disc jockey at the pioneering Philadelphia jazz radio station WHAT-FM. He called himself "The Masked Announcer". "The DJ gig was a great way to get to know all the record companies, and get involved in the business, but I had my heart set on producing the entire time," remembered Dorn. Nesuhi Ertegun, who'd now been corresponding with Dorn for six years, finally began to take those opinions seriously. "My show had become popular in the Philly market, and I think Atlantic realized that I was becoming instrumental in breaking records for them on a regional level,” figured Dorn. "Before long the letters turned into telephone calls and I eventually met Nesuhi."
  
  wn.com/Joel_Dorn
• Joel Whitburn
  Joel Carver Whitburn (born November 29, 1939; Wauwatosa, Wisconsin) is an American author and music historian.
  Whitburn founded Record Research Inc. in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, in 1970, and put together a team of researchers to examine in detail all of Billboard's music and video charts. Record Research publishes reference books based on data from the various popular music charts and to date has published over 200 books, 50 of which are currently in the Record Research catalog. His flagship publication is Top Pop Singles which covers the history of Billboard's popular music charts. Featuring each recording's peak position, date charted, weeks charted, label and information, and trivia on recordings and artists, Whitburn's books are used extensively by the entertainment industry (especially radio DJs) and music fans worldwide. His research extends from 1890 to the present and covers many genres. Whitburn is also the author of the Top 40 Hits series of books published by Billboard Books.
  
  wn.com/Joel_Whitburn
• John Platania
  John Platania is a well-known session musician, guitar player, and record producer.
  Platania was born in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley, in Ulster County, near Woodstock.
  He is most known for his work with Van Morrison, beginning on Moondance, and most recently on 2009's Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl. In 1973 Platania toured with Morrison as a member of his band at the time The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. The double live album It's Too Late to Stop Now was released in 1974, which included songs from three nights of the tour. Platania also co-wrote two songs with Morrison, on his compilation album of out-takes The Philosopher's Stone, as well as playing guitar on several of the tracks on disc one.
  He played on several albums for Chip Taylor, songwriter of "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning" and from 1974 through 1982, he recorded and or performed with Randy Newman, Bonnie Raitt and Judy Collins.
  In 1976, Platania formed a band in Los Angeles called The Giants. Its members included Ron Elliott, formerly of The Beau Brummels, with Karl Rucker from the post-Jim Morrison Doors, and Bruce Gary, drummer who went on to The Knack.
  
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  Josh Groban
  Joshua Winslow "Josh" Groban (born February 27, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and record producer. His first four solo albums have been certified multi-platinum, and in 2007, he was charted as the number-one best selling artist in the United States with over 21 million records in that country. To date, he has sold over 24 million albums worldwide, and is the top selling classical artist of the 2000s in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
  Groban originally studied acting, but as his voice changed, it developed into a "significant instrument". Groban attended the Los Angeles High School for the Arts, a free public school where students received a conservatory-style education. His life changed when his vocal coach, Seth Riggs, submitted a tape of Josh singing "All I Ask of You", from The Phantom of the Opera, to Riggs' friend, producer, composer and arranger David Foster. Foster called him to stand in for an ailing Andrea Bocelli to rehearse a duet, "The Prayer," with Celine Dion at the rehearsal for the Grammy Awards in 1998.Rosie O'Donnell immediately invited him to appear on her talk show. Foster asked him to sing at the California Governor's Gray Davis' 1999 inauguration. He was cast on Ally McBeal by the show's creator, David E. Kelley, performing "You're Still You" for the 2001 season finale.
  
  wn.com/Josh_Groban
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  Judy Garland
  Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969) was an American actress, singer and vaudevillian. Renowned for her contralto voice, she attained international stardom through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the remake of A Star is Born and for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1961 film, Judgment at Nuremberg. At 39 years of age, she remains the youngest recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry.
  After appearing in vaudeville with her two older sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, she was released from the studio but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances, including a return to acting beginning with critically acclaimed performances.
  
  wn.com/Judy_Garland
• Lisa Kindred
  Lisa Kindred is an American folk and blues singer.
  Kindred, born in Buffalo, was a figure in the Greenwich Village/Cambridge folk scene of the 1960s; she played with Bob Dylan and other folk singers, playing at the Cafe Wha?,Club 47, The Bitter End and other venues.
  Kindred's debut album, I Like It This Way, was released on Vanguard Records in 1965. Her second album was to have been released on Vanguard in 1966 under the title Kindred Spirit, but the master tapes were stolen and delivered to Mel Lyman, a musician in the backing band and soon-to-be leader of the Mel Lyman Family. The album was only released four years later on Warner Bros/Reprise Records under the aegis of the Lyman Family, titled American Avatar - Love Comes Rolling Down. The album cover sported a picture of Lyman, not Kindred.
  That was Kindred's last album on a major label. She became a long-time fixture on the San Francisco bar scene, appearing on occasional compilations and a self-released 2002 CD, Steppin' Up In Class.
  
  wn.com/Lisa_Kindred
• Lori Lieberman
  Lori Lieberman (born November 15, 1951) is an American singer. She was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Switzerland, and signed a deal with Capitol Records in the early 1970s. Her self-titled debut album featured the tune "Killing Me Softly with His Song", written by composers Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel after Lieberman saw Don McLean in concert, . Fox and Gimbel developed the tune for Lieberman, and it would go on to be a chart-topping single for Roberta Flack in 1973. Lieberman released several albums on Capitol in the 1970s and also provided music for the Schoolhouse Rock TV show in the late '70s and early '80s. In the 1980s Lieberman receded from the industry and had three children; in the mid-1990s she began recording again for independent labels.
  
  
  
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  Nanci Griffith
  Nanci Griffith, (born Nanci Caroline Griffith, July 6, 1953, Seguin, Texas) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter based in Austin, Texas.
  Griffith's career has spanned a variety of musical genres, predominantly country, folk, and what she terms "folkabilly". Griffith won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1994 for her recording, Other Voices, Other Rooms. This album features Griffith covering the songs of artists who are her major influences. One of her better-known songs is "From a Distance" by Julie Gold, although Bette Midler's version achieved greater commercial success. Similarly, other artists have occasionally achieved greater success with Griffith's songs than Griffith herself. For example, Kathy Mattea had a country music top five hit with a 1986 cover of Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime", and Suzy Bogguss had one of her largest hits with Griffith's and Tom Russell's "Outbound Plane".
  Griffith's high school boyfriend, John, died in a motorcycle accident after taking her to the senior prom, and subsequently inspired many of her songs. Griffith was married to singer-songwriter Eric Taylor from 1976 to 1982. In the early 1990s, she was engaged to singer-songwriter Tom Kimmel, but the couple parted before marrying. In 1994, Griffith teamed up with Jimmy Webb to contribute the song "If These Old Walls Could Speak" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. Griffith is a survivor of breast cancer which was diagnosed in 1996, and thyroid cancer in 1998.
  
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  Otis Redding
  Otis Ray Redding, Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger, and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul music and rhythm and blues (R&B), and one of the greatest singers in popular music. His open-throated singing was an influence on other soul singers of the 1960s, and he helped to craft the lean and powerful style of R&B that formed the basis of the Stax Sound. After appearing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, he wrote and recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay", which became a number-one record on both the pop and R&B charts after his death in a plane crash.
  Redding was born and raised in the American state of Georgia. At age 15, he left school to support his family by working with Little Richard's backing band, The Upsetters, and by playing talent shows for prize money. In 1958, he joined Johnny Jenkins's band, The Pinetoppers, and toured the Southern United States while serving as driver and musician. An unscheduled appearance on a session led to a turning point in his career. He signed a contract with Stax Records and released his debut album, Pain in My Heart, in 1964. This album produced his first Stax single, "These Arms of Mine".
  
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  Perry Como
  Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como (May 18, 1912 – May 12, 2001) was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr. C.", as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and pioneered a weekly musical variety television show, which set the standards for the genre and proved to be one of the most successful in television history. Como was seen weekly on television from 1949 to 1963, then continued hosting the Kraft Music Hall variety program on a monthly basis until 1967. His television shows and seasonal specials were broadcast throughout the world. Also a popular recording artist, Perry Como produced numerous hit records with record sales so high the label literally stopped counting at Como's behest. His combined success on television and popular recordings was not matched by any other artist of the time. Como's appeal spanned generations and he was widely respected for both his professional standards and the conduct in his personal life. In the official RCA Records Billboard magazine memorial, his life was summed up in these few words: "50 years of music and a life well lived. An example to all." Composer Ervin Drake said of him, "... [o]ccasionally someone like Perry comes along and won't 'go with the flow' and still prevails in spite of all the bankrupt others who surround him and importune him to yield to their values. Only occasionally."
  
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  Pete Seeger
  Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and an iconic figure in the mid-20th-century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of The Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, and environmental causes.
  As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)", (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962); Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964, and The Seekers in 1966. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. In the PBS "American Masters" episode Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Seeger states it was he who changed the lyric from the traditional "We will overcome" to the more singable "We shall overcome".
  
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  Ritchie Valens
  Ritchie Valens (born Richard Steven Valenzuela; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959) was a Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist.
  A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens' recording career lasted only eight months. During this time, however, he scored several hits, most notably "La Bamba", which was originally a Mexican folk song that Valens transformed with a rock rhythm and beat that became a hit in 1958, making Valens a pioneer of the Spanish-speaking rock and roll movement.
  On February 3, 1959, on what has become known as The Day the Music Died, Valens was killed in a small-plane crash in Iowa, a tragedy that also claimed the lives of fellow musicians Buddy Holly and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. Valens was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.
  Ritchie Valens was born in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, on May 13, 1941. His parents were Joseph Steven Valenzuela and Concepcion Reyes. Brought up hearing traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well as flamenco guitar, R&B and jump blues, he expressed an interest in making music of his own by the age of 5. He was encouraged by his father to take up guitar and trumpet, and later taught himself the drums. One day, a neighbor came across Ritchie trying to play a guitar that had only two strings. He re-strung the instrument, and taught Ritchie the fingerings of some chords. While Ritchie was left-handed, he was so eager to learn the guitar that he mastered the traditionally right-handed version of the instrument.^{[citation needed]} Valens had attended Pacoima Junior High School (now Pacoima Middle School). By the time he was attending junior high school, his proficiency on the guitar was such that he brought the instrument to school and would sing and play songs to his friends on the bleachers.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Ritchie_Valens
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  Roberta Flack
  Roberta Flack (born February 10, 1937) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is notable for jazz, soul, R&B, and folk music. Roberta Flack is best known for her Hot 100 #1 singles "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", "Killing Me Softly with His Song" and "Feel Like Makin' Love", as well as "Where Is the Love" and "The Closer I Get to You", two of her many duets with Donny Hathaway. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" won the 1973 Grammy Record of the Year and "Killing Me Softly with His Song" won the same award at the Grammy Awards of 1974. She and U2 are the only artists to win the award in consecutive years.
  Roberta Flack was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina and was raised in Arlington, Virginia. She first discovered the work of African American musical artists when she heard Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke sing in a predominantly African-American Baptist church.
  During her early teens, Flack so excelled at classical piano that Howard University awarded her a full music scholarship. She entered Howard University at the age of 15, making her one of the youngest students ever to enroll there. She eventually changed her major from piano to voice, and became an assistant conductor of the university choir. Her direction of a production of Aida received a standing ovation from the Howard University faculty. Flack is a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and was made an honorary member of Tau Beta Sigma by the Eta Delta Chapter at Howard University for her outstanding work in promoting music education.
  
  wn.com/Roberta_Flack
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  Roy Orbison
  Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter, best known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country and western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis. His greatest success came with Monument Records between 1960 and 1964, when 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely", "Crying", and "Oh, Pretty Woman". His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of "In Dreams" in David Lynch's Blue Velvet revived his career in the 1980s. In 1988, he joined the supergroup Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne and also released a new solo album. He died of a heart attack in December that year, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred by tragedy, including the death of his first wife and his two eldest sons in separate accidents.
  
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  Shirley Bassey
  Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE (born 8 January 1937), is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the mid-1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century". In the US, in particular, she is best known for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979) and is the only artist to record more than one Bond theme song. Bassey is also a UNESCO Artist for Peace.
  "Born above a brothel in a docklands slum", Shirley Veronica Bassey was the sixth and last child of Eliza Jane Start and Henry Bassey in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales (now called Cardiff Bay), of paternal Nigerian and maternal English descent. Bassey's mother also had four children from previous relationships, two of whom lived in the Bassey household. Eliza had married previously, to Alfred Metcalfe, and upon her marriage to Bassey, Eliza Jane Metcalfe listed Alfred Metcalfe as her father on the marriage registry. It has thus been theorized that she never divorced Alfred, and that her marriage to Bassey was bigamous. Eliza and Henry's second child died in infancy, so Shirley was born into a household of three sisters, two half-sisters, and one brother. A year later her father was arrested and charged with having sex with a minor, was tried, imprisoned for five years, then deported. After Henry's arrest, Eliza and the children moved to the nearby steelworking district of Splott.
  
  wn.com/Shirley_Bassey
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  Terri Sharp
  Terri Sharp (born March 24, 1950 in Houston, Texas) is a gold record winning American songwriter and vocalist. While writing on Music Row in Nashville, Terri's songs were recorded by many artists including Don Mclean and Hank Williams Jr. She currently lives in Texas, composing and performing the majority of her work in Spanish.
  Terri's 1966 recording of her song "A Love That Will Last" stayed on the charts for three months in her hometown of Houston. She then moved to New Orleans in 1967 to record for White Cliff Records. There she met and remains lifelong friends with her then arranger Allen Toussaint.
  Terri did three tours of duty as a songwriter on Music Row in Nashville. During that time, she wrote for Bocephus Music and had the distinction of being the only writer that Hank Williams Jr. ever signed to his Bocephus publishing company. She then wrote for Merle Kilgore's Paradise Cove Music for two years, before signing on with Acuff-Rose.
  Sharp was awarded a gold record for the song Wild Streak, which she co-wrote with Hank Williams Jr. The song was also used as the title of Williams' 1987 album and tour. Around the same time, two of Terri's songs ('Eventually' and 'You Can't Blame the Train') were recorded by Don Mclean for his 1987 album Love Tracks. The latter reached #49 on the U.S. country charts in 1987 and is also featured on Mclean's 1993 compilation album Favorites and Rarities. Sharp also co-wrote the song 'Old-Fashioned Broken Heart' with Donny Kees which was recorded by Lisa Stewart on her self titled 1993 album. In Don Mclean's 2007 biography, Terri Sharp is referred to as "one of the most talented songwriters on the Nashville scene".
  
  wn.com/Terri_Sharp
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  The Big Bopper
  Jiles Perry "J. P." Richardson, Jr. (October 24, 1930 – February 3, 1959) also commonly known as The Big Bopper, was an American disc jockey, singer, and songwriter whose big voice and exuberant personality made him an early rock and roll star. He is best known for his recording of "Chantilly Lace".
  On February 3, 1959, a day that has become known as The Day the Music Died (from Don McLean's song "American Pie"), Richardson was killed in a plane crash in Iowa, along with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.
  J. P. Richardson was born in Sabine Pass, Texas, the oldest son of Jiles Perry Richardson, Sr. and his wife Elise (Stalsby) Richardson. His father was an oil field worker. Richardson had two younger brothers, Cecil and James. The family soon moved to Beaumont, Texas. Richardson graduated from Beaumont High School in 1947 and played on the "Royal Purple" football team as a defensive lineman, wearing number 85. Richardson later studied pre-law at Lamar College, and was a member of the band and chorus. He sometimes played with the Johnny Lampson Combo.
  
  wn.com/The_Big_Bopper
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  Vincent van Gogh
  Vincent Willem van Gogh (UK  /ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/, US /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/;Dutch: [vɑŋ ˈɣɔχ] ( listen); 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.
  Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes of flowers, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
  
  wn.com/Vincent_van_Gogh
• Wikipedia Persondata
  wn.com/Wikipedia_Persondata
• 
  Woody Guthrie
  Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land." Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress. Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence.
  Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.
  
  wn.com/Woody_Guthrie
• 
  Yusef Lateef
  Yusef Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920) is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.
  Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he also plays oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also uses a number of world music instruments, notably the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, arghul, sarewa, and koto. He is known for his innovative blending of jazz with "Eastern" music.
  Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee; his family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1925.
  Throughout his early life Lateef came into contact with many Detroit-based jazz musicians who went on to gain prominence, including vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Elvin Jones, and guitarist Kenny Burrell. Lateef was a proficient saxophonist by the time of his graduation from high school at the age of 18, when he launched his professional career and began touring with a number of swing bands.
  
  wn.com/Yusef_Lateef

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