Champaign (English /ˌʃæmˈpeɪn/) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, in the United States. The city is located 135 miles (217 km) south of Chicago, 124 miles (200 km) west of Indianapolis, Indiana, and 178 miles (286 km) northeast of St. Louis, Missouri. Though surrounded by farm communities, Champaign is notable for sharing the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with its sister city of Urbana. Thanks to the university and a number of well known technology startup companies, it is often referred to as the hub, or at least a significant landmark, of the Silicon Prairie. Champaign is also the home of Parkland College. Champaign houses offices for seven Fortune 500 companies, and two more are planned to arrive soon.

As reported in the 2010 U.S. Census, the city was home to 81,055 people. Champaign is the 11th-most populous city in Illinois, and the fourth-most populous city in the state outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.

Champaign was founded in 1855, when the Illinois Central Railroad laid its rail track two miles (3 km) west of downtown Urbana. Originally called "West Urbana", it was renamed Champaign when it acquired a city charter in 1860. Both the city and county name were derived from Champaign County, Ohio.

Illinois (ⁱ/ˌɪlɨˈnɔɪ/ IL-i-NOY) is the 25th most extensive and the 5th most populous of the 50 United States, and is often noted as a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a broad economic base. Illinois is a major transportation hub. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois River. For decades, O'Hare International Airport has ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics.

Although the state's largest population centers today are in northern Illinois, originally the state's population grew from south to north, with settlers arriving from Kentucky in the 1810s. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan. Railroads and John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois' rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmlands, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration established a large community of African Americans in Chicago that created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.

Stewart Ransom Miller II , better-known as Rhett Miller (born September 6, 1970) is the lead singer of the alternative country band Old 97's and a successful solo musician. He graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas, a private boys' school in Dallas in 1989 and briefly attended Sarah Lawrence College on a creative writing scholarship before dropping out to pursue a music career. His first musical endeavor was in 1990 with Murry Hammond and drummer Benjamin Warrenfells, who formed the Sleepy Heroes, an alterna-pop band. The Sleepy Heroes released one album, Under a Radio Sun, before their breakup.

Rhett Miller has recorded four solo albums. The 1989 album Mythologies was produced and recorded by future Old 97's member Murry Hammond. The 2002 album The Instigator, produced and recorded with Jon Brion, received critical acclaim and substantial airplay on alternative-oriented radio stations. In 2006, Miller released The Believer, his first effort for the Verve Forecast label. It includes a cover of Brion's "I Believe She's Lying", and "Fireflies", a duet with Rachael Yamagata. His most recent album, Rhett Miller, was released in June 2009 (Shout! Factory), and includes Jon Brion on guitar and bass, The Apples In Stereo’s John Dufilho on drums and Billy Harvey on guitar. Upon the album's release, Rolling Stone called it Miller's "strongest solo set ever." "I Need To Know Where I Stand" is the first single from the album, and was available for listen on Miller's MySpace page several weeks before the release of the album.

Bob Dylan ( /ˈdɪlən/), born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest. A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" has been described as radically altering the parameters of popular music in 1965. However, his recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Dylan's lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed hugely to the then burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the songs of Woody Guthrie,Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, as well as the music and performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning fifty years, has explored numerous distinct traditions in American song—from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and swing.