Roger "Mad Dog" Caron (April 12, 1938 – April 11, 2012) was a Canadian robber and the author of the influential 1978 prison memoir Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars. At the time of publishing, Caron was thirty-nine years old and had spent twenty-three years in prison.

Roger Caron was born to extremely poor parents Donat and Yvonne in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada in 1938. During his first weeks of infancy Caron could not keep food down and was constantly gasping for breath, which subsequently led him to being rushed to the local hospital on a few occasions. Though no definitive diagnosis was given for his breathlessness, Caron grew up "very edgy about anything affecting [his] breathing." He could not swim or hold his head under a shower for too long because of it. Caron was a quiet and secretive child who liked to keep to himself and pass the time by taking apart clocks.

His sister Suzanne was born in 1939 and younger brother Gaston followed in 1944. His father Donat, being twenty years older than Yvonne, had children from a previous marriage, Caron's half-brothers and -sisters, who by this time were off fighting in World War II. The family lived in an old run-down converted barn that would vibrate when a nearby train passed, rattling dishes and moving beds while the family slept. Caron's mother, Yvonne, was compulsively clean and kept the antique furniture in the house shining.

Mike Stern (born Mike Sedgwick on January 10, 1953) is an American jazz guitarist. After playing for a few years with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he landed a gig with drummer Billy Cobham and then broke through with trumpeter Miles Davis' comeback band from 1981 to 1983, and again in 1985. Following that he launched a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums. He was hailed as the Best Jazz Guitarist of 1993 by Guitar Player magazine, and in 2009 was listed on Down Beat's list of 75 best jazz guitar players.

Stern was born Mike Sedgwick in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Helen Burroughs and Henry Dwight Sedgwick V. He is the half-brother of actress Kyra Sedgwick; his full sister, Holly, is the mother of actor Philip Nozuka and singers George Nozuka, Justin Nozuka, and Henry Nozuka. Stern is married to guitarist and vocalist Leni Stern.

At the Berklee College of Music in Boston his focus shifted to jazz. Stern landed a gig with Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1976 and remained with the band for two years, appearing on the BS&T albums More Than Ever and Brand New Day.

Bob Franceschini (born 1961) is an American jazz saxophonist, songwriter, and arranger. He has appeared on more than eighty albums of other recording artists, including those of Mike Stern, Paul Simon, and Willie Colón.

In addition to composing and arranging Jazz and Latin Jazz, Franceschini has performed as a touring and recording sideman with Mike Stern, Paul Simon, Celine Dion, Tito Puente, BeBe Winans, Ricky Martin, Lionel Richie, Eddie Palmieri, and many others.

In 2001 Franceschini performed on Mike Stern's Grammy Nominated album Voices.

With Willie Colón

With Paul Simon

With Celine Dion

With Mike Stern

Pablo Neruda (July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973) was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda.

Neruda became known as a poet while still a teenager. He wrote in a variety of styles including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and erotically-charged love poems such as the ones in his 1924 collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was his personal colour of hope.

On July 15, 1945, at Pacaembu Stadium in São Paulo, Brazil, he read to 100,000 people in honor of Communist revolutionary leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic positions and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile in 1948, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende. When Neruda returned to Chile after his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Allende invited him to read at the Estadio Nacional before 70,000 people.