Tessa Niles

Tessa Niles (born Tessa Margaret Webb, Ilford, Essex in 1961) is an English singer, best known as a backing singer for a wide variety of contemporary artists. She began her professional singing career in 1979.

Early life and career

Niles began her professional singing career, as both a lead and a backing vocalist, in 1979. Throughout her career, Niles has worked with many artists including ABC, Eric Clapton, Kiri Te Kanawa, The Rolling Stones, Annie Lennox, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran, Kylie Minogue, David Bowie, The Police, Take That, Grace Jones, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Morrissey–Mullen, Snowy White, Tom Jones, Marillion, Fish, Pet Shop Boys, Buddy Guy, B*Witched, Victoria Beckham, Nick Carter, Cliff Richard, Mike + The Mechanics, Zucchero, Status Quo, Robbie Williams, Gary Numan, Wham!, Dusty Springfield, The The, Jimmy Nail, Cher, Cabaret Voltaire and John Denver.

In the mid-1980s, Niles was featured the lead vocalist (along with Clive Griffin) for the jazz ensemble Bandzilla, which was led by her then-husband Richard Niles. The band toured and were featured as the resident house band on the Channel 4 television show Don't Miss Wax in 1987. In 1991, the band released their debut album, Blue Movies, again featuring Niles as lead vocalist.

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945), is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.

In the mid-1960s, Clapton left the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop". Furthermore, he formed blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech. For most of the 1970s, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of JJ Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded with Derek and the Dominos; and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded with Cream. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which featured in his Unplugged album.

Duran Duran

Duran Duran are an English new wave/synthpop band formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were a successful band of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the US. Since the 1980s, they have placed 14 singles in the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart and 21 in the Billboard Hot 100, and have sold over 70 million records.

While they were generally considered part of the New Romantic scene, along with bands such as Spandau Ballet, when they first emerged, the band later shed this image. The band worked with fashion designers to build a sharp and elegant image. The band has won a number of awards throughout their career: two Brit Awards including the 2004 award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, two Grammy Awards, and an MTV Video Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. They were also awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The band's controversial videos, which included partial nudity and suggestions of sexuality, became popular in the early 1980s on the then-new music video channel, MTV. Duran Duran were among the first bands to have their videos shot by professional directors with 35 mm film movie cameras, which gave their videos a much more polished look than was standard at the time. In 1984, the band were early innovators with video technology in their live stadium shows.

David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known as David Bowie (/ˈboʊ.i/), was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, painter, and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, and was considered by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft significantly impacted popular music. During his lifetime, he sold an estimated 140 million records worldwide. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.