Live Aid was held on 13 July 1985, simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, United States. It was one of the largest scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: watched live by an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations. "It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for Live Aid...!"
07-13-1985
16h 0m
THIS
HELLA
Doesn't have an image right now... sorry!has no image... sorry!
Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Directors:
Kenneth Shapiro, Vincent Scarza
Production:
BBC, MTV
Revenue:
$150,000,000
Key Crew
Scenario Writer:
Bob Geldof
Producer:
Hal Uplinger
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and painter. He has been a major figure in music for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler, and an apparently reluctant figurehead, of social unrest. Though he is well-known for revolutionizing perceptions of the limits of popular music in 1965 with the six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone," a number of his earlier 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.
His early lyrics incorporated a variety of political, social and philosophical, as well as 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, Hank Williams, and the performance styles of Buddy Holly and Little Richard, Dylan has both amplified and personalized musical genres, exploring 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.
Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his greatest contribution is generally considered to be his songwriting.
Since 1994, Dylan has published three books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. As a songwriter and musician, Dylan has received numerous awards over the years including Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards; he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a road called the Bob Dylan Pathway was opened in the singer's honor in his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Dylan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
David Robert Jones, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing 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. Born and raised in South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterized as “plastic soul,” initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. Heroes (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise. After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes,” its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure,” a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, actor, and producer, best known as the lead vocalist of rock band, The Rolling Stones. Jagger has also acted in and produced several films. The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960s as a rhythm and blues cover band with Jagger as frontman. Beginning in 1964, Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards developed a songwriting partnership, and by the mid-1960s the group had evolved into a major rock band. Frequent conflict with the authorities (including alleged drug use and his romantic involvements) ensured that during this time Jagger was never far from the headlines, and he was often portrayed as a counterculture figure.
In the late 1960s Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In the 1970s, Jagger, with the rest of the Stones, became tax exiles, consolidated their global position and gained more control over their business affairs with the formation of the Rolling Stones Records label. During this time, Jagger was also known for his high-profile marriages to Bianca Jagger and later to Jerry Hall. In the 1980s Jagger released his first solo album, She's the Boss. He was knighted in 2003. Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years.
His performance style has been said to have "opened up definitions of gendered masculinity and so laid the foundations for self-invention and sexual plasticity which are now an integral part of contemporary youth culture". In 2006, he was ranked by Hit Parader as the fifteenth greatest heavy metal singer of all time, despite not being associated with the genre. Allmusic has described Jagger as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". His distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of The Rolling Stones throughout their career.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Mick Jagger, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of popular music, according to Guinness World Records.
McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music. After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100 million singles in the UK.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "Yesterday" as the most covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the BBC. Wings' 1977 single "Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single. Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history. As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 32 number one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has sold 15.5 million RIAA certified albums in the US alone.
McCartney has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and has taken part in projects to help international charities. He is an advocate for animal rights, for vegetarianism, and for music education; he is active in campaigns against landmines, seal hunting, and Third World debt. He is a keen football fan, supporting both Everton and Liverpool football clubs. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 3,000 songs, including all of the songs written by Buddy Holly, along with the publishing rights to such musicals as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. McCartney is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010.
Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone) is a recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Critics have praised Madonna for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.
Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979, despite mixed commentary. She won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other film roles. Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer. She has been acclaimed as a businesswoman, and in 2007, she signed an unprecedented US $120 million contract with Live Nation.
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the Billboard chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.
On May 4, 2024, with a free concert which was live streamed at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in front of 1.6 million people, Madonna broke the record for the most attended stand-alone concert by any artist, and the all-time highest attended concert by a female artist.
Elton John is an English singer, pianist and composer.
He has made appearances in numerous films such as "Born to Boogie" (1972) with Marc Bolan and Ringo Starr; "Tommy" (1975) as the Pinball Wizard; "Spice World" (1997); "The Country Bears" (2002). And in the autobiographies "Elton John: Tantrums & Tiaras" (1997) and "Elton John: Me, Myself & I" (2007).
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. Clapton 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 fourth 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.
In the mid sixties, Clapton left the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. In his one-year stay with Mayall, Clapton gained the nickname "Slowhand", and graffiti in London declared "Clapton is God." Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, the power trio, Cream, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop." For most of the seventies, Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of J.J. Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped gain reggae a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded by Derek and the Dominos, and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded by Cream. A recipient of seventeen Grammy Awards, in 2004 Clapton was awarded a CBE for services to music. In 1998 Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Eric Clapton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Neil Percival Young OC OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer, musician and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others. Since the beginning of his solo career with his backing band Crazy Horse, Young has released many critically acclaimed and important albums, such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps. He was a part-time member of Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Young has received several Grammy and Juno Awards. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him twice: in 1995 as a solo artist and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. In 2000, Rolling Stone named Young No. 34 on their list of the 100 greatest musical artists. According to Acclaimed Music, he is the seventh most celebrated artist in popular music history. His guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature high tenor singing voice define his long career. He also plays piano and harmonica on many albums, which frequently combine folk, rock, country and other musical genres. His often distorted electric guitar playing, especially with Crazy Horse, earned him the nickname "Godfather of Grunge" and led to his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam. More recently he has been backed by Promise of the Real. 21 of his albums and singles have been certified Gold and Platinum in U.S by RIAA certification.
Young directed (or co-directed) films using the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey", including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), Greendale (2003), and CSNY/Déjà Vu (2008). He also contributed to the soundtracks of the films Philadelphia (1993) and Dead Man (1995).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Neil Young, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sting (aka Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, activist, actor and philanthropist. Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist of the rock band The Police.
Sting has varied his musical style throughout his career, incorporating distinct elements of jazz, reggae, classical, new age, and worldbeat into his music. As a solo musician and member of The Police, Sting has received sixteen Grammy Awards for his work, receiving his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, and an Oscar nomination for the best song. He is a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Tina Turner (November 26, 1939 - May 24, 2023) was an American singer and actress whose career spanned more than 50 years. Known for her energetic stage presence, powerful vocals, career longevity, and widespread appeal, Turner has been called the most successful female rock artist, “The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and was named "one of the greatest singers of all time" by Rolling Stone. Her combined album and single sales total approximately 180 million copies worldwide, and over the course of her career she sold more concert tickets than any other solo music performer in history. Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. Success followed with a string of hits including "River Deep, Mountain High" and the 1971 hit "Proud Mary". With the publication of her autobiography I, Tina (1986), Turner revealed severe instances of spousal abuse against her by Ike Turner prior to their 1976 split and subsequent 1978 divorce. After virtually disappearing from the music scene for several years following her divorce from Ike Turner, she rebuilt her career, launching a string of hits beginning in 1983 with the single "Let's Stay Together" and the 1984 release of her fifth solo album Private Dancer. In addition to her musical career, she occasionally ventured into film, beginning with a prominent role as The Acid Queen in the 1975 film Tommy, and an appearance in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. She starred opposite Mel Gibson as Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome for which she received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture, and her version of the film's theme, "We Don't Need Another Hero", was a hit single.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; September 5, 1946 – November 24, 1991) was a British singer, songwriter, and record producer who achieved fame in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. He was known for his four-octave vocal range, flamboyant stage persona, and charismatic stage performances that often saw him interact with the audience.
Bryan Ferry CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to The Independent, Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their appearances. Peter York described Ferry as "an art object" who "should hang in the Tate".
Born to a working-class family, Ferry studied fine art and taught at a secondary school before pursuing a career in music. In 1970 he began to assemble the rock band Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances in London, and took the role of lead singer and main songwriter. The band achieved immediate international success with the release of their eponymous debut album in 1972, containing a rich multitude of sounds, which reflected Ferry's interest in exploring different genres of music. Their second album, For Your Pleasure (1973), further cultivated the band's unique sound and visual image that would establish Ferry as a leading cultural icon over the next decade.
Ferry began a parallel solo career in 1973 by releasing These Foolish Things, which popularized the concept of a contemporary musician releasing an album covering standard songs and was a drastic departure from his ongoing work with Roxy Music. His second album, Another Time, Another Place (1974), featured as its cover image Ferry posing by a pool in a white dinner jacket and represented one of his most impactful fashion statements. Over the next two years, Roxy Music released a trilogy of albums, Stranded (1973), Country Life (1974) and Siren (1975), which broadened the band's appeal internationally and saw Ferry take greater interest in the role of a live performer, reinventing himself in stage costumes ranging from gaucho to military uniforms. Ferry disbanded Roxy Music following the release of their best-selling album Avalon in 1982 to concentrate on his solo career, releasing further singles such as "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance" and the UK no. 1 album Boys and Girls in 1985.
As well as being a prolific songwriter, Ferry has recorded many cover versions, including standards from the Great American Songbook, in albums such as These Foolish Things (1973), Another Time, Another Place (1974), Let's Stick Together (1976), Taxi (1993) and As Time Goes By (1999), as well as Dylanesque (2007), an album of Bob Dylan covers. Including his work with Roxy Music, Ferry has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. In 2019, Ferry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.
Ferry was born in Washington, County Durham, son of Mary Ann and Frederick Charles Ferry. His parents were working-class: his father was a farm labourer who also looked after pit ponies. He attended Washington Grammar-Technical School (now called Washington Academy) on Spout Lane from 1957. ...
Source: Article "Bryan Ferry" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Bryan Guy Adams is a Canadian singer, guitarist, songwriter, photographer, and activist. One of the world's best-selling artists of all time, Adams has sold 100 million records and singles worldwide. Adams rose to fame in North America with his 1983 album Cuts Like a Knife and turned into a global star with his 1984 album Reckless which produced some of his best known songs including "Run to You" and "Summer of '69". In 1991, he released "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", one of the best-selling singles of all time. Adams also spawned the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "Heaven", "All for Love" and "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?".
Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9, 1941) is an American folk singer, songwriter and activist.
Baez has a distinctive vocal style, with a strong vibrato. Her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues.
Baez began her career performing in coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge, and rose to fame as an unbilled performer at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. She began her recording career in 1960, and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2, and Joan Baez in Concert all achieved gold record status, and stayed on the charts for two years.
Baez had a popular hit song with "Diamonds & Rust" and hit covers of Phil Ochs's "There but for Fortune" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". Other songs associated with Baez include "Farewell, Angelina", "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word", "Joe Hill", "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "We Shall Overcome". She performed three of the songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, helped to bring the songs of Bob Dylan to national prominence, and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment.
Baez performed publicly for over 52 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish as well as in English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the 1960s, encompassing everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music. Although a songwriter herself, Baez is generally regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, having recorded songs by The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, and many others. In recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of modern songwriters such as Ryan Adams, Steve Earle and Natalie Merchant.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Joan Baez, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the rock band the Rolling Stones ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as the "4th greatest guitarist of all time." Fourteen songs Richards wrote with songwriting partner and the Rolling Stones' vocalist Mick Jagger were listed on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Keith Richards, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ronald David "Ronnie" Wood (born 1 June 1947) is an English rock guitarist and bassist best known as a former member of The Jeff Beck Group, Faces, and current member of The Rolling Stones. He is known for his characteristic slide guitar style, and also plays lap and pedal steel guitar. Wood began his career in 1964, when he joined The Birds on guitar. He then joined the mod group The Creation, but only remained with the group for a short time, and appeared on a small number of singles. Wood joined The Jeff Beck Group in 1968. They released two albums, Truth and Beck-Ola, which became moderate successes. The group split in 1970, and Wood departed along with lead vocalist Rod Stewart to join former Small Faces members Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones in a new group, dubbed the Faces. The group, although relegated to "cult" status in the US, found great success in the UK and mainland Europe. The Faces released their debut album, First Step, in 1970. The group went on to release Long Player and A Nod Is as Good as a Wink... to a Blind Horse in 1971. Their last LP, entitled Ooh La La, was released in 1973. After the group split, Wood began several solo projects, eventually recording his first solo LP, I've Got My Own Album to Do, in 1974. The album featured former bandmate McLagan as well as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, a longtime friend of Wood's. Richards soon invited Wood to join The Rolling Stones, after the departure of Mick Taylor. Wood joined in 1975, and has remained a member ever since. Besides I've Got My Own Album to Do, Wood has recorded several other solo efforts. Now Look was released in 1975, and peaked at number 118 on Billboard, and Wood collaborated with Ronnie Lane for the soundtrack album Mahoney's Last Stand. He released Gimme Some Neck in 1979, which hit number 45 in the US. 1234 was released in 1981, peaking at number 164. He released Slide on This in 1992, and Not for Beginners came out in 2002.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ron Wood, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the most significant cultural icons of the MTV generation and is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with sales of over 120 million records worldwide. Michael was known as a leading creative force in music production, songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation. He achieved seven number-one songs on the UK Singles Chart and eight number-one songs on the US Billboard Hot 100. Michael won numerous music awards, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards, three American Music Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and four MTV Video Music Awards. In 2015, he was ranked 45th in Billboard's list of the "Greatest Hot 100 Artists of All Time". The Radio Academy named him the most played artist on British radio during the period 1984–2004.
Description above from the Wikipedia article George Michael, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
While other major artists trudge painfully through a handful of over promoted releases each decade; this drummer/actor/singer/producer has been constantly active in all manner of contradictory and unlikely projects. His history with Genesis is well documented from their art-house beginnings to multi-platinum status as the band grew up, lost Steve Hackett and then Peter Gabriel and ended up making videos with tongues firmly in their cheeks. Collins launched his solo career twenty nine years ago with “Face Value” (‘81), followed by “Hello, I Must Be Going” (’82), “No Jacket Required” (’85), “…But Seriously” (’89), “Both Sides” (’93), “Dance Into The Light” (’96) and “Testify” (‘02) picking up numerous awards including 7 Grammy’s, 2 Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe for “Two Hearts”. After leaving Genesis in 1996 he released a “Hits” album in 1998. Between Phil’s solo and Genesis recordings and excluding his other activities, Phil has sold over 200 million records.
His acting CV reveals that he first trod the boards at 14 when he took the role of the Artful Dodger in a West End production of “Oliver”. He also made childhood cameos in the Beatles “A Hard Days Night” (‘64) and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (’69). Since then he’s starred with Julie Walters in “Buster” (’88), took the lead role as the arch-villain in “Frauds” (’92), made a brief appearance in Spielberg’s “Hook” (’92) and played the Greek owner of a chain of gay bath houses in “And The Band Played On” (’92). In addition to this Phil “The Spiv” turned up in a 1985 episode of Miami Vice and four years later he took the part of Uncle Ernie in The Who’s rock opera “Tommy”.
He has written songs for the Disney Feature’s “Tarzan” and “Brother Bear”. “You’ll Be In My Heart” from “Tarzan” won a Golden Globe Award for “Best Song Written For A Film”. This song, in addition to the soundtrack was also nominated in the Grammys and won for “Best Original Song In A Movie”. Phil also won an Oscar for the same song in March 2000.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English singer-songwriter and occasional actor, whose career has spanned over 40 years. As of December 2010, Osbourne has sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
Osbourne rose to prominence as lead vocalist of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, a band whose radically different, intentionally dark, doom sound spawned the heavy metal genre. In his subsequent solo career Osbourne achieved a multi-platinum status in addition to the one he had earned with Black Sabbath. These things are what led Osbourne to become known as the "Godfather of Heavy Metal". It was during his Sabbath days that, due to their dark style of music, Osbourne became known as the "Prince of Darkness". Osbourne has over 15 tattoos, the most famous of which are the letters O-Z-Z-Y across the knuckles of his left hand. This was his first tattoo, created by himself as a teenager with a sewing needle and pencil lead.
In the early 2000s, Osbourne's career expanded to a new medium when he became a star in his own reality show, The Osbournes, alongside wife/manager Sharon and two of their three children, Kelly and Jack.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ozzy Osbourne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Sade is a British singer-songwriter, composer and record producer. She is the lead singer of the group of the same name. The total sales units to date is over 50 million
Referencing prodigies of rock lyricism may not bring Elvis Costello to mind for some, but he does deserve consideration. Through the course of over four decades, the former computer programmer has maintained a career as a singer-songwriter, giving the likes of Bob Dylan himself a reckoning. He was born Declan MacManus in London, England, on August 25, 1954. He took the moniker Elvis Costello in 1977, adopting his first name from Elvis Presley and the last part from the maiden name of his mother. Also in '77, Costello's debut album My Aim Is True was released, drawing connections to the new wave and punk movement while showing musical variance. That year, Costello's band The Attractions was assembled. The group released a number of albums, including This Year's Model, Armed Forces, and Trust. 1986's Blood and Chocolate produced memorable, literate gems, such as "Tokyo Storm Warning" and "I Want You."
After the Attractions' final show in 1996, caused by conflict between Costello and the band's bassist Bruce Thomas, two of the group's other members would become part of his new backing band, The Imposters. Costello has released over 30 albums.
Riley B. King, known as B.B. King, was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter acclaimed for his expressive singing and fluid, complex guitar playing. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at #3 on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Albert Gene Drewery, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Man, was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title "The Master of the Telecaster".
Patricia Louise Holte (born May 24, 1944), known professionally as Patti LaBelle, is an American R&B singer and actress. She has been referred to as the "Godmother of Soul". In a career which has spanned seven decades, LaBelle has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. She has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Apollo Theater Hall of Fame. She was included in Rolling Stone on their list of 100 Greatest Singers.
She began her career in the early 1960s as lead singer and frontwoman of the vocal group Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. After the group's name change to Labelle in the 1970s, they released the popular number-one hit "Lady Marmalade". As a result, after the group split in 1976, she began a successful solo career, starting with her critically acclaimed debut album, which included the career-defining song, "You Are My Friend". She became a mainstream solo star in 1984 following the success of the singles "If Only You Knew", "Love, Need and Want You" (later sampled for 2002's "Dilemma"), "New Attitude" and "Stir It Up". Less than two years later in 1986, she scored a number-one album Winner in You and its number-one duet single, "On My Own", with Michael McDonald.
She won a 1992 Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for her 1991 album Burnin', an album that featured "Somebody Loves You Baby (You Know Who It Is)", "Feels Like Another One", and "When You've Been Blessed (Feels Like Heaven)". She won a second Grammy for the live album Live! One Night Only.
She has also had success as an actress with a role in the Oscar-nominated film A Soldier's Story, and in TV shows such as A Different World and American Horror Story: Freak Show. In 1992, she starred in her own TV sitcom Out All Night.
In 2002, LaBelle hosted her own lifestyle TV show, Living It Up with Patti LaBelle on TV One. In 2015, LaBelle took part in the dance competition Dancing with the Stars at the age of 70.
She has also seen success launching her own brand of bedding, cookbooks, and food for various companies. In 2015 her Patti's Sweet Potato Pie sold millions when a YouTube video praising the product went viral. As a result, over a 72-hour period, Walmart sold one pie every second.
Around 1964, LaBelle was engaged to Otis Williams, founding member of The Temptations. The engagement lasted a year before Patti broke it off after fearing Williams would force her to move to Detroit and retire from the road.
On July 23, 1969, she married a longtime friend, Armstead Edwards, who was a schoolteacher. After she started her solo career, Edwards became her manager, a position he would remain in until 2000. That year, she and Edwards legally separated, with their divorce finalized in 2003. They have a son, Zuri Kye Edwards (born July 17, 1973), who is now her manager.
She said that because of her sisters and parents dying "before their time", she wrote in her autobiography that she feared she would not make it to 50.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Nicholas David Kershaw (born 1 March 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. Kershaw came to prominence in 1984 as a solo artist. He released eight singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK during the decade. His 62 weeks on the UK Singles Chart through 1984 and 1985 beat all other solo artists. Kershaw appeared at the dual-venue concert Live Aid in 1985 and has also penned a number of hits for other artists.
Description above is from the Wikipedia article Nik Kershaw, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir Cliff Richard OBE (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an English singer who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and is the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
Richard was originally marketed as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Presley and Little Richard. With his backing group, the Shadows, he dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s to early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song. In the early 1960s, he had a prosperous screen career with films including The Young Ones, Summer Holiday and Wonderful Life and his own television show at the BBC. Increased focus on his Christian faith and subsequent softening of his music led to a more middle-of-the-road image, and he sometimes ventured into contemporary Christian music.
In a career spanning nearly 65 years, Richard has amassed several gold and platinum discs and awards, including two Ivor Novello Awards and three Brit Awards. More than 130 of his singles, albums, and EPs have reached the UK Top 20, more than any other artist. Richard has had 67 UK top ten singles, the second highest total for an artist (behind Presley). He holds the record, with Presley, as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950s–2000s). He has achieved 14 UK No. 1 singles, and is the only singer to have had a No. 1 single in the UK in each of five consecutive decades. He also had four UK Christmas No. 1 singles, two of which were as a solo artist; "Mistletoe and Wine" and "Saviour's Day".
Richard has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has never achieved the same popularity in the United States despite eight US Top 40 singles, including the million-selling "Devil Woman" and "We Don't Talk Anymore". In Canada, he had a successful period in the early 1960s, the late 1970s and early 1980s, with some releases certified gold and platinum. He has remained a popular music, film, and television personality at home in the UK as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Northern Europe and Asia, and retains a following in other countries. When not touring, he divides his time between Barbados and Portugal. In 2019, he relocated to New York.
Cliff Richard was born Harry Rodger Webb on 14 October 1940 at King George's Hospital (now KGMU Hospital), Victoria Street, in Lucknow, which was then part of British India. His parents were Rodger Oscar Webb, a manager for a catering contractor that serviced the Indian Railways, and the former Dorothy Marie Dazely. His parents also spent some years in Howrah, West Bengal. After the violence of Direct Action Day, they decided to relocate to England permanently. Richard is primarily of English heritage, but he had one great-grandmother who was of half Welsh and half Spanish descent, born of a Spanish great-great-grandmother named Emiline Joseph Rebeiro. ...
Source: Article "Cliff Richard" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. (born September 19, 1952) is an American musician, record producer and composer. The co-founder of Chic, Rodgers has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a three-time Grammy Award-winner, and the chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Known for his "chucking" guitar style, Rolling Stone wrote in 2014 that "the full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom".
Formed as the Big Apple Band in 1972 with bassist Bernard Edwards, Chic released their self-titled debut album in 1977, including the hit singles "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance". The 1978 album C'est Chic produced the hits "I Want Your Love" and "Le Freak", with the latter selling more than seven million singles worldwide. The song "Good Times" from the 1979 album Risqué was a number one single on the pop and soul charts, and became one of the most-sampled songs of all time, "ushering in" hip-hop via the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", inspiring Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", and anchoring the Daft Punk hit "Around the World".
Description above from the Wikipedia article Nile Rodgers, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Pauline Matthews (born 6 March 1947), better known by her stage name Kiki Dee, is an English pop singer. Known for her blue-eyed soul vocals, she was the first female singer from the UK to sign with Motown's Tamla Records.
Dee is best known for her 1973 hit "Amoureuse", her 1974 hit "I've Got the Music in Me" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", her 1976 duet with Elton John, which went to number 1 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her 1981 single "Star" became the theme song for the talent show Opportunity Knocks when it was revived by the BBC in 1987. In 1993, she performed another duet with John for his Duets album, a cover version of Cole Porter's "True Love", which reached number 2 in the UK. During her career, she has released 40 singles, three EPs and 12 albums.
Dee was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. At the age of 10 she won a local talent contest, and at 16 she had her first paid job in show business. "I realised when I sang at family parties and Christmases I'd suddenly get everyone's attention and, being the youngest of three, I thought what a brilliant attention-seeking ploy it was," stated Dee in a 2013 interview. She went on to say: "My older brother had a lot of Elvis on vinyl and really that was my first introduction to music during the Fifties."
Aged 16, Dee worked at Boots in Bradford during the day, whilst in the evenings she sang songs with a dance band in Leeds. A record scout liked her singing and invited her to London to do an audition. There, in 1963, she signed as a solo artist to Fontana Records.
After singing with a local band in Bradford in the early 1960s, Dee began her recording career as a session singer. She sang backing vocals for Dusty Springfield, among others, but did not achieve solo success in the UK for many years. In 1963, Dee released her first single, "Early Night", the first of eleven singles on Fontana, none of which reached the charts. Her 1966 release "Why Don't I Run Away From You" (a cover of Tami Lynn's "I'm Gonna Run Away From You") was a big hit on Radio London and Radio Caroline, and she sang the B-side "Small Town" in her appearance in Dateline Diamonds the same year. Also in 1966, she achieved wider coverage by singing "Take a Look at Me" in the hit comedy, Doctor in Clover. She brought out an EP, Kiki In Clover – which included "Take a Look at Me" – at the same time as the film's release.
She recorded her debut album, I'm Kiki Dee, in 1968 which included a series of Phil Spector-style tracks and covers. Her 1968 release "On a Magic Carpet Ride", which was originally a B-side, has remained popular on the Northern soul circuit. Much of her early recorded work for Fontana Records, was released on 24 January 2011, on the CD compilation I'm Kiki Dee.
Songwriter Mitch Murray created her stage name, and penned her first single, "Early Night". In the United States she became the first white British artist to be signed by Motown, releasing her first Motown single in 1970. ...
Source: Article "Kiki Dee" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
John Howard Jones (born 23 February 1955) is a British singer, musician and songwriter. He had ten top 40 hit singles in the UK between 1983 and 1986, including six which reached the top ten, and his 1984 album Human's Lib went to number one. Around the world, he had 15 top 40 hit singles between 1983 and 1992. He has been described by AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine as "one of the defining figures of mid-'80s synth pop." He also performed at Live Aid in 1985.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Jon Gilmour is an English musician and multi-instrumentalist, who was the guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. It is estimated that as of 2010, the group have sold over 250 million records worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States.
In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of artists, and has enjoyed a successful career as a solo artist. Gilmour has been actively involved with many charities over the course of his career.
In 2005, he was appointed CBE for his services to music. He was awarded with the Outstanding Contribution title at the 2008 Q Awards. In 2011, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 14 in their list of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recording the hit singles "Easy", "Sail On", "Three Times a Lady" and "Still", with the group before his departure. In 1980, he wrote and produced the US Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Lady" for Kenny Rogers.
In 1981, Richie wrote and produced the single "Endless Love", which he recorded as a duet with Diana Ross; it remains among the top 20 bestselling singles of all time, and the biggest career hit for both artists. In 1982, he officially launched his solo career with the album Lionel Richie, which sold over four million copies and spawned the singles "You Are", "My Love", and the number one single "Truly".
Richie's second album, Can't Slow Down (1983), reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and sold over 20 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time; and spawned the number one singles "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello". He then co-wrote the 1985 charity single "We Are the World" with Michael Jackson, which sold over 20 million copies. His third album, Dancing on the Ceiling (1986), spawned the number one single "Say You, Say Me" (from the 1985 film White Nights) and the No. 2 hit title track. From 1986 to 1996, Richie took a break from recording; he has since then released seven studio albums. He has joined the singing competition American Idol to serve as a judge, starting from its sixteenth season (2018 to present).
During his solo career, Richie became one of the most successful balladeers of the 1980s, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. He has won four Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year for "We Are the World", and Album of the Year for Can't Slow Down. "Endless Love" was nominated for an Academy Award; while "Say You, Say Me" won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe award for Best Original Song. In 2016, Richie received the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor, the Johnny Mercer Award. In 2022, he received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress; as well as the American Music Awards Icon Award. He was also inducted into Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
Richie was born on June 20, 1949, in Tuskegee, Alabama, the son of Lionel Brockman Richie (1915–1990), a U.S. Army systems analyst, and Alberta R. Foster (1917–2001), a teacher and school principal. His grandmother Adelaide Mary Brown was a pianist who played classical music. On March 4, 2011, he appeared on NBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, which found out that his maternal great-grandfather was the national leader of an early Black American fraternal organization. Notably, J. Louis Brown was: [P]rincipal organizer and Supreme Grand Archon of the Knights of Wise Men, a fraternal organization for black men in the post-Civil War period. Formed in Nashville in 1879, it was a fraternal insurance and burial benefit society, as were so many others during the period. ...
Source: Article "Lionel Richie" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Cher (born Cheryl Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Dubbed the "Goddess of Pop", she is known for her androgynous contralto voice, multifaceted career, bold visual presentation and continuous reinvention of her image and sound. Her adaptability has fueled multiple comebacks, cementing her status as a cultural icon over a career spanning seven decades. Cher gained fame in 1965 as part of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, while also achieving solo success with top-ten singles including "All I Really Want to Do" and "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". In the 1970s, she divorced from Sonny Bono and topped the US Billboard Hot 100 with "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed" and "Dark Lady", becoming the female solo artist with the most number-one singles in US history at the time.
Following a hiatus to focus on acting, Cher returned to music with the rock-inflected albums Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989) and Love Hurts (1991), earning international number-one singles with "If I Could Turn Back Time" and "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)". She reached a commercial peak with the dance-pop album Believe (1998), which introduced the "Cher effect", an extreme, stylistic use of Auto-Tune to distort vocals. The title track became 1999's number-one song in the US and the UK's best-selling single by a female artist. 21st-century releases include Closer to the Truth (2013) and Dancing Queen (2018), both debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 and becoming her highest-charting solo albums in the US.
Cher rose to television stardom in the 1970s with her CBS shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, attracting over 30 million weekly viewers, and the namesake Cher. She made her Broadway debut in 1982 with Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in its film adaptation. She earned critical acclaim for roles in Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985) and Moonstruck (1987), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for the latter. Cher went on to star in Mermaids (1990), If These Walls Could Talk (1996), where she made her directorial debut, Tea with Mussolini (1999), Burlesque (2010) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). Her life and career inspired the 2018 jukebox musical The Cher Show.
With 100 million records sold, Cher is among the world's best-selling music artists. Her accolades include an Academy Award, an Emmy, a Grammy, three Golden Globes, the Billboard Icon Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, honors from the Kennedy Center and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cher is the only solo artist with a number-one single on a Billboard chart in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s. Her 2002–2005 Living Proof: The Farewell Tour was the highest-grossing concert tour by a female artist at the time, earning US$250 million (about $390 million in 2023). Cher is also known for her fashion, political views, social media presence, philanthropy and activism, including LGBTQ rights and HIV/AIDS prevention.
Kenny Loggins (born January 7, 1948) is an American musician, singer and songwriter. Born in Everett, Washington, USA as Kenneth Clark Loggins. He is known as the King of the Movie Soundtrack because of his many successful movie soundtracks. He won many awards, including an Academy Award nomination for "Footloose" in 1985. He was previously married to Julia Cooper and Eva Ein. He appears as a guest star in many tv series such as Archer, Family Guy, Grace and Frankie, etc.
Francis Dominic Nicholas Michael Rossi, OBE (born 29 May 1949) is an English musician. He is the co-founder, lead singer, lead guitarist and the sole continuous member of the rock band Status Quo.
Rossi was born on 29 May 1949 in Forest Hill, London. His father's side of the family were Italian ice cream merchants and had an ice cream business in South London, and his mother was a Northern Irish Roman Catholic from Liverpool. He grew up in a household with his parents, grandmother, and "lots of aunts and uncles" and was given a Roman Catholic upbringing, having been named after Saint Francis of Assisi. He spent his summer holidays as a child with an aunt in Waterloo, Merseyside. He attended Our Lady and St Philip Neri Roman Catholic Primary School in Sydenham, and then Sedgehill Comprehensive School, from which he was expelled on his last day for having allowed his classmates to deface his school uniform. His desire to become a musician began after seeing The Everly Brothers live on television at a young age, after which he asked his parents to buy him a guitar for Christmas.
In 1962, while attending Sedgehill Comprehensive School, Rossi became close friends with future Status Quo bassist Alan Lancaster while playing trumpet in the school orchestra. The two, along with other classmates Alan Key (drums) and Jess Jaworski (keyboards), formed a band called the Scorpions, who played their first gig at the Samuel Jones Sports Club in Dulwich. Key was later replaced by Air Cadets drummer and future Quo member John Coghlan, and the band was renamed the Spectres. The Spectres wrote their own material and played live shows; the line-up soon included Redhill-based keyboard player Roy Lynes, whom they had seen performing with a band called the Echoes who were also based in Redhill. In 1965, the Spectres played at a Butlins holiday camp in Minehead. There Rossi met his future long-time Status Quo partner Rick Parfitt, who was playing as part of another band, the Highlights. The two became close friends and agreed to continue working together. In 1966, the Spectres signed a five-year deal with Piccadilly Records, releasing three singles that failed to chart. The group again changed their name, this time to Traffic Jam, after embracing psychedelia.
In 1967, Traffic Jam changed its name to The Status Quo, but eventually dropped the definite article. Shortly afterward Parfitt joined the band, completing the original line-up, and beginning an almost 50-year partnership with Rossi until Parfitt's death in 2016. Rossi had written a song called "Pictures of Matchstick Men", which hit the charts in both the UK and the US in 1968, launching their hit-making career. After some years of minor success, the band reached #5 in the album charts in 1972 with Piledriver. Released on Vertigo Records, it included "Paper Plane", a song penned by Rossi and Bob Young, which was released as a single. Status Quo continued to enjoy major success in the UK, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand through the 1970s and 1980s. They were the opening act of 1985's Live Aid, and Rossi wrote and co-wrote some of their biggest hits, including "Caroline" and the band's only number one single, "Down Down". ...
Source: Article "Francis Rossi" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Roger Harry Daltrey, CBE (born 1 March 1944), is an English singer-songwriter and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in a large number of films, theatre and television roles and also producing films.
John Alec Entwistle (9 October 1944 – 27 June 2002) was an English bass guitarist, songwriter, singer, horn player, and film and record producer who was best known as the bass player for the rock band The Who. His aggressive lead sound influenced many rock bass players. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Who in 1990.
Entwistle's lead instrument approach used pentatonic lead lines, and a then-unusual trebly sound ("full treble, full volume") created by roundwound RotoSound steel bass strings. He had a collection of over 200 instruments by the time of his death, reflecting the different brands he used over his career: Fender and Rickenbacker basses in the 1960s, Gibson and Alembic basses in the 1970s, Warwick in the 1980s, and Status all-Carbon fibre basses in the 1990s.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Entwistle, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career. His career with The Who spans more than forty years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 60s and 70s, and, according to Eddie Vedder, "possibly the greatest live band ever."
Townshend is the primary songwriter for The Who, having written well over one hundred songs for the band's eleven studio albums, including concept albums and the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia, plus popular rock and roll radio staples like Who's Next, and dozens more that appeared as non-album singles, bonus tracks on reissues, and tracks on rarities compilations like Odds & Sods. He has also written over one hundred songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles and television theme songs. Although known primarily as a guitarist, he also plays other instruments such as keyboards, banjo, accordion, synthesiser, bass guitar and drums, on his own solo albums, several Who albums, and as a guest contributor to a wide array of other artists' recordings. Townshend has never had formal lessons in any of the instruments he plays.
Townshend has also been a contributor and author of newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, essays, books, and scripts, as well as collaborating as a lyricist (and composer) for many other musical acts. Townshend was ranked #3 in Dave Marsh's list of Best Guitarists in The New Book of Rock Lists, #10 in Gibson.com's list of the top fifty guitarists, and #50 in Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list: 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Townshend was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Who in 1990.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Pete Townshend, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Brian Harold May (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and astrophysicist. He is the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He was the co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor, having previously performed with Taylor in the band Smile, and bass player John Deacon. As a member of Queen, he became regarded as a virtuoso musician and he was identified with a distinctive sound created through his layered guitar work, often using a home-built electric guitar called the Red Special. He has a short cameo in Queen's biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Description above is from the Wikipedia article Brian May, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Richard Deacon (born 19 August 1951) is an English retired musician, best known for being the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen. He joined Queen in 1971 on the strength of his musical and electronic skills. As well as bass, Deacon played some guitar, keyboards and piano on Queen's studio work. After the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991 and the following year's Tribute Concert, he performed only sporadically with the remaining members of Queen before retiring from the music industry in 1997. His son, Luke, appears in Queen's biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
Description above is from the Wikipedia article John Deacon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE is a British songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He was the lead guitarist, singer, and songwriter for the rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded with his younger brother, David Knopfler, in 1977. Described by Classic Rock as a virtuoso, Knopfler is a fingerstyle guitarist and was ranked 27th on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". As of 2009, he and Dire Straits had sold more than 120 million records. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Knopfler is the recipient of the Edison Award, the Steiger Award and the Ivor Novello Award, as well as holding three honorary doctorate degrees in music from universities in the United Kingdom. Knopfler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Dire Straits in 2018.
Alan Clark (born 5 March 1952) is an English musician who was the first keyboardist and co-producer of the rock band Dire Straits. In 2018, Clark was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a significant member of Dire Straits.
Guy Edward Fletcher (born 24 May 1960) is an English multi-instrumentalist, best known for his position as one of the two keyboard players in the rock band Dire Straits from 1984 until the group's dissolution, and his subsequent work with Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler. Fletcher was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Dire Straits in 2018.
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is a retired American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark-themed portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for Academy Awards 12 times. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. He is tied with Walter Brennan for most acting wins by a male actor (three), and second to Katharine Hepburn for most acting wins overall (four).
He is also one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting (either lead or supporting) in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s (the other one being Michael Caine). He has won seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In 1994, he became one of the youngest actors to be awarded the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award. Notable films in which he has starred include, in chronological order, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Reds, Terms of Endearment, Batman, A Few Good Men, As Good as It Gets, About Schmidt, Something's Gotta Give and The Departed.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Jack Nicholson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Paul David Hewson, better known by his stage name Bono, is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician, venture capitalist, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best recognized as the frontman of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his future wife, Alison Stewart, and the future members of U2. Bono writes almost all U2 lyrics, frequently using religious, social, and political themes. During U2's early years, Bono's lyrics contributed to their rebellious and spiritual to; as the band matured, his lyrics became inspired more by personal experiences shared with the other members.
Outside the band, he has collaborated and recorded with numerous artists, is managing director and a managing partner of Elevation Partners, and has refurbished and owns The Clarence Hotel in Dublin with The Edge. He was granted a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and, with Bill and Melinda Gates, was named Time Person of the Year in 2005, among other awards and nominations. On 17 July 2013, the BBC announced that Bono had been made a Commandeur of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters).
Adam Charles Clayton (born 13 March 1960), is an English-born Irish musician who is the bass guitarist of the rock band U2. He has resided in County Dublin, Ireland since his family moved to Malahide in 1965. And he attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School, where he met schoolmates with whom he co-founded U2 in 1976.
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known by his stage name The Edge (or just Edge), is an Irish musician and songwriter best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist of the rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 14 studio albums with the band and one solo record. As a guitarist, the Edge has crafted a minimalistic and textural style of playing. His use of a rhythmic delay effect yields a distinctive sound that has become a signature of U2's music.
Description above from the Wikipedia article The Edge licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Noel Ernest Edmonds is an English television presenter, radio DJ, writer, producer, and businessman. Edmonds first became known as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 in the UK, presenting the breakfast show for almost 5 years. He has presented various radio shows and light-entertainment television programmes for 50 years, originally working for the BBC, later Sky UK and Channel 4.
Griff Rhys Jones is a Welsh actor and writer. He was born in 1953 in Cardiff gut the family later moved to Essex, England. Educated at Brentwood School in Essex, he won an exhibition to Emmanuel College, Cambridge to read History, transferring later to English. He joined the Footlights Club, becoming its vice president in 1976.
Melvin Kenneth "Mel" Smith (December 3, 1952 – July 19, 2013) was an English comedian, writer, film director, producer, and actor. He is most famous for his work on the sketch comedy shows Not the Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones along with his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Mel Smith, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
A Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin (The Big One). His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder (specifically a boilermaker) in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer in the Humblebums and subsequently as a soloist. In the early 1970s he made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to fully-fledged comedian, a role in which he continues. He also became an actor, and has appeared in such films as Indecent Proposal (1993); Mrs. Brown (1997), for which he was nominated for a BAFTA; The Boondock Saints (1999); The Man Who Sued God (2001); Water (1985);The Last Samurai (2003); Timeline (2003); Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004); Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006); and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). Connolly reprised his role as Noah "Il Duce" MacManus in Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. Connolly appears as the King of Lilliput in the 2010 remake of Gulliver′s Travels.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Billy Connolly , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Sir John Vincent Hurt (January 22, 1940 – January 25, 2017) was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. He came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the film A Man for All Seasons (1966) and gained BAFTA Award nominations for his portrayals of Timothy Evans in 10 Rillington Place (1971) and Quentin Crisp in television film The Naked Civil Servant (1975) – winning his first BAFTA for the latter. He played Caligula in the BBC TV series I, Claudius (1976). Hurt's performance in the prison drama Midnight Express (1978) brought him international renown and earned Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards, along with an Academy Award nomination. His BAFTA-nominated portrayal of astronaut Kane, in the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), notably included a scene where an alien creature burst out of his chest, named by several publications as one of the most memorable moments in cinema history.
Hurt earned his third competitive BAFTA, along with his second Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's biopic The Elephant Man (1980). Other significant roles during the 1980s included Bob Champion in biopic Champions (1984), Mr. Braddock in the Stephen Frears drama The Hit (1984), Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) and Stephen Ward in the drama depicting the Profumo affair, Scandal (1989). Hurt was again BAFTA-nominated for his work in Irish drama The Field (1990) and played the primary villain, James Graham, in the epic adventure Rob Roy (1995). His later films include the Harry Potter film series (2001–11), the Hellboy films (2004 and 2008), supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key (2005), western The Proposition (2005), political thriller V for Vendetta (2005), action adventure Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), sci-fi action Outlander (2008) and the Cold War espionage film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011). Hurt reprised his role as Quentin Crisp in An Englishman in New York (2009), which brought his seventh BAFTA nomination. He portrayed the War Doctor in the BBC TV series Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor", in 2013.
Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors; director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in the world". He possessed what was described as the "most distinctive voice in Britain", likened by The Observer to "nicotine sieved through dirty, moonlit gravel". His voice acting career encompassed films such as Watership Down (1978), The Lord of the Rings (1978), The Plague Dogs (1982), The Black Cauldron (1985), Dogville (2003) and Planet Dinosaur (2011) as well as BBC TV series Merlin (2008–2012). In 2012, he was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement BAFTA Award, in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to cinema". He was knighted in 2015 for his services to drama.
Gary Kemp was born in Islington, London in October 1959. On his 10th birthday, he got his first guitar from his parents. In the 70s, he and his younger brother, Martin Kemp, went to learn drama at Anna Scher's acting school. Then, in 1978, Gary Kemp formed "The Makers". After Richard Miller left, his brother replaced him on bass. That's when Gary changed the name to Spandau Ballet. Spandau's break came in March 1980 when they were filmed for a documentary on ITV. When the documentary was broadcast, the record companies were bursting out of their ears. They chose to sign to Chrysalis, as they were offered the most money. For 10 years, they had hits like "To Cut a Long Story Short" (1980), "Chant No. 1 (I don't need this pressure on)" (1981), "True" (1983), "Gold" (1983), "Only When You Leave" (1984) and "Through the Barricades" (1986). After Spandau Ballet completed a tour in 1987, Gary and Martin decided to go into acting once again. They auditioned for the part in The Krays (1990) and, in 1989, they played "Ronald" and "Reggie". Soon afterwards this, Spandau Ballet would split. During the '90s, Gary continued to act, most notably playing a part in The Bodyguard (1992). In 1999, Gary was involved in a court battle over £1,000,000 royalties against John Keeble, Steve Norman and Tony Hadley, his 3 other bandmates. Gary won the case. However, in March 2009, all 5 members of Spandau Ballet called a truce, and they announced on the HMS Belfast in London that they would be reuniting for a world tour later in the year.
Martin John Kemp (born 10 October 1961) is an English actor, musician, and occasional television presenter, best known as the bassist in the New Romantic band Spandau Ballet, as well as Steve Owen from the BBC soap opera EastEnders. He is the brother of Gary Kemp.
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof KBE (born 5 October 1951) is an Irish singer-songwriter and political activist. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, who achieved popularity as part of the punk rock movement. The band had UK number one hits with his co-compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof starred as Pink in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall. As a fundraiser, Geldof organised the charity supergroup Band Aid and the concerts Live Aid and Live 8, and co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles to date.
Geldof is widely recognised for his activism, especially his anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa. In 1984, he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. They went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005. Geldof currently serves as an adviser to the ONE Campaign, co-founded by fellow Irish rock singer and activist Bono, and is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. A single father, Geldof has also been outspoken for the fathers' rights movement.
Geldof was granted an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Elizabeth II in 1986 for his charity work in Africa: it is an honorary award as Geldof is an Irish citizen, but he is often referred to as 'Sir Bob'. He is a recipient of the Man of Peace title which recognises individuals who have made "an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace", among numerous other awards and nominations. In 2005, he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Geldof, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Terence Michael Joseph "Geezer" Butler (born 17 July 1949) is an English musician and songwriter. He is best known as the bassist and primary lyricist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He has also recorded and performed with Heaven & Hell, GZR, and Ozzy Osbourne. Butler was the bassist of Deadland Ritual, which has since disbanded.
Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona, July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010), was an American rock and heavy metal vocalist and songwriter. He performed with Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Heaven & Hell, and his own band Dio, among others. Other musical projects include the collective fundraiser Hear 'n Aid. He was widely hailed as one of the most powerful singers in heavy metal, renowned for his consistently powerful voice. He is credited with popularizing the "metal horns" hand gesture in metal culture.
Before his death, he was collaborating on a project with former Black Sabbath bandmates Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Vinny Appice, under the moniker Heaven & Hell, whose only studio album, The Devil You Know, was released on April 28, 2009. He has sold over 47 million copies of albums with all of the bands he has worked with.
He died of stomach cancer on May 16, 2010 at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank, CA. One of the last songs he recorded was titled "Metal Will Never Die".
Anthony Frank Iommi (/aɪˈoʊmi/) (born 19 February 1948) is a British musician. He co-founded the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and was the band's guitarist, leader and primary composer and sole continuous member for nearly five decades. Iommi was ranked number 25 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
On his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, as a teenager, Iommi lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand in an accident, an event which crucially impacted his playing style. He briefly left Black Sabbath (then known as Earth) in 1968 to join Jethro Tull, but did not record any material with the band, and subsequently returned to Black Sabbath in 1969. In 2000, he released his first solo album Iommi, followed by 2005's Fused, which featured his former bandmate Glenn Hughes. After releasing Fused, he formed Heaven & Hell, which disbanded shortly after the death of Ronnie James Dio in 2010 (they toured on Black Sabbath songs when Dio was in the band but changed the name for legal reasons).
In 2011, Iommi published his autobiography, entitled Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath.
William Thomas Ward (born 5 May 1948) is an English musician and visual artist, best known as the original drummer of the British heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He also performed lead vocals on two Black Sabbath songs: "It's Alright" from the album Technical Ecstasy and "Swinging the Chain" from the album Never Say Die!. Ward is known for his very unorthodox style of playing the drums, often using snare-drills and tempo-drop to match both vocals and riff.
Darryl "D.M.C." Matthews McDaniels (born May 31, 1964) is an American rapper. He is a founding member of the hip hop group Run-DMC, and is considered one of the pioneers of hip hop culture.
Joseph Ward Simmons (born November 14, 1964), known by the stage name Rev. Run or DJ Run, is one of the founding members of the influential hip hop group Run–D.M.C., and a practicing minister, known as Reverend Run. Simmons was born in Hollis, Queens, New York. He is the younger brother of Daniel "Danny" Simmons, Jr. and Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def Jam Records.
He found new popularity in 2005 with his family MTV reality show Run's House.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Joseph Simmons, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Richard Lewis Springthorpe is an Australian singer-songwriter, musician, and actor. As a musician, he is known for the 1981 No.1 single "Jessie's Girl", which became a blockbuster of 1980s pop rock music and helped establish the emerging music video age. As an actor, Springfield is known for playing Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime drama General Hospital. He originated the character from 1981–1983 and then returned to play him again from 2005–2008.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. After signing with Capitol Records in 1962, Wilson wrote or co-wrote more than two dozen Top 40 hits for the group. He originally functioned as the band's songwriter, producer, co-lead vocalist, bassist, keyboardist, and de facto leader.
Wilson is considered a major innovator in the field of music production, the principal originator of the California Sound, one of the first music producer auteurs, and the first rock producer to use the studio as its own instrument. The unusual creative control Capitol gave him over his own records effectively set a precedent that allowed other bands and artists to act as their own producers or co-producers. He was a major influence on the retrospectively-termed "sunshine pop" and Flower Power music that proceeded.
Bo Diddley, born Elias Otha Bates, was an original and influential American rock & roll singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was known as "The Originator" because of the key role in the transition from blues music to rock & roll, influencing a host of legendary acts including Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones to name a few.
He introduced more insistent, driving rhythms and hard-edged guitar sound on a wide-ranging catalog of songs.
Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was the leader and frontman of the rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. He was also a successful solo artist.
Over the course of his career, Petty sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. His hit singles with the Heartbreakers include "American Girl" (1976), "Don't Do Me Like That" (1979), "Refugee" (1980), "The Waiting" (1981), "Don't Come Around Here No More" (1985) and "Learning to Fly" (1991). Petty's solo hits include "I Won't Back Down" (1989), "Free Fallin'" (1989), and "You Don't Know How It Feels" (1994).
Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Petty was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in February 2017 for his contributions to music and for his philanthropy. He also acted; he had a recurring role as the voice of Lucky Kleinschmidt in the animated comedy series King of the Hill from 2004 to the show's conclusion in 2009. Petty died of an accidental drug overdose in 2017 at the age of 66, one week after the end of the Heartbreakers' 40th Anniversary Tour. Description above from the Wikipedia article Tom Petty, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
An English musician, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and leader of the rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his career as a studio session musician in London and, by the mid-1960s, he had become the most sought-after session guitarist in England. He was a member of the Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968. In late 1968, he founded Led Zeppelin. Page is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time. Rolling Stone magazine has described Page as "the pontiff of power riffing" and ranked him number 3 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2010, he was ranked number two in Gibson's list of "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time" and, in 2007, number four on Classic Rock's "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice; once as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and once as a member of Led Zeppelin (1995). Page has been described by Uncut as "rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero." Los Angeles Times magazine voted Jimmy Page the 2nd Greatest Guitarist of all time. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Richard Baldwin (born 3 January 1946), better known by his stage name John Paul Jones, is an English musician, composer and record producer who was the bassist and keyboardist for the rock band Led Zeppelin. Prior to forming the band with Jimmy Page in 1968, he was a session musician and arranger. After the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, Led Zeppelin disbanded, and Jones developed a solo career. He has collaborated with musicians across a variety of genres, including the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 as a member of Led Zeppelin.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Paul Jones (musician), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
An English musician, singer and songwriter. Best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin, he has also had a successful solo career spanning more than 40 years and possessing a powerful wide vocal range (particularly using his trademark high-pitched vocals). Plant is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll, and he has influenced contemporaries and such later singers as Freddie Mercury, Axl Rose and Chris Cornell. In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time". In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock. In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. In 2011, readers of Rolling Stone placed Plant in first place of the magazine's list of the best lead singers of all time.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marilyn McCoo (born September 30, 1943) is an American singer, actress, and television presenter, who is best known for being the lead female vocalist in the group the 5th Dimension, as well as hosting the 1980s music television show Solid Gold.
Since 1969, McCoo has been married to singer Billy Davis Jr., the founder and a co-member of the 5th Dimension. She has a three-octave vocal range.
Marilyn McCoo was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, to Waymon and Mary McCoo, who were both physicians. Her grandfather was doctor Thomas Vivian McCoo of Eufaula, Alabama. She is African American. She spent her first seven years in Columbus, Georgia. At the age of seven, she moved with her parents, two sisters, and brother to Los Angeles, where she began singing, piano and dance lessons. At the age of 15, she made her television debut on Art Linkletter's Talent Show and began modelling. After graduating from Susan Miller Dorsey High School, she enrolled in UCLA, where she earned a degree in business administration. In 1962, McCoo entered the Miss Bronze California beauty pageant where she won "Miss Grand Talent".
In the early and mid-1960s, McCoo was a member of the Hi-Fi's, who often opened for Ray Charles. She had been invited to join the group by photographer Lamonte McLemore, who would himself join McCoo in the 5th Dimension. Other Hi-Fi members included Harry Elston and Floyd Butler, who later formed the Friends of Distinction. She met Billy Davis Jr. in 1966 when he established the 5th Dimension, then called the Versatiles, which also included Ron Townson and Florence LaRue. The group's first big hit was with 1967's "Up, Up and Away", written by Jimmy Webb. The song won four 1968 Grammy Awards and was the title track to 5th Dimension's first hit LP. A year later, the group recorded Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic". A medley of "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" (from the musical Hair) reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in April to May 1969 and won the Grammy for 'Record of the Year'. The group's recording of another Nyro composition, "Wedding Bell Blues", topped the Hot 100 in November 1969.
McCoo performing at Eastern Michigan University
By the early 1970s, McCoo began to sing lead on the group's remaining hits, "One Less Bell to Answer", "(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep at All", and "If I Could Reach You". ...
Source: Article "Marilyn McCoo" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
George Segal (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor and musician.
Segal became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. Some of his most acclaimed roles were in films such as Ship of Fools (1965), King Rat (1965), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), Where's Poppa? (1970), The Hot Rock (1972), Blume in Love (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), California Split (1974), For the Boys (1991), and Flirting with Disaster (1996). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and had won two Golden Globe Awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in A Touch of Class.
On television, he was best known for his roles as Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me! (1997–2003) and as Albert "Pops" Solomon on The Goldbergs (2013–present).
Segal was also an accomplished banjo player. He had released three albums and had also performed the instrument in several of his acting roles and on late night television.
Grace Barnett Slick (born October 30, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, artist, and former model, widely known in rock and roll history for her role in San Francisco's burgeoning psychedelic scene in the mid–1960s. Her music career spanned four decades, and involved The Great Society, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, as well as a sporadic solo career.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Grace Slick, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, comedian, and film producer. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Midler began her professional career in several Off-Off-Broadway plays, prior to her engagements in Fiddler on the Roof and Salvation on Broadway in the late 1960s. She came to prominence in 1970 when she began singing in the Continental Baths, a local gay bathhouse where she managed to build up a core following. Since 1970, Midler has released 14 studio albums as a solo artist. Throughout her career, many of her songs became hits on the record charts, including her renditions of "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Do You Want to Dance", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", and "From a Distance".
In a career spanning almost half a century, Midler has won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million records worldwide, and has received four Gold, three Platinum, and three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Bette Midler, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Donald Wayne Johnson (born December 15, 1949) is an American actor, producer, director, singer, and songwriter. He's best known for his role as Det. James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s television series Miami Vice, winning a Golden Globe for his work in the role.
In 1984, after more then a decade of acting on television, Johnson landed a starring role as undercover police detective Sonny Crockett in the Michael Mann/Universal Television cop series, Miami Vice (1984-1990). Miami Vice made him "a major international star." According to Rolling Stone, "No one had more swagger in the Reagan era than Don Johnson."
His work on Miami Vice earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama, in 1986, and he was nominated for the same award in 1987. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1985. Between seasons on Miami Vice, he gained further renown through TV miniseries such as the 1985 remake of The Long, Hot Summer. In 1996, he had a supporting role in Tin Cup, along with Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, and Cheech Marin. Johnson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1996.
He later starred in the 1996–2001 CBS-TV police drama Nash Bridges with Cheech Marin, Jeff Perry, Jaime P. Gomez, Kelly Hu, Wendy Moniz, Annette O'Toole, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe as his daughter Cassidy, and James Gammon as his father Nick.
In October 2010, he began appearing on the HBO series Eastbound & Down, playing Kenny Powers' long-lost father, going by the alias "Eduardo Sanchez." He also reprised his role as Sonny Crockett for a Nike commercial with LeBron James in which the NBA player contemplates acting and appears alongside Johnson on Miami Vice.
He had a supporting role in the 2012 Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained, playing a southern plantation owner named Spencer "Big Daddy" Bennett. In 2014, Johnson starred as the character "Jim Bob" opposite Sam Shepard and Michael C. Hall in Jim Mickle's critically acclaimed crime film, Cold in July. In 2014, he had a supporting role in the film The Other Woman as Cameron Diaz's character's father. In 2015, Johnson began starring in the ABC prime time soap opera Blood & Oil.
In 2018, he starred as the character of Arthur, the love interest of Vivian, played by Jane Fonda in Bill Holderman's romantic-comedy Book Club. In 2019, Johnson played the role of Richard Drysdale in Rian Johnson's murder-mystery Knives Out; and starred as Police Chief Judd Crawford in the HBO series Watchmen.
In 2021, he co-starred on Kenan, until its cancellation in May 2022. He also appeared in a Nash Bridges television film, with co-star Cheech Marin, on the USA Network in 2021.
Marie Dionne Warwick (born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host.
Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on Billboard's Hot 100 pop singles chart. She is the second-most charted female vocalist during the rock era (1955–1999). She is also one of the most-charted vocalists of all time, with 56 of her singles making the Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998 (12 of them Top Ten), and 80 singles in total – either solo or collaboratively – making the Hot 100, R&B and/or adult contemporary charts. Dionne ranks #74 on the Billboard Hot 100's "Greatest Artists of all time".
During her career, she has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and she has won many awards, including six Grammy Awards. Warwick has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the R&B Music Hall of Fame and the Apollo Theater Walk of Fame. In 2019 she won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Three of her songs ("Walk On By", "Alfie" and "Don't Make Me Over") have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. She is a former Goodwill Ambassador for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization.
Marie Dionne Warrick, later Warwick, was born in Orange, New Jersey to Lee Drinkard and Mancel Warrick. Her mother was manager of the Drinkard Singers, and her father was a Pullman porter, chef, record promoter and CPA. Dionne was named after her aunt on her mother's side. She had a sister, Delia ("Dee Dee"), who died in 2008, and a brother, Mancel Jr., who was killed in an accident in 1968 at age 21. Her parents were both African American, and she also has Native American and Dutch ancestry.
She was raised in East Orange, New Jersey and was a Girl Scout for a time. After finishing East Orange High School in 1959, Warwick pursued her passion at the Hartt College of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut. She landed some work with her group singing backing vocals for recording sessions in New York City. During one session, Warwick met Burt Bacharach, who hired her to record demos featuring songs written by him and lyricist Hal David. She later landed her own record deal.
Many of Warwick's family were members of the Drinkard Singers, a family gospel group and RCA recording artists who frequently performed throughout the New York metropolitan area. The original group, known as the Drinkard Jubilairs, consisted of Cissy, Anne, Larry, and Nicky, and later included Warwick's grandparents, Nicholas and Delia Drinkard, and their children: William, Lee (Warwick's mother) and Hansom. When the Drinkard Singers performed on TV Gospel Time, Dionne Warwick had her television performance debut.
Marie instructed the group, and they were managed by Lee. As they became more successful, Lee and Marie began performing with the group, and they were augmented by pop/R&B singer Judy Clay, whom Lee had unofficially adopted. Elvis Presley eventually expressed an interest in having them join his touring entourage. Dionne began singing gospel as a child at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. ...
Source: Article "Dionne Warwick" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Gary Dean Richrath (October 18, 1949 – September 13, 2015) was an American guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist and a songwriter for the band REO Speedwagon from 1970 until 1989.
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon. He quickly became a key cast member in the inaugural season of Saturday Night Live, where his Weekend Update skit soon became a staple of the show. As both a performer and writer, he earned three Primetime Emmy Awards out of five nominations. Chase is also well-known for his portrayal of the character Clark Griswold in four National Lampoon's Vacation films, and for his roles in other successful comedies such as Caddyshack (1980), Fletch (1985), and ¡Three Amigos! (1986). He has hosted the Academy Awards twice (1987 and 1988) and briefly had his own late-night talk show, The Chevy Chase Show. He played the character Pierce Hawthorne on the NBC comedy series Community from 2009 to 2014.
Jason William Mizell (January 21, 1965 – October 30, 2002), better known by his stage name Jam Master Jay, was an American musician and DJ. He was the DJ of the influential hip hop group Run-DMC. During the 1980s, Run-DMC became one of the biggest hip hop groups and are credited with breaking hip hop into mainstream music.
Mizell was murdered in his Queens, New York recording studio in a 2002 shooting that remained cold until two perpetrators were arrested in 2020. In 2024, both perpetrators were found guilty of murdering Mizell and face between 20 years to life in prison. A third suspect in the murder was also arrested in 2023 and is awaiting trial.
Simon John Charles Le Bon is a British singer, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia.
In 1980, he auditioned to join the rock group Duran Duran. Before long, Duran Duran became one of the biggest music acts of the decade. By the late 1980s, Duran Duran’s popularity began to wane. In 1996, Le Bon branched out on his own and later the group reunited in 2001. In 2007, Duran Duran released their album, Red Carpet Massacre.
Nick Rhodes (born Nicholas James Bates) is an English musician, singer and producer, best known as a founding member and keyboardist of the new wave band Duran Duran. (Wikipedia)
Roger Andrew Taylor is an English musician, known as the drummer of the new wave music band Duran Duran from their inception until 1985, and again from 2001 onwards.
Andrew Arthur Taylor is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer, known as a former member of both Duran Duran and The Power Station.
Nigel John Taylor is an English musician, singer, songwriter, producer and actor, who is best known as the bass guitarist and founding member of new wave band Duran Duran. He recorded a dozen solo releases (albums, EPs, and video projects) through his private record label B5 Records, had a lead role in the movie Sugar Town, and made appearances in a half dozen other film projects. Taylor was also a member of two supergroups: The Power Station and Neurotic Outsiders. (Wikipedia)
![Black Sabbath: [1999] Seattle, Washington](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.hellathis.com%2Frp%2Feded851a-6d28-432f-be81-6ea1f4d1ecb9%2F%3Fw%3D300%26h%3D450&w=640&q=75)
