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Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE (born 31 August 1945) is a singer-songwriter and musician from Northern Ireland whose recording career spans seven decades.

Morrison began performing as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Known as "Van the Man" to his fans, Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Belfast R&B band Them, with whom he wrote and recorded "Gloria", which became a garage band staple. His solo career started under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967.

After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought Morrison's contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). While initially a poor seller, the album has come to be regarded as a classic. Moondance (1970) established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances.

Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and early rhythm and blues. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream of consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic soul", and his music has been described as attaining "a kind of violent transcendence". (Full article...)

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Robert Clark Seger (/ˈsiːɡər/ SEE-gər; born May 6, 1945) is a retired American singer, songwriter, and musician. As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and the Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s, breaking through with his first album, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (which contained his first national hit of the same name) in 1969. By the early 1970s, he had dropped the 'System' from his recordings and continued to strive for broader success with various other bands. In 1973, he put together the Silver Bullet Band, with a group of Detroit-area musicians, with whom he became most successful on the national level with the album Live Bullet (1976), recorded live with the Silver Bullet Band in 1975 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. In 1976, he achieved a national breakout with the studio album Night Moves. On his studio albums, he also worked extensively with the Alabama-based Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which appeared on several of Seger's best-selling singles and albums.

A roots rocker with a classic raspy, powerful voice, Seger wrote and recorded songs that dealt with love, women, and blue-collar themes, and is one of the best-known examples of a heartland rock artist. He has recorded many hits, including "Night Moves", "Turn the Page", "Mainstreet", "Still the Same", "Hollywood Nights", "Against the Wind", "You'll Accomp'ny Me", "Shame on the Moon", "Roll Me Away", "Like a Rock", and "Shakedown", the last of which was written for the 1987 film Beverly Hills Cop II and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also co-wrote the Eagles' number-one hit "Heartache Tonight", and his recording of "Old Time Rock and Roll" was named one of the Songs of the Century in 2001.

With a career spanning six decades, Seger has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012. Seger was named Billboard's 2015 Legend of Live honoree at the 12th annual Billboard Touring Conference & Awards, held November 18–19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. His farewell tour took place in 2018 and 2019. (Full article...)

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Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often considered to be one of the greatest songwriters in history, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, when his songs "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. Initially modeling his style on Woody Guthrie's folk songs, Robert Johnson's blues, and what he called the "architectural forms" of Hank Williams's country songs, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". His lyrics incorporated political, social, and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.

Dylan was born and raised in St. Louis County, Minnesota. Following his self-titled debut album of traditional folk songs in 1962, he made his breakthrough with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the next year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" which, like many of his early songs, adapted the tunes and phrasing of older folk songs. He released the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy among folk purists when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited (both 1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966). When Dylan made his move from acoustic folk and blues music to rock, the mix became more complex. His six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) expanded commercial and creative boundaries in popular music.

In July 1966, a motorcycle accident led to Dylan's withdrawal from touring. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were later released as The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes on John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969) and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released three albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. Dylan's Time Out of Mind (1997) marked the beginning of a career renaissance. He has released five critically acclaimed albums of original material since, most recently Rough and Rowdy Ways (2020). He also recorded a trilogy of albums covering the Great American Songbook, especially songs sung by Frank Sinatra, and an album smoothing his early rock material into a mellower Americana sensibility, Shadow Kingdom (2023). Dylan has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour.

Since 1994, Dylan has published nine books of paintings and drawings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 145 million records, making him one of the best-selling musicians ever. He has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." (Full article...)

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David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee), was an English singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.

Bowie developed an interest in music from an early age. He studied art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. He released a string of unsuccessful singles with local bands and a solo album before achieving his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart with "Space Oddity" (1969). After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of "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 towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK fans but garnering 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. In 1977, he again changed direction with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came 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 three number-one hits: the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and "Under Pressure" (a 1981 collaboration with Queen). He achieved his greatest commercial success in the 1980s with Let's Dance (1983). Between 1988 and 1992, he fronted the hard rock band Tin Machine before resuming his solo career in 1993. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Phillip Jeffries in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Andy Warhol in the biopic Basquiat (1996), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. He returned from a decade-long recording hiatus in 2013 with The Next Day and remained musically active until his death from liver cancer in 2016. He died two days after both his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar.

During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Often dubbed the "chameleon of rock" due to his constant musical reinventions, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone ranked him among the greatest artists in history. As of 2022, Bowie was the best-selling vinyl artist of the 21st century. (Full article...)

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Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), also known mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and initial controversy.

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi; his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13. His music career began there in 1954, at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on guitar and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who would manage him for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. Within a year, RCA Victor would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of white American youth.

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, he relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. Presley held few concerts, however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Some of Presley's most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed NBC television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. However, years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating habits severely compromised his health, and Presley died unexpectedly in August 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

Having sold up to 500 million records worldwide, Presley is one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, adult contemporary, and gospel. He won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. He also holds several records, including the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Full article...)

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Frank Vincent Zappa (/ˈzæpə/ ZAP-ə; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.

As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical songs in seemingly conventional rock and roll format with collective improvisations and studio-generated sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach whether the fundamental format was rock, jazz, or classical.

Zappa's output is unified by a conceptual continuity he termed "Project/Object", with numerous musical phrases, ideas, and characters reappearing across his albums. His lyrics reflected his iconoclastic views of established social and political processes, structures and movements, often humorously so, and he has been described as the "godfather" of comedy rock. He was a strident critic of mainstream education and organized religion, and a forthright and passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Unlike many other rock musicians of his generation, he disapproved of recreational drug use, but supported decriminalization and regulation.

Zappa was a highly productive and prolific artist with a controversial critical standing; supporters of his music admired its compositional complexity, while detractors found it lacking emotional depth. He had greater commercial success outside the US, particularly in Europe. Though he worked as an independent artist, Zappa mostly relied on distribution agreements he had negotiated with the major record labels. He remains a major influence on musicians and composers. His many honors include his posthumous 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the 1997 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. (Full article...)

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James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, songwriter and singer. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as the greatest and one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at age 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with his band the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the US. The double LP was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his only number one album. The world's highest-paid rock musician, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia in September 1970.

Hendrix was inspired by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in popularizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began."

Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year and in 1968, Billboard named him the Artist of the Year and Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked the band's three studio albums, Are You Experienced (1967), Axis: Bold as Love (1967), and Electric Ladyland (1968), among the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth-greatest artist of all time. Hendrix was named the greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone in 2023. (Full article...)

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John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and musician. He gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. His work included music, writing, drawings and film. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.

Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the smart Beatle", Lennon initially was the group's de facto leader, a role he gradually seemed to cede to McCartney. Through his songwriting in the Beatles, he embraced myriad musical influences, initially writing and co-writing rock and pop-oriented hit songs in the band's early years, then later incorporating experimental elements into his compositions in the latter half of the Beatles' career as his songs became known for their increasing innovation. Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by participating in numerous films, including How I Won the War, and authoring In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, both collections of nonsense writings and line drawings. Starting with "All You Need Is Love", his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture of the 1960s. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, multimedia artist Yoko Ono, held the two-week-long anti-war demonstration Bed-ins for Peace and left the Beatles to embark on a solo career.

Between 1968 and 1972, Lennon and Ono collaborated on many works, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums, several more films, his solo debut John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and the international top-10 singles "Give Peace a Chance", "Instant Karma!", "Imagine", and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". Moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year deportation attempt by the Nixon administration. Lennon and Ono separated from 1973 to 1975, during which time he produced Harry Nilsson's album Pussy Cats. He also had chart-topping collaborations with Elton John ("Whatever Gets You thru the Night") and David Bowie ("Fame"). Following a five-year hiatus, Lennon returned to music in 1980 with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. He was murdered by a Beatles fan, Mark David Chapman, three weeks after the album's release.

As a performer, writer or co-writer, Lennon had 25 number-one singles in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Double Fantasy, his second-best-selling non-Beatles album, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. That year, he won the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC history poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer and 38th greatest artist of all time. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (in 1997) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994). (Full article...)

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Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Known as the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. During his four-decade career, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture. Jackson influenced artists across many music genres. Through stage and video performances, he popularized complicated street dance moves such as the moonwalk, which he named, as well as the robot.

The eighth child of the Jackson family, Jackson made his public debut in 1964 with his older brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5 (later known as the Jacksons). Jackson began his solo career in 1971 while at Motown Records. He became a solo star with his 1979 album Off the Wall. His music videos, including those for "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller" from his 1982 album Thriller, are credited with breaking racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. He helped propel the success of MTV and continued to innovate with the videos for his subsequent albums: Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995), and Invincible (2001). Thriller became the best-selling album of all time, while Bad was the first album to produce five US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles.

From the late 1980s, Jackson became a figure of controversy and speculation due to his changing appearance, relationships, behavior, and lifestyle. In 1993, he was accused of sexually abusing the child of a family friend. The lawsuit was settled out of civil court; Jackson was not indicted due to lack of evidence. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges. The FBI found no evidence of criminal conduct by Jackson in either case. In 2009, while he was preparing for a series of comeback concerts, This Is It, Jackson died from an overdose of propofol administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray, who was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter for his involvement in Jackson's death. His death triggered reactions around the world, creating unprecedented surges of internet traffic and a spike in sales of his music. Jackson's televised memorial service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was estimated to have been viewed by more than 2.5 billion people.

Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales estimated around 500 million records worldwide. He had 13 Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles (fourth highest of any artist in the Hot 100 era) and was the first artist to have a top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades. His honors include 15 Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and 39 Guinness World Records, including the "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time". Jackson's inductions include the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice), the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Dance Hall of Fame (making him the only recording artist to be inducted) and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame. (Full article...)

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Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One of the most successful composers and performers of all time, McCartney is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing, versatile and wide tenor vocal range, and musical eclecticism, exploring genres ranging from pre–rock and roll pop to classical, ballads, and electronica. His songwriting partnership with Lennon is the most successful in modern music history.

Born in Liverpool, McCartney taught himself piano, guitar, and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the cute Beatle", McCartney later immersed himself in the London avant-garde scene and played a key role in incorporating experimental aesthetics into the Beatles' studio productions. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the band's de facto leader, providing creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. Many of his Beatles songs, including "And I Love Her", "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby", and "Blackbird", rank among the most covered songs in history. Although primarily a bassist with the Beatles, he played a number of other instruments, including keyboards, guitars, and drums, on various songs.

After the Beatles disbanded, he debuted as a solo artist with the 1970 album McCartney and went on to form the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine. Under McCartney's leadership, Wings became one of the most successful bands of the 1970s. He wrote or co-wrote their US or UK number-one hits, such as "My Love", "Band on the Run", "Listen to What the Man Said", "Silly Love Songs", and "Mull of Kintyre". He resumed his solo career in 1980 and has been touring as a solo artist since 1989. Apart from Wings, his UK or US number-one hits include "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" (with Linda), "Coming Up", "Pipes of Peace", "Ebony and Ivory" (with Stevie Wonder), and "Say Say Say" (with Michael Jackson). Beyond music, he has been involved in projects to promote international charities related to animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty, and music education.

McCartney has written or co-written a record 32 songs that have topped the Billboard Hot 100 and, , he had sales of 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the US. His honours include two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999), an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, 18 Grammy Awards, an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965, and a knighthood in 1997 for services to music. As of 2020, he is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated fortune of £800 million. (Full article...)

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George Harrison MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work. Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something". Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; subsequent influences were Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry.

By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indian classical music through his use of Indian instruments, such as the sitar, which he had become acquainted with on the set of the film Help! He played sitar on numerous Beatles songs, starting with "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". Having initiated the band's embrace of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement. After the band's break-up in 1970, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, "My Sweet Lord", and introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar. He also organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to later benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974. He co-founded HandMade Films in 1978, initially to produce the Monty Python troupe's comedy film The Life of Brian (1979).

Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer. In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. A prolific recording artist, he was featured as a guest guitarist on tracks by Badfinger, Ronnie Wood, and Billy Preston, and collaborated on songs and music with Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Tom Petty. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 31 in their 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, and posthumously for his solo career in 2004.

Harrison's first marriage to model Pattie Boyd in 1966 ended in divorce in 1977. In the following year he married Olivia Arias, with whom he had a son, Dhani. A lifelong cigarette smoker, Harrison died of numerous cancers in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his home, Friar Park. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. He left an estate of almost £100 million. (Full article...)

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Gwen Renée Stefani (/stəˈfɑːni/ stə-FAH-nee; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer and songwriter. She is a co-founder, lead vocalist, and the primary songwriter of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl", "Spiderwebs", and "Don't Speak", from their 1995 breakthrough studio album Tragic Kingdom, as well as "Hey Baby" and "It's My Life" from later albums.

During the band's hiatus, Stefani embarked on a solo pop career in 2004 by releasing her debut studio album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Inspired by pop music from the 1980s, the album was a critical and commercial success. It spawned six singles, including "What You Waiting For?", "Rich Girl", "Hollaback Girl", and "Cool". "Hollaback Girl" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart while also becoming the first US download to sell one million copies. In 2006, Stefani released her second studio album, The Sweet Escape. Among the singles were "Wind It Up" and "The Sweet Escape", the latter of which was number three on the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart of 2007. Her third solo album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like (2016), was her first solo album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 chart. Her fourth solo album and first full-length Christmas album, You Make It Feel Like Christmas, was released in 2017 and charted 19 tracks on Billboard's Holiday Digital Song Sales component chart in the United States. Stefani has released several singles with husband Blake Shelton, including "Nobody but You" (2020), which reached number 18 in the US.

Stefani has won three Grammy Awards. As a solo artist, she has received an American Music Award, a Brit Award, a World Music Award, and two Billboard Music Awards. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023. In 2003, she debuted her clothing line L.A.M.B. and expanded her collection with the 2005 Harajuku Lovers line inspired by Japanese culture and fashion. Billboard magazine ranked Stefani the 54th most successful artist and 37th most successful Hot 100 artist of the 2000–2009 decade. VH1 ranked her 13th on their "100 Greatest Women in Music" list in 2012. Including her work with No Doubt, Stefani has sold more than 60 million records worldwide. (Full article...)

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Sir Richard Starkey MBE (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, usually for one song on each album, including "Yellow Submarine" and "With a Little Help from My Friends". He also wrote and sang the Beatles songs "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden", and is credited as a co-writer of four others.

Starr was afflicted by life-threatening illnesses during childhood, with periods of prolonged hospitalisation. He briefly held a position with British Rail before securing an apprenticeship as a machinist at a Liverpool school equipment manufacturer. Soon afterwards, Starr became interested in the UK skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre. In 1957, he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, which earned several prestigious local bookings before the fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958. When the Beatles formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After achieving moderate success in the UK and Hamburg, he quit the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best.

In addition to the Beatles' films, Starr has acted in numerous others. After the band's break-up in 1970, he released several successful singles including the US top-ten hit "It Don't Come Easy", and number ones "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen". His most successful UK single was "Back Off Boogaloo", which peaked at number two. He achieved commercial and critical success with his 1973 album Ringo, which was a top-ten release in both the UK and the US. Starr has featured in numerous documentaries, hosted television shows, narrated the first two series of the children's television programme Thomas & Friends and portrayed "Mr. Conductor" during the first season of the PBS children's television series Shining Time Station. Since 1989, he has toured with thirteen variations of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.

Starr's playing style, which emphasised feel over technical virtuosity, influenced many drummers to reconsider their playing from a compositional perspective. He also influenced various modern drumming techniques, such as the matched grip, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings. In his opinion, his finest recorded performance was on the Beatles' "Rain". In 1999, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers named him the fifth-greatest drummer of all time. He was inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a Beatle in 1988 and as a solo artist in 2015, and appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to music. (Full article...)

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Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan; April 17, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, philanthropist, record producer, and winemaker. He is best known as the singer and primary lyricist of the rock bands Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer.

Having grown up in Ohio and Michigan, Keenan joined the U.S. Army after graduating from high school. After his service, he attended the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1988 to pursue a career in interior design and set construction, and formed Tool with Adam Jones shortly thereafter.

In addition to his music career, Keenan owns Merkin Vineyards and Caduceus Cellars in Arizona, where he resides. Since rising to fame, he has been noted as a recluse, although he does emerge to support charitable causes and for the occasional interview. He has also ventured into acting. (Full article...)

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Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. She is known for her influence on modern pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone. At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.

Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively. The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"— the only album by a female singer to do so. A reissue of the album titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) subsequently produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. The electropop album Witness (2017) featured themes of feminism and a political subtext, while Smile (2020) was influenced by motherhood and her mental health journey. Afterwards, she embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–2023), receiving critical acclaim and commercial success.

Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 143 million records worldwide. She has the most U.S. diamond certified singles for any female artist (4). All of her studio albums released under Capitol have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has nine U.S. number one singles, three U.S. number one albums and has received various accolades, including a Billboard Spotlight Award (currently the only female artist to have one), four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Perry has been included in the annual Forbes lists of highest-earning women in music from 2011 to 2019. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series, and launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in 2017. Perry began serving as a judge on American Idol during its sixteenth season in 2018. She is also the second most-followed woman and the sixth most-followed person on Twitter, with over 106.7 million followers. (Full article...)

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Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, guitarist and songwriter who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957), and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Born into a middle-class black family in St. Louis, Berry had an interest in music from an early age and gave his first public performance at Sumner High School. While still a high school student, he was convicted of armed robbery and was sent to a reformatory, where he was held from 1944 to 1947. After his release, Berry settled into married life and worked at an automobile assembly plant. By early 1953, influenced by the guitar riffs and showmanship techniques of the blues musician T-Bone Walker, Berry began performing with the Johnnie Johnson Trio. His break came when he traveled to Chicago in May 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who suggested he contact Leonard Chess, of Chess Records. With Chess, he recorded "Maybellene"—Berry's adaptation of the country song "Ida Red"—which sold over a million copies, reaching number one on Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart.

By the end of the 1950s, Berry was an established star, with several hit records and film appearances and a lucrative touring career. He had also established his own St. Louis nightclub, Berry's Club Bandstand. He was sentenced to three years in prison in January 1962 for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines for the purpose of having sexual intercourse. After his release in 1963, Berry had several more successful songs, including "No Particular Place to Go", "You Never Can Tell", and "Nadine". However, these did not achieve the same success or lasting impact of his 1950s songs, and by the 1970s he was more in demand as a nostalgia performer, playing his past material with local backup bands of variable quality. In 1972, he reached a new level of achievement when a rendition of "My Ding-a-Ling" became his only record to top the charts. His insistence on being paid in cash led in 1979 to a four-month jail sentence and community service, for tax evasion.

Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986; he was cited for having "laid the groundwork for not only a rock and roll sound but a rock and roll stance." Berry is included in several of Rolling Stone magazine's "greatest of all time" lists; he was ranked fifth on its 2004 and 2011 lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and 2nd greatest guitarist of all time in 2023. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll includes three of Berry's: "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", and "Rock and Roll Music". "Johnny B. Goode" is the only rock-and-roll song included on the Voyager Golden Record. (Full article...)

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Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Born in 1946 in Zanzibar to Parsi-Indian parents, Mercury attended English boarding schools in India from the age of eight and returned to Zanzibar after secondary school. In 1964, his family fled the Zanzibar Revolution, moving to Middlesex, England. Having studied and written music for years, he formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions", "Don't Stop Me Now" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". His charismatic stage performances often saw him interact with the audience, as displayed at the 1985 Live Aid concert. He also led a solo career and was a producer and guest musician for other artists.

Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. He continued to record with Queen, and was posthumously featured on their final album, Made in Heaven (1995). In 1991, the day after announcing his diagnosis, he died from complications of the disease at the age of 45. In 1992, a concert in tribute to him was held at Wembley Stadium, in benefit of AIDS awareness. His career with Queen was dramatised in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

As a member of Queen, Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. In 1990, he and the other Queen members received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. One year after his death, Mercury received the same award individually. In 2005, Queen were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2002, Mercury was voted number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. (Full article...)

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Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer. He is the front man and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. Jagger has written most of the band's songs alongside lead guitarist Keith Richards; their songwriting partnership is one of the most successful in history, and they continue to collaborate musically. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has been widely described as one of the most popular and influential front men in the history of rock music. His distinctive voice and energetic live performances, along with Richards' guitar style, have been the Rolling Stones' trademark throughout the band's career. Jagger gained notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and has often been portrayed as a countercultural figure.

Jagger was born and grew up in Dartford. He studied at the London School of Economics before abandoning his studies to focus on his career with the Rolling Stones. In the late 1960s, Jagger starred in the films Performance (1970) and Ned Kelly (1970), to mixed receptions. Beginning in the 1980s, he released a number of solo works, including four albums and the single "Dancing in the Street", a 1985 duet with David Bowie that reached No. 1 in the UK and Australia and was a top-ten hit in other countries.

In the 2000s, Jagger co-founded a film production company, Jagged Films, and produced feature films through the company beginning with the 2001 historical drama Enigma. He was also a member of the supergroup SuperHeavy from 2009 to 2011. Although relationships with his bandmates, particularly Richards, deteriorated during the 1980s, Jagger has always found more success with the Rolling Stones than with his solo and side projects. He was married to Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias from 1971 to 1978, and has had several other relationships; he has eight children with five women.

In 1989, Jagger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and, in 2004, into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. As a member of the Rolling Stones and as a solo artist, he reached No. 1 on the UK and US singles charts with 13 singles, the top 10 with 32 singles and the top 40 with 70 singles. In 2003, he was knighted for his services to popular music. The genus Jaggermeryx naida and the type species Aegrotocatellus jaggeri are named for him. Jagger is credited with being a trailblazer in pop music and with bringing a style and sex appeal to rock and roll that have been imitated and proven influential with subsequent generations of musicians. (Full article...)

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W. Axl Rose (born William Bruce Rose Jr.; born February 6, 1962) is an American singer and songwriter. He is best known for being the lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, and has been the band's sole constant member since its inception in 1985. Possessing a distinctive and powerful wide-ranging voice, Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone, NME and Billboard.

Born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, Axl Rose moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1980s with his friend Jeffrey Isbell (Izzy Stradlin). This is where he became active in the local hard rock scene and joined several bands, including Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. In 1985, he co-founded Guns N' Roses alongside Stradlin, with whom he had great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their first album, Appetite for Destruction (1987), has sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. with 18 million units sold. Rose's high-profile relationships with Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour in the late 80's and early 90's inspired multiple songs, including the number one hit "Sweet Child o' Mine". However allegations of abuse by Rose caused significant controversy, as did the band's next release G N' R Lies (1988) due to his inclusion of multiple slurs on the song "One in a Million".

Guns N' Roses' next releases, the twin albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (1991), were widely successful; debuting at No. 2 and No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide. Controversy followed Rose during the two-and-a-half-year Use Your Illusion Tour, with riots (including his arrest for inciting the Riverport Riot), rants against the media and bandmates between songs, and feuds with other artists including Metallica and Nirvana. The punk covers album "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) failed to match the success of previous albums, with Rose's cover of a Charles Manson song gaining notoriety.

After the tour, in 1994, Rose disappeared from public eye while Guns N' Roses stalled on making a new album. The band started to fall apart due to personal and musical differences, primarily between Rose and lead guitarist Slash. By the time work on a new album was underway in 1998, only Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed remained from the previous tour lineup. In 2001, Rose, the only remaining original member, resurfaced alongside the new line-up of Guns N' Roses at Rock in Rio 3, and subsequently played the decade-long Chinese Democracy Tour to promote the long-delayed Chinese Democracy (2008), the most expensive rock album to ever be produced. (Full article...)

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Cher (/ʃɛər/; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. She is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice, for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment and for adopting a variety of styles and appearances. Cher rose to fame in 1965 as one half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher before releasing her first solo top-ten singles "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" and "You Better Sit Down Kids". Throughout the 1970s, she scored the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "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.

After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, Cher released the successful disco album Take Me Home (1979). Her music career revival in the late 1980s saw the releases of rock-inflected albums Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989), and Love Hurts (1991), all of which yielded hit singles such as "I Found Someone", "If I Could Turn Back Time", and "Save Up All Your Tears". Cher reached a new commercial peak in 1998 with the dance-pop album Believe, which featured pioneering use of Auto-Tune to distort her vocals, known as the "Cher effect". The title track became the number-one song of 1999 in the US and the best-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK. She continued to make music, with the albums 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 became a television personality in the 1970s with her CBS shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, and the namesake Cher. In 1982, she made her Broadway debut in the play Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in its film adaptation. Cher subsequently garnered critical acclaim for her performances in films such as Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985), and Moonstruck (1987), the last of which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She contributed to the soundtrack for her next film, Mermaids (1990), which spawned the UK number-one single "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)", and made her directorial debut with a segment in the abortion-themed anthology If These Walls Could Talk (1996). During the 2010s, Cher landed starring roles in the films Burlesque (2010) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).

Having sold 100 million records, Cher is one of the world's best-selling music artists. Her accolades include a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, the Billboard Icon Award, and awards from the Kennedy Center Honors and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. She is the only solo artist to date to have 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 became the highest-grossing concert tour by a female artist ever at the time, earning $250 million. Aside from music and acting, she is noted for her trendsetting, elaborate outfits, political views, social media presence, philanthropic endeavors, and social activism, including LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention. (Full article...)

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Keith John Moon (23 August 1946 – 7 September 1978) was an English musician who was the drummer for the rock band the Who. Regarded as one of the greatest drummers in the history of rock music, he was noted for his unique style of playing and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour.

Moon grew up in Wembley and took up the drums during the early 1960s. After playing with a local band, the Beachcombers, he joined the Who in 1964 before they recorded their first single. Moon was recognised for his drumming style, which emphasised tom-toms, cymbal crashes, and drum fills. Throughout his tenure with the Who, his drum kit steadily grew in size, and (along with Ginger Baker) he has been credited as one of the earliest rock drummers to regularly employ double bass drums in his setup. Moon occasionally collaborated with other musicians and later appeared in films, but considered playing in the Who his primary occupation, and remained a member of the band until his death. In addition to his talent as a drummer, Moon developed a reputation for smashing his kit on stage and destroying hotel rooms on tour. He was fascinated with blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and destroying television sets. Moon also enjoyed touring and socialising, and became bored and restless when the Who were inactive. His 21st birthday party in Flint, Michigan, has been cited as a notorious example of decadent behaviour by rock groups.

Moon suffered a number of setbacks during the 1970s, most notably the accidental death of chauffeur Neil Boland and the breakdown of his marriage. He suffered from alcoholism and acquired a reputation for decadence and dark humour; his nickname was "Moon the Loon". While touring with the Who, on several occasions he passed out on stage and was hospitalised. By the time of their final tour with him in 1976, and particularly during production of The Kids Are Alright and Who Are You, the drummer's deterioration was evident. Moon moved back to London from Los Angeles in 1978, dying that September from an overdose of clomethiazole, a drug intended to treat or prevent symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

Moon's drumming continues to be praised by critics and musicians. He was posthumously inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1982, becoming the second rock drummer to be chosen, and in 2011 he was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers' poll. Moon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as a member of the Who. (Full article...)

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Laurence Joseph Mullen Jr. (/ˈmʌlən/; born 31 October 1961) is an Irish musician, best known as the drummer and co-founder of the rock band U2. A member of the band since its inception, he has recorded 15 studio albums with U2. Mullen's distinctive, almost military drumming style developed from his playing martial beats in childhood marching bands.

Mullen was born in Dublin, where he attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School. In 1976, he co-founded U2 after posting a message on the school's notice board in search of musicians. Mullen has worked on numerous side projects during his career. In 1990, he produced the Ireland national football team's song "Put 'Em Under Pressure" for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. In 1996, he worked with U2 bandmate Adam Clayton on a dance re-recording of the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has also collaborated with musicians such as Maria McKee, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, and Alice Cooper. Mullen has sporadically acted in films, most notably in Man on the Train (2011) and A Thousand Times Good Night (2013).

Mullen has received 22 Grammy Awards and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked Mullen the 96th-greatest drummer of all time. (Full article...)

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Noel Thomas David Gallagher (born 29 May 1967) is an English musician, singer and songwriter. He was the primary songwriter, lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Oasis until their split in 2009. After leaving Oasis, he formed Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. He is one of the most successful songwriters in British music history, as the writer of eight UK number-one singles and co-writer of a further number one, as well as the sole or primary writer of ten UK number-one studio albums. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential songwriters in the history of British rock music, cited by numerous major subsequent artists as an influence.

Gallagher began playing the guitar at the age of twelve, and became a roadie and technician for Inspiral Carpets when he was 21. He learnt that his younger brother Liam had joined a band called the Rain, which eventually became Oasis; Liam invited him to join the group as manager. After rejecting the offer, Gallagher agreed to join the band, on the condition that he would take creative control of the group and become its sole songwriter and lead guitarist.

The band's debut album, Definitely Maybe (1994), was a widespread critical and commercial success. Their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995), reached the top of the album charts in many countries, and their third studio album, Be Here Now (1997), became the fastest-selling album in UK chart history. Britpop eventually declined in popularity, and Oasis failed to revive it, though their final two albums, Don't Believe the Truth (2005) and Dig Out Your Soul (2008), were hailed as their best efforts in over a decade. In August 2009, following an altercation with his brother, Gallagher announced his departure from Oasis. He went on to form Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, with whom he has released four studio albums.

Oasis's time was marked by turbulence, especially during the peak of Britpop, during which Gallagher was involved in several disputes with Liam; their conflicts and wild lifestyles regularly made tabloid headlines. The band notably had a rivalry with fellow Britpop band Blur. Gallagher himself was often regarded as a pioneer and spearhead of the Britpop movement. Many have praised his songwriting, with Beatles producer George Martin calling him "the finest songwriter of his generation". Conversely, he was voted the most overrated guitarist of the last millennium in a 1999 poll, and the ninth-most-overrated ever in a 2002 listener survey. He cited being named the most overrated guitarist of the last millennium as the accolade he most enjoyed receiving. (Full article...)

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Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was a singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the husband-wife duo Ike & Tina Turner before launching a successful career as a solo performer.

Born in Tennessee, Turner began her musical career with her future husband Ike Turner's band, the Kings of Rhythm, in 1956. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, "Boxtop", in 1958. In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit single "A Fool in Love". The Ike & Tina Turner Revue became "one of the most formidable live acts in history". The duo released hits such as "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", "River Deep – Mountain High", "Proud Mary", and "Nutbush City Limits" before disbanding in 1976.

In the 1980s, Turner launched "one of the greatest comebacks in music history". Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song "What's Love Got to Do with It", which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100. Her chart success continued with "Better Be Good to Me", "Private Dancer", "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)", "Typical Male", "The Best", "I Don't Wanna Fight", and "GoldenEye". She embarked on the Break Every Rule World Tour (1987–1988), which became the top-grossing female tour of the 1980s and set a Guinness World Record for the then-largest paying audience in a concert (180,000). Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). In 1986, she published her autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story, which was adapted for the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do with It. In 2009, Turner retired after completing her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. In 2018, she was the subject of Tina, a jukebox musical.

Turner sold more than 100 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She received 12 Grammy Awards, which include eight competitive awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and three Grammy Hall of Fame inductions. She was the first black artist and first woman to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: with Ike Turner in 1991 and as a solo artist in 2021. She was also a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Women of the Year award. (Full article...)

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Adam Noah Levine (/ləˈviːn/, lə-VEEN; born March 18, 1979) is an American singer and musician who serves as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and sole continuous member of the pop rock band Maroon 5.

Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara's Flowers, of which he was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist. After the commercial failure of their only album, The Fourth World, the group was reformed in 2001 as Maroon 5 – with James Valentine replacing him as lead guitarist. In 2002, they released their first album, Songs About Jane, which went multi-platinum in the US; since then, they have released six more albums: It Won't Be Soon Before Long (2007), Hands All Over (2010), Overexposed (2012), V (pronounced: "five") (2014), Red Pill Blues (2017), and Jordi (2021). As part of Maroon 5, Levine has received multiple accolades, including three Grammy Awards. As a solo artist, Levine achieved further commercial success with a guest appearance on the Gym Class Heroes single "Stereo Hearts", which reached the top 5 of the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2011.

From 2011 to 2019, Levine was a coach on NBC's reality talent show The Voice. The winners of multiple seasons (1, 5, and 9) belonged to his team. In 2012, Levine made his acting debut as the recurring character Leo Morrison in the second season of the television series American Horror Story. He also appeared in the films Begin Again (2013), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Fun Mom Dinner and The Clapper (both 2017). Levine launched his eponymous fragrance line in 2013. The same year, he collaborated with Kmart and ShopYourWay.com to develop his menswear collection. He also owns a record label, 222 Records, and a production company, 222 Productions, which produced television shows Sugar and Songland. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter reported that "sources familiar with his many business dealings" estimated Levine would earn more than $35 million that year. (Full article...)

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Ronald Charles McKernan (September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973), known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.

McKernan grew up heavily influenced by African-American music, particularly the blues, and enjoyed listening to his father's collection of records and taught himself how to play harmonica and piano. He began socializing around the San Francisco Bay Area, becoming friends with Jerry Garcia. After the pair had played in various folk and jug bands, McKernan suggested they form an electric group, which became the Grateful Dead. He was the band's original frontman and played harmonica and electric organ, but Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh's influences on the band became increasingly stronger as they embraced psychedelic rock. McKernan struggled to keep up with the changing music, causing the group to hire keyboardist Tom Constanten, with McKernan's contributions essentially limited to vocals, harmonica, and percussion from November 1968 to January 1970. He continued to be a frontman in concert for some numbers, including his interpretations of Bobby Bland's "Turn On Your Love Light" and the Rascals' "Good Lovin'".

Unlike the other members of the Grateful Dead, McKernan avoided psychedelic drugs, preferring to drink alcohol (namely whiskey and flavored fortified wine). By 1971, his health had been affected by alcoholism and liver damage and doctors advised him to stop touring. Following a hiatus, he resumed touring with the group in December 1971 but was forced to retire from touring altogether in June 1972. McKernan was found dead of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage on March 8, 1973, aged 27, and is buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto. (Full article...)

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Neil Ellwood Peart OC (/pɪərt/ PEERT; September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020) was a Canadian and American musician, known as the drummer and primary lyricist of the rock band Rush. He was known to fans by the nickname 'The Professor', derived from the Gilligan's Island character of the same name. His drumming was renowned for its technical proficiency and his live performances for their exacting nature and stamina. Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983 at the age of thirty, making him the youngest person ever so honoured.

Peart was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and grew up in Port Dalhousie (now part of St. Catharines). During adolescence, he floated between regional bands in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer. After a discouraging stint in England, Peart returned home to concentrate on music where he joined Rush, a Toronto band, in mid-1974, six years after its formation. Together they released nineteen studio albums, with ten exceeding a million copies sold in the United States. Billboard lists the band third in "most consecutive gold or platinum albums by a rock band".

Early in his career, Peart's performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, and John Bonham, players who at the time were at the forefront of the British hard rock scene. As time passed, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. In 1994, Peart became a friend and pupil of jazz instructor Freddie Gruber. It was during this time that Peart revamped his playing style by incorporating jazz and swing components.

In addition to serving as Rush's primary lyricist, Peart published several memoirs about his travels. His lyrics for Rush addressed universal themes and diverse subjects including science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy, as well as secular, humanitarian, and libertarian themes. Peart wrote a total of seven nonfiction books focused on his travels and personal stories. He also coauthored with Kevin J. Anderson three steampunk fantasy novels based on Rush's final album, Clockwork Angels. The two also wrote a dark fantasy novella, Drumbeats, inspired by Peart's travels in Africa. (Full article...)

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Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, and author whose 1975 debut album Horses made her an influential member of the New York City-based punk rock movement. Smith has fused rock and poetry in her work. In 1978, her most widely known song, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached 13th on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and fifth on the UK Singles Chart.

In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In November 2010, Smith won the National Book Award for her memoir Just Kids, written to fulfill a promise she made to Robert Mapplethorpe, her longtime partner. She is ranked 47th on Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, published in 2010, and was awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2011. (Full article...)

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Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and bandleader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.

In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York City, the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. The band was also among the first racially integrated blues groups. After the breakup of the group in 1971, Butterfield continued to tour and record with the band Paul Butterfield's Better Days, with his mentor Muddy Waters, and with members of the roots-rock group the Band. While still recording and performing, Butterfield died in 1987 at age 44 of an accidental drug overdose.

Music critics have acknowledged his development of an original approach that places him among the best-known blues harp players. In 2006, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Butterfield and the early members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Both panels noted his harmonica skills and his contributions to bringing blues music to a younger and broader audience. (Full article...)

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Shannon Leto (/lɛtoʊ/; born March 9, 1970) is an American musician best known as the drummer of rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars. He co-founded the group in 1998 in Los Angeles, California, with his younger brother Jared. Their debut album, 30 Seconds to Mars (2002), was released to positive reviews but only to limited success. The band achieved worldwide fame with the release of their second album A Beautiful Lie (2005). Their following releases, This Is War (2009) and Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams (2013), received further critical and commercial success. As of September 2014, the band has sold over 15 million albums worldwide.

Leto has worked on several side projects during his career, including a collaboration with Antoine Becks, a recording with the short-lived supergroup The Wondergirls, and performing on occasional dates with Street Drum Corps. His creative contribution to music has received praise from musicians and critics. He is noted for his dynamic drumming style and his energetic live performances. (Full article...)

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Paul Maurice Kelly AO (born 13 January 1955) is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter and guitarist. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor Ratbaggy and Stardust Five. Kelly's music style has ranged from bluegrass to studio-oriented dub reggae, but his core output straddles folk, rock and country. His lyrics capture the vastness of the culture and landscape of Australia by chronicling life about him for over 30 years. David Fricke from Rolling Stone calls Kelly "one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard, Australian or otherwise". Kelly has said, "Song writing is mysterious to me. I still feel like a total beginner. I don't feel like I have got it nailed yet."

After growing up in Adelaide, Kelly travelled around Australia before settling in Melbourne in 1976. He became involved in the pub rock scene and drug culture and recorded two albums with the Dots. Kelly moved to Sydney by 1985, where he formed Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls. The band was renamed Paul Kelly and the Messengers, initially only for international releases, to avoid possible racial interpretations of the word "coloured". At the end of the 1980s, Kelly returned to Melbourne, and in 1991 he disbanded the Messengers.

Kelly's Top 40 singles include "Billy Baxter", "Before Too Long", "Darling It Hurts", "To Her Door" (his highest-charting local hit in 1987), "Dumb Things" (appeared on United States charts in 1988) and "Roll on Summer". Top-20 albums include Gossip, Under the Sun, Comedy, Songs from the South (1997 compilation), ...Nothing but a Dream, Stolen Apples, Spring and Fall, The Merri Soul Sessions, Seven Sonnets and a Song, Death's Dateless Night (with Charlie Owen), Life Is Fine (his first number-one album) and Nature. Kelly has won 14 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Music Awards, including his induction into their hall of fame in 1997. Dan Kelly, his nephew, is a singer and guitarist in his own right. Dan performed with Kelly on Ways and Means and Stolen Apples. Both were members of Stardust Five, which released a self-titled album in 2006. On 22 September 2010, Kelly released his memoir, How to Make Gravy, which he described as "it's not traditional; it's writing around the A–Z theme – I tell stories around the song lyrics in alphabetical order". His biographical film Paul Kelly: Stories of Me, directed by Ian Darling, was released to cinemas in October 2012.

In 2001, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) listed the Top 30 Australian songs of all time, which included Kelly's To Her Door, and Treaty, written by Kelly and members of Yothu Yindi. Aside from Treaty, Kelly wrote or co-wrote several songs on Indigenous Australian social issues and historical events. He provided songs for many other artists, tailoring them to their particular vocal range. The album Women at the Well from 2002 had 14 female artists record his songs in tribute. (Full article...)

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Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, actor, and television host. Born in Dallas and raised there and in Miami, he was the first solo white rapper to achieve commercial success following the 1990 release of his best-known hit "Ice Ice Baby".

Ice released his debut album, Hooked, on the independent Ichiban Records before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group, which released a reformatted version under the title To the Extreme; it became the fastest-selling hip hop album of all time and "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts. Followed by the live album Extremely Live (1991), Ice made a cameo appearance on the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) where he performed "Ninja Rap", which he co-wrote. He was soon offered and starred in his own film, Cool as Ice (1991), which included the single "Cool as Ice (Everybody Get Loose)" with Naomi Campbell; the film itself was a box office failure.

His fast rise in popularity was quickly marred by media controversies about his background, and criticism about his appeal of hip hop to a mainstream audience alongside MC Hammer. Ice later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, who had also published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. Ice's second studio album, Mind Blowin' (1994), featured a major image change but was commercially unsuccessful. Following rap rock performances in the underground scene and playing in a local grunge band, Ice released the dark nu metal album Hard to Swallow (1998), followed by the independently-released Bi-Polar (2001) and Platinum Underground (2005).

In the 2000s, Ice began appearing on television reality shows including The Surreal Life. In 2010, Ice began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network which ran for nine seasons until 2019. In 2022 he started another home improvement television program, The Vanilla Ice Home Show. He is also involved in motocross racing and real estate. (Full article...)

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Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history. His career spans over six decades, and his guitar playing style has been a trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Richards gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and he was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. First professionally known as Keith Richard, by the early 1970s he had fully asserted his family name.

Richards was born in and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He studied at the Dartford Technical School and Sidcup Art College. After graduating, Richards befriended Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart and Brian Jones and joined the Rolling Stones. As a member of the Rolling Stones, Richards also sings lead on some Stones songs. Richards typically sings lead on at least one song a concert, including "Happy", "Before They Make Me Run", and "Connection". Outside of his career with the Rolling Stones, Richards has also played with his own side-project, The X-Pensive Winos. He also appeared in two Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, whose look and characterisation was inspired by Richards himself.

In 1989, Richards was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him fourth on its list of 100 best guitarists in 2011. In 2023, Rolling Stone's ranking was 15th. The magazine lists fourteen songs that Richards wrote with Jagger on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. (Full article...)

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Portal:Rock music/Selected biographies/34 Lydia Canaan is a Lebanese singer-songwriter, poet, humanitarian activist, and diplomat. She is noted for her four-octave vocal range, unique vocal stylings, songwriting, and for being the first Lebanese artist in music history to achieve global success. Widely regarded as the first "rock star" of the Middle East, she is cataloged in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Library and Archives.

Canaan first rose to fame in the mid-80s as an adolescent rock singer performing amid enemy attacks during the Lebanese Civil War, holding concerts in vicinities of Lebanon as they were being bombed. Society magazine writes, "in a small country that was ripped by war, there was this young girl making a difference".

Canaan was the first Middle Eastern recording artist to sing and compose lyrics solely in the English language and have music videos appear on MTV Global, MTV Southeast Asia, MTV Russia, and MTV Middle East. Her career has been described as having defied tradition, challenged convention, and transcended millennia-old gender barriers. According to Arabian Woman magazine, "as a girl who grew up in the midst of a bloody civil war, Canaan was breaking down seemingly insurmountable barriers ... She rocked the establishment". (Full article...)

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Michael Kenji Shinoda (/ʃɪˈnoʊdə/; born February 11, 1977) is an American musician, singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He co-founded the rock band Linkin Park in 1996 and is the band's co-lead vocalist, as well as rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, primary songwriter and producer. Shinoda later created a hip-hop-driven side project, Fort Minor, in 2004. He has also served as a producer for tracks and albums by artists such as Lupe Fiasco, Styles of Beyond, and the X-Ecutioners.

Born in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California, and raised in Agoura Hills, Shinoda formed Xero, which later became Linkin Park, with two of his high school friends: Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon in 1996, later joined by Joe Hahn, Dave Farrell, and Mark Wakefield. Chester Bennington joined Linkin Park in 1999, replacing Wakefield as lead vocalist. The band later signed a record deal with Warner Bros Records.

Shinoda is also the co-founder of Machine Shop Records, a California-based record label. Outside of music, Shinoda is an artist and graphic designer. He has painted several pieces of artwork, some of which have been featured in the Japanese American National Museum. In 2018, Shinoda released his debut solo album Post Traumatic, which consists of 18 songs about his feelings following the death of Chester Bennington. (Full article...)

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Randolph Peter Best (né Scanland; born 24 November 1941) is an English musician who was the drummer for the Beatles from 1960 to 1962. He was dismissed immediately before the band achieved worldwide fame and is one of several people who have been referred to as a fifth Beatle.

Best's mother, Mona Best (1924–1988), opened the Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests' house in Liverpool. The Beatles (at the time known as the Quarrymen) played some of their first concerts at the club. The Beatles invited Best to join the band on 12 August 1960, on the eve of the group's first Hamburg season of club dates. Ringo Starr eventually replaced Best on 16 August 1962 when the group's manager, Brian Epstein, fired Best at the request of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison following the band's first recording session. Over 30 years later, Best received a major monetary payout for his work with the Beatles after the release of their 1995 compilation of their early recordings on Anthology 1; Best played the drums on 10 of the album's tracks, including the Decca auditions.

After working in several commercially unsuccessful groups, Best gave up being in the music industry to work as a civil servant for 20 years before starting the Pete Best Band. (Full article...)

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Philip David Ochs (/ˈoʊks/; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs from the 1960s to early 1970s and released eight albums.

Ochs performed at many political events during the 1960s counterculture era, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who became an "early revolutionary" after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago led to a police riot, which had a profound effect on his state of mind.

After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs's mental stability declined in the 1970s. He had a number of mental health problems, including depression, bipolar disorder and alcoholism, and died by suicide in 1976.

Ochs's influences included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Bob Gibson, Faron Young, and Merle Haggard. His best-known songs include "I Ain't Marching Anymore", "When I'm Gone", "Changes", "Crucifixion", "Draft Dodger Rag", "Love Me, I'm a Liberal", "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends", "Power and the Glory", "There but for Fortune", "The War Is Over", and "No More Songs". (Full article...)

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George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. In 1965, he co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd as the bassist. Following the departure of the songwriter, Syd Barrett, in 1968, Waters became Pink Floyd's lyricist, co-lead vocalist and conceptual leader until his departure in 1985.

Pink Floyd achieved international success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), The Wall (1979), and The Final Cut (1983). By the early 1980s, they had become one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful groups in popular music. Amid creative differences, Waters left in 1985 and began a legal dispute over the use of the band's name and material. They settled out of court in 1987. Waters's solo work includes the studio albums The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking (1984), Radio K.A.O.S. (1987), Amused to Death (1992), and Is This the Life We Really Want? (2017). In 2005, he released Ça Ira, an opera translated from Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gils' libretto about the French Revolution.

In 1990, Waters staged one of the largest rock concerts in history, The Wall – Live in Berlin, with an attendance of 450,000. As a member of Pink Floyd, he was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Later in 2005, he reunited with Pink Floyd for the Live 8 global awareness event, the group's only appearance with Waters since 1981. He has toured extensively as a solo act since 1999. He performed The Dark Side of the Moon for his world tour of 2006–2008, and The Wall Live, his tour of 2010–2013, was the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist at the time.

Waters incorporates political themes in his work and is a prominent supporter of Palestine in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He has called for the removal of the Israeli West Bank Barrier, supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, and describes Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid. Some of his comments, such as his likening of Israel to Nazi Germany, and elements of his live shows, drew accusations of antisemitism, which Waters dismissed as a conflation of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. (Full article...)

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Catherine Bush CBE (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a solely self-written song.

Bush began writing songs at age 11. She was signed to EMI Records after Pink Floyd's David Gilmour helped produce a demo tape. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released in 1978. Bush slowly gained artistic independence in album production and has produced all her studio albums by herself since The Dreaming (1982). Bush has released 25 UK Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", "Babooshka", "Running Up That Hill", "Don't Give Up" (a duet with Peter Gabriel), and "King of the Mountain". All nine of her studio albums reached the UK Top 10, with all but one reaching the top five, including the number one albums Never for Ever (1980), Hounds of Love (1985) and the greatest hits compilation The Whole Story (1986). She took a hiatus between her seventh and eighth albums, The Red Shoes (1993) and Aerial (2005). In 2011, Bush released the albums Director's Cut and 50 Words for Snow. She drew attention again in 2014 with her concert residency Before the Dawn, her first shows since 1979's The Tour of Life.

Bush was the first British solo female artist to top the UK Albums Chart and the first female artist to enter it at number one. Her eclectic musical style, unconventional lyrics, performances and literary themes have influenced a diverse range of artists. In 2022, "Running Up That Hill" received renewed attention after it appeared in the Netflix series Stranger Things, becoming Bush's second UK number one and reaching the top of several other charts. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, and its parent album, Hounds of Love, became Bush's first album to reach the top of a Billboard albums chart.

Bush has received 14 Brit Awards nominations, winning for Best British Female Artist in 1987, and has been nominated for three Grammy Awards. In 2002, Bush was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music. She became a Fellow of The Ivors Academy in the UK in 2020. Bush was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. (Full article...)

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Courtney Michelle Love (née Harrison; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. In 2020, NME named her one of the most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years.

Love had an itinerant childhood, but was primarily raised in Portland, Oregon, where she played in a series of short-lived bands and was active in the local punk scene. After briefly being in a juvenile hall, she spent a year living in Dublin and Liverpool before returning to the United States and pursuing an acting career. She appeared in supporting roles in the Alex Cox films Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987) before forming the band Hole in Los Angeles with guitarist Eric Erlandson. The group received critical acclaim from underground rock press for their 1991 debut album Pretty on the Inside, produced by Kim Gordon, while their second release, Live Through This (1994), was met with critical accolades and multi-platinum sales. In 1995, Love returned to acting, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which established her as a mainstream actress. The following year, Hole's third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), was nominated for three Grammy Awards.

Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s, appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon (1999) and Trapped (2002), before releasing her first solo album, America's Sweetheart, in 2004. The subsequent several years were marred with publicity surrounding Love's legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in a mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album. That project became Nobody's Daughter, released in 2010 as a Hole album but without the former Hole lineup. Between 2014 and 2015, Love released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire. In 2020, she confirmed she was writing new music. Love has also been active as a writer; she co-created and co-wrote three volumes of a manga, Princess Ai, between 2004 and 2006, and wrote a memoir, Dirty Blonde (2006). (Full article...)

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John Anthony Frusciante (/fruːˈʃɑːnteɪ/ ^ⓘ; born March 5, 1970) is an American musician and the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has released 11 solo albums and 7 EPs, ranging in style from acoustic guitar to electronic music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2012. Rolling Stone named Frusciante among the greatest guitarists of all time.

Frusciante joined the Chili Peppers at the age of 18 after the death of guitarist Hillel Slovak, and first appeared on their album Mother's Milk (1989). His second album with the band, Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991), was their breakthrough success. Overwhelmed by the band's newfound popularity, he quit in 1992. He became a recluse and entered a period of heroin addiction, during which he released his first solo recordings: Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt (1994) and Smile from the Streets You Hold (1997). In 1998, he completed drug rehabilitation and rejoined the Chili Peppers, taking them to major success with their albums Californication (1999), By the Way (2002) and Stadium Arcadium (2006).

Frusciante's solo work encompasses genres including experimental rock, ambient music, and electronica. He released six albums in 2004, each exploring different genres and recording techniques. In 2009, Frusciante released The Empyrean, which features members of the Chili Peppers. Frusciante left the Chili Peppers again in 2009 and rejoined them in 2019. Frusciante also releases acid house under the alias Trickfinger. With the ex-Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and Joe Lally, Frusciante has released two albums as Ataxia. (Full article...)

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