The Greatest Singers of All Time (Part 2)

Mick Jagger is an English singer, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead singer and a co-founder of the Rolling Stones. Jagger’s career has spanned over 50 years, and he has been described as “one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of Rock & Roll”.

Jagger’s distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards’ guitar style, have been the trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. Jagger gained press notoriety for his admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a counter-cultural figure.

In the late 1960s, Jagger began acting in films (starting with Performance and Ned Kelly), to mixed reception. In 1985, he released his first solo album, She’s the Boss. In early 2009, Jagger joined the electric super-group SuperHeavy.

In 1989 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. In 2003, he was knighted for his services to popular music.

Robert Plant is an English musician, singer, and songwriter best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin.

A powerful and wide vocal range (particularly evident in his high-pitched vocals) has given him a successful solo career spanning over 30 years.

Plant is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and roll; he has influenced fellow rock singers such as Freddie Mercury, Axl Rose and Chris Cornell.

In 2006, Heavy Metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the “Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time”.

In 2009, Plant was voted “the greatest voice in rock” in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.

In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their list of the 100 best singers of all time. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Plant the greatest of all lead singers.

Roy Orbison was an American singer-songwriter and musician, known for his distinctive, impassioned voice, complex compositions and dark emotional ballads. The combination led many critics to describe his music as operatic, giving him the sobriquet “the Caruso of Rock”.

Between 1960 and 1964, 22 of his songs placed on the Billboard Top 40, including “Only the Lonely” (1960), “Crying” (1961), and “Oh, Pretty Woman” (1964).

Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly and country and western band in high school. He was signed by Sun Records in 1956, but his greatest success came with Monument Records in the early 1960s.

His career stagnated in the 1970s, but was revived by several cover versions of his songs and the use of “In Dreams” in David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet (1986). In 1988, he was a member of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup, along with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne. He recorded his last solo album, Mystery Girl, the same year but died of a heart attack shortly thereafter.

While most male rock and roll performers in the 1950s and 1960s projected a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison’s songs instead conveyed a quiet, almost desperate, vulnerability. His voice ranged from baritone to tenor, and music scholars have suggested that he had a three- or four-octave range. During performances, he was known for standing still and solitary, and for wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses, which lent an air of mystery to his persona.

His honors include inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in the same year, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989. Rolling Stone placed him at number 37 on their list of the “Greatest Artists of All Time” and number 13 on their list of the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time’. In 2002, Billboard magazine listed Orbison at number 74 in the Top 600 recording artists.

Michael Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, actor and philanthropist. Called the “King of Pop”, his contributions to music, dance, and fashion along with his publicized personal life made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

The eighth child of the Jackson family (one of whom died in infancy), Michael made his professional debut in 1964 with his elder brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon as a member of the Jackson 5. He began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music.

His music videos, including those of “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. The popularity of these videos helped bring the television channel MTV to fame. Jackson’s 1987 album Bad spawned the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You”, “Bad”, “The Way You Make Me Feel”, “Man in the Mirror”, and “Dirty Diana”, becoming the first album to have five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100. He continued to innovate with videos such as “Black or White” and “Scream” throughout the 1990s, and forged a reputation as a touring solo artist. Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous artists of various music genres.

Thriller is the best-selling album of all time, with estimated sales of 65 million copies worldwide. Jackson’s other albums, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world’s best-selling albums. He is recognized as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time by Guinness World Records.

Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, and was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Dance Hall of Fame as the only dancer from pop and rock music. His other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records, 13 Grammy Awards, the Grammy Legend Award, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 26 American Music Awards—more than any other artist—including the “Artist of the Century” and “Artist of the 1980s”, 13 number-one singles in the United States during his solo career,—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era—and estimated sales of over 350 million records worldwide.

Jackson has won hundreds of awards, making him the most awarded recording artist in the history of popular music. He became the first artist in history to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades when “Love Never Felt So Good” reached number nine on May 21, 2014. Jackson traveled the world attending events honoring his humanitarianism, and, in 2000, the Guinness World Records recognized him for supporting 39 charities, more than any other entertainer.

Aspects of Jackson’s personal life, including his changing appearance, personal relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In 1993, he was accused of child sexual abuse, but the civil case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and no formal charges were brought. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts.

While preparing for his comeback concert series, This Is It, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Jackson’s death triggered a global outpouring of grief, and a live broadcast of his public memorial service was viewed around the world. Forbes ranks Jackson as the top-earning dead celebrity, with yearly earnings of $825 million in 2016, the highest ever recorded by the publication.

David Bowie was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s.

His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world’s best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Born and raised in South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. “Space Oddity” became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust.

The character was spearheaded by the success of his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie’s style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as “plastic soul”, initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that would come to be known as the “Berlin Trilogy”. “Heroes” (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes”, its parent album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure”, a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let’s Dance, with its title track topping both UK and US charts.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. Bowie also continued acting; his roles included Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), the Goblin King Jareth in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped concert touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with the release of The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).

Roger Daltrey is an English singer and actor.

In a music career spanning more than 50 years, Daltrey came to prominence in the mid-1960s as the founder and lead singer of the English rock band the Who, which released fourteen singles that entered the Top 10 charts in the United Kingdom during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including “I Can’t Explain”, “My Generation”, “Substitute”, “I’m a Boy”, “Happy Jack”, “Pictures of Lily”, “Pinball Wizard”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, and “You Better You Bet”.

Daltrey began his solo career in 1973, while still a member of the Who. Since then, he has released eight studio albums, five compilation albums, and one live album.

His solo hits include “Giving It All Away”, “Walking the Dog”, “Written on the Wind”, “Free Me”, “Without Your Love”, “Walking in My Sleep”, “After the Fire”, and “Under a Raging Moon”. In 2010, he was ranked as number 61 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. Daltrey has been known as one of the most charismatic of rock’s frontmen and famed for his powerful voice and energetic stage presence.

Etta James was an American singer who performed in various genres, including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll, jazz and gospel. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as “The Wallflower”, “At Last”, “Tell Mama”, “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”, and “I’d Rather Go Blind” (for which she wrote the lyrics).

She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album Seven Year Itch.

James is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll. She won six Grammy Awards and 17 Blues Music Awards. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008. Rolling Stone magazine ranked James number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists.

Johnny Cash was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, and author. He was widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide.

Although primarily remembered as a country music icon, his genre-spanning songs and sound embraced rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of multiple inductions in the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.

Cash was known for his deep, calm bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, free prison concerts, and a trademark look, which earned him the nickname “The Man in Black”. He traditionally began his concerts with the simple “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash”, followed by his signature “Folsom Prison Blues”.

Much of Cash’s music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation and redemption, especially in the later stages of his career. His best-known songs include “I Walk the Line”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, “Ring of Fire”, “Get Rhythm” and “Man in Black”. He also recorded humorous numbers like “One Piece at a Time” and “A Boy Named Sue”; a duet with his future wife, June Carter, called “Jackson” (followed by many further duets after their marriage); and railroad songs including “Hey, Porter”, “Orange Blossom Special” and “Rock Island Line”.

During the last stage of his career, Cash covered songs by several late 20th century rock artists, notably “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails and “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode.

Smokey Robinson is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive.

Robinson was the founder and front man of the Motown vocal group the Miracles, for which he also served as the group’s chief songwriter and producer. Robinson led the group from its 1955 origins as the Five Chimes until 1972 when he announced a retirement from the group to focus on his role as Motown’s vice president.

Jackie Wilson was an American soul singer-songwriter and performer.

A tenor with a four octave vocal range, he was nicknamed “Mr. Excitement”, and was important in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul.

He was considered a master showman, and one of the most dynamic and influential singers and performers in R&B and rock ‘n’ roll history.

Gaining fame in his early years as a member of the R&B vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes, he went solo in 1957 and recorded over 50 hit singles that spanned R&B, pop, soul, doo-wop and easy listening.

This included 16 R&B Top 10 hits, including six R&B number ones. On the Billboard Hot 100, he scored 14 Top 20 Pop hits, six of which made it into the Pop Top 10. On September 29, 1975, while headlining a Dick Clark Oldies Concert, he collapsed on stage from what was later determined to be a massive heart attack, and subsequently slipped into a coma, slowly awakening over a period of 8 months.

He remained semi-comatose for the nine years until his death in 1984, at the age of 49. Wilson was an inspiration to Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, James Brown and Michael Jackson to name a few. He was one of the most influential artists of his generation.

Elton John is an English singer-songwriter, musician and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.

In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1.

For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His tribute single, re-penned in dedication to the late Princess Diana, “Candle in the Wind 1997” sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films.

John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club’s home stadium. Elton John was born Reginald Dwight in 1947, and raised in the Pinner area of London. He learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology. John met his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters.

For two years they wrote songs for other artists, including Roger Cook and Lulu, and John also worked as a session musician for artists such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969 his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970 a single, “Your Song”, from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US, his first hit single.

He has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his “lasting impact on British culture”, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists (third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna).

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Having been named a Order of the British Empire in 1996, John was made a Knight Bachelor by Elizabeth II for “services to music and charitable services” in 1998. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.

George Jones was an American musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame for his long list of hit records, including his most well known song “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, as well as his distinctive voice and phrasing.

For the last 20 years of his life, Jones was frequently referred to as the greatest living country singer. Country music scholar Bill C. Malone writes, “For the two or three minutes consumed by a song, Jones immerses himself so completely in its lyrics, and in the mood it conveys, that the listener can scarcely avoid becoming similarly involved.” Waylon Jennings expressed a similar opinion in his song “It’s Alright”: “If we all could sound like we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.” The shape of his nose and facial features earned Jones the nickname “The Possum.”

Born in Texas, Jones first heard country music when he was seven and was given a guitar at the age of nine. He married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvillion, in 1950, and was divorced in 1951. He served in the United States Marine Corps until his discharge in 1953.

He married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. In 1959, Jones released a cover version of “White Lightning” by J. P. Richardson, which launched his career as a singer. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1968; he married fellow country music singer Tammy Wynette a year later. Many years of alcoholism caused his health to deteriorate severely and led to his missing many performances, earning him the nickname “No Show Jones.”

After his divorce from Wynette in 1975, Jones married his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, in 1983 and became mostly sober. Jones died in 2013, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure. During his career, Jones had more than 150 hits, both as a solo artist and in duets with other artists.

Frank Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century.

Sinatra’s music has been considered timeless by many. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, he began his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey.

He found success as a solo artist after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the “bobby soxers”. He released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra’s professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known performers as part of the Rat Pack.

His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity and his subsequent Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He signed with Capitol Records and released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice ‘n’ Easy (1960).

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965 he recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and scored hits with “Strangers in the Night” and “My Way”. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim.

It was followed by 1968’s collaboration with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace. In 1980 he scored a Top 40 hit with “(Theme From) New York, New York”. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998.

Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), and toward the end of his career he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, though before Kennedy’s death Sinatra’s alleged Mafia connections led to his being snubbed.

While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a fine, natural understanding of it, and he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname “Ol’ Blue Eyes”. Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements.

He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him “the greatest singer of the 20th century”, and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

Frankie Valli is an American popular singer, known as the frontman of The Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is known for his unusually powerful falsetto voice.

Valli scored 29 Top 40 hits with The Four Seasons, one Top 40 hit under The Four Seasons’ alias ‘The Wonder Who?’, and nine Top 40 hits as a solo artist. As a member of The Four Seasons, Valli’s number-one hits included “Sherry” (1962), “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (1962), “Walk Like a Man” (1963), “Rag Doll” (1964) and “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” (1975). Valli’s recording of the song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” reached number two in 1967. “You’re Ready Now”, a Valli solo recording from 1966, became a surprise hit in the UK as part of the Northern soul scene and hit number eleven on the British pop charts in December 1970.

As a solo artist, Valli scored number-one hits with the songs “My Eyes Adored You” (1974) and “Grease” (1978).

Patsy Cline was an American country music singer. Part of the early 1960s Nashville sound, Cline successfully “crossed over” to pop music and was one of the most influential, successful and acclaimed vocalists of the 20th century. She died at the age of 30 in a multiple-fatality crash of the private plane of her manager, Randy Hughes.

Cline was best known for her rich tone, emotionally expressive and bold contralto voice and her role as a country music industry pioneer.

Along with Kitty Wells, she helped pave the way for women as headline performers in the genre. Cline was cited as an inspiration by singers in several styles. Books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays document her life and career.

Her hits began in 1957 with Donn Hecht’s and Alan Block’s “Walkin’ After Midnight”, Hank Cochran’s and Harlan Howard’s “I Fall to Pieces”, Hank Cochran’s “She’s Got You”, Willie Nelson’s “Crazy” and ended in 1963 with Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams”.

Millions of her records have sold since her death. She won awards and accolades, causing many to view her as an icon at the level of Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Ten years after her death, in 1973, she became the first female solo artist inducted to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In 1999, she was voted number 11 on VH1’s special, The 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll, by members and artists of the rock industry.

In 2002, country music artists and industry members voted her Number One on CMT’s The 40 Greatest Women of Country Music and ranked 46th in the “100 Greatest Singers of All Time” issue of Rolling Stone magazine. According to her 1973 Country Music Hall of Fame plaque, “Her heritage of timeless recordings is testimony to her artistic capacity”.

Levon Helm was an American musician and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and regular lead vocalist for the Band.

Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band’s recordings, such as “The Weight”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.
Helm also had a successful career as a film actor, appearing as Loretta Lynn’s father in Coal Miner’s Daughter, as Chuck Yeager’s friend and colleague Captain Jack Ridley in The Right Stuff, and as a Tennessee firearms expert in Shooter.

Buddy Holly was an American musician and singer-songwriter who was a central figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. Holly was born in Lubbock, Texas, to a musical family during the Great Depression; he learned to play guitar and to sing alongside his siblings.

His style was influenced by gospel music, country music, and rhythm and blues acts, and he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school. He made his first appearance on local television in 1952, and the following year he formed the group “Buddy and Bob” with his friend Bob Montgomery. In 1955, after opening for Elvis Presley, Holly decided to pursue a career in music. He opened for Presley three times that year; his band’s style shifted from country and western to entirely rock and roll. In October that year, when he opened for Bill Haley & His Comets, Holly was spotted by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall, who helped him get a contract with Decca Records.

Holly’s recording sessions at Decca were produced by Owen Bradley. Unhappy with Bradley’s control in the studio and with the sound he achieved there, Holly went to producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico, and recorded a demo of “That’ll Be the Day”, among other songs. Petty became the band’s manager and sent the demo to Brunswick Records, which released it as a single credited to “The Crickets”, which became the name of Holly’s band. In September 1957, as the band toured, “That’ll Be the Day” topped the US “Best Sellers in Stores” chart and the UK Singles Chart. Its success was followed in October by another major hit, “Peggy Sue”.

The album Chirping Crickets, released in November 1957, reached number five on the UK Albums Chart. Holly made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1958 and soon after, toured Australia and then the UK. In early 1959, Holly assembled a new band, consisting of future country music star Waylon Jennings (bass), famed session musician Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums), and embarked on a tour of the midwestern U.S. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered an airplane to travel to his next show, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper, and the pilot, in a tragedy later eulogized by Don McLean as “The Day the Music Died”.

During his short career, Holly wrote, recorded, and produced his own material. He is often regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums. Holly was a major influence on later popular music artists, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, and Elton John. He was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of “100 Greatest Artists”.

Ronnie Spector is an American singer.

Spector was lead singer of the R&B/Pop vocal girl group, the Ronettes which had a string of hits during the early to mid–1960s.

Ronnie Spector has been called the original “bad girl of rock and roll”.

James Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

A five-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the No. 3 single “Fire and Rain” and had his first No. 1 hit the following year with “You’ve Got a Friend”, a recording of Carole King’s classic song.

His 1976 Greatest Hits album was certified Diamond and has sold 12 million US copies. Following his 1977 album, JT, he has retained a large audience over the decades. Every album that he released from 1977 to 2007 sold over a million copies. His chart performance had a resurgence during the late 1990s and 2000s, when he recorded some of his most-awarded work (including Hourglass, October Road, and Covers). He achieved his first number one album in the US in 2015 with his recording Before This World

Dion is an American singer-songwriter whose work has incorporated elements of doo-wop, rock and R&B styles and, most recently, straight blues. He was one of the most popular American rock and roll performers of the pre-British Invasion era. He had more than a dozen Top 40 hits in the late 1950s and early 60s. He is best remembered for the 1961 singles “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer”, written with Ernie Maresca.

Dion’s popularity waned in the mid-1960s, perhaps due to the public’s changing taste in pop music, and perhaps in part due to personal difficulties he had during this period. But toward the end of the decade, he shifted his style and produced songs with a more mature, contemplative feeling, such as “Abraham, Martin and John”. He became popular again in the late 1960s and into the mid-1970s, and he has continued making music ever since. Critics who had dismissed his early work, pegging him as merely a teen idol, praised his later work, and noted the influence he has had on other musicians.