Alwyn Lopez "Al" Jarreau (born March 12, 1940) is an American singer. A seven-time Grammy Award winner, he is the only vocalist in history to win in three separate categories: jazz, pop, and R&B. He won the aforementioned Grammys within a span of four consecutive decades — the '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of a vicar, Jarreau's first singing experiences were in a church choir. He attended Ripon College, where he also sang non-professionally with a group called the Indigos, and graduated in 1962 with a Bachelor Of Science degree in Psychology. He went on to earn a master's degree in Vocational Rehabilitation from the University of Iowa and worked as a rehabilitation counselor in San Francisco while also performing evenings with a jazz trio headed by George Duke.
In 1967, he joined forces with acoustic guitarist Julio Martinez. The duo became the star attraction at a small Sausalito night club called Gatsby's. This success contributed to Jarreau's decision to make professional singing his life and fulltime career.
In 1969, Jarreau and Martinez headed south, where Jarreau appeared in such Los Angeles hot spots as Dino's, the Troubadour and Bitter End West. Television exposure came from Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and David Frost, while he expanded his nightclub appearances to include performing at The Improv between the acts of such rising-star comics as Bette Midler, Jimmie Walker, and John Belushi, among others.
In 1975, Jarreau was working with pianist Tom Canning when he was spotted by Warner Bros. Records and soon thereafter released his critically acclaimed debut album, We Got By, which catapulted him to international fame and garnered him a German Grammy Award. A second German Grammy would follow with the release of his second album, Glow.
One of Jarreau's most commercially and artistically successful albums is Breakin' Away (1981), which includes the hit song "We're in This Love Together." He wrote and performed the Grammy-nominated theme to the 1980s American television show Moonlighting. Among other things, he is well-known for his scat singing and the ability to imitate conventional guitar, bass and percussive instrumentation. He was also a featured vocalist on USA for Africa's "We Are the World" in which he sang the line, "...and so we all must lend a helping hand."
In 2003 Jarreau and conductor Larry Baird collaborated together doing symphony shows around the United States, with Baird arranging additional orchestral material for Jarreau's shows.
He has toured and performed with numerous musicians, including Joe Sample, Kathleen Battle, Miles Davis, David Sanborn, Rick Braun and George Benson. He also performed the role of the Teen Angel in a 1996 Broadway production of Grease. On March 6, 2001 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located at 7083 Hollywood Boulevard on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.
Al Jarreau appeared in a duet with American Idol finalist Paris Bennett during the Season 5 finale and on Celebrity Duets singing with actor Cheech Marin.
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977; middle name sometimes written Aron)a was an American singer, actor, and musician. A cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as "Elvis", and is also sometimes referred to as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" or "The King".
In 1954, Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing "black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial — as did his uninhibited stage and television performances.
He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock" later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame.
In the 1960s, Presley made the majority of his thirty-one movies—mainly poorly reviewed, but financially successful, musicals. In 1968, he returned to live music in a television special, and performed across the U.S., notably in Las Vegas. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales.
He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music. Health problems, drug dependency and other factors led to his death at age 42.
Kenneth Clark "Kenny" Loggins (born January 7, 1948 in Everett, Washington) is an American singer and songwriter best known for a number of soft rock and adult contemporary hit singles beginning in the 1970s.
Originally a part of the duo Loggins and Messina, he has also recorded as a solo artist and written hit songs for other artists.
Loggins was raised in Alhambra, California, where he formed a band called The Second Helping. This band released three singles in 1968 and 1969 on Viva. Greg Shaw described the efforts as "excellent punky folk-pop records" that were written by Loggins who was likely to be the bandleader and singer as well; Shaw included "Let Me In" on both Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 2 and the Pebbles, Volume 9 CD.
His early 20s found him in the band Gator Creek with Mike Deasy. An early version of "Danny's Song" (later recorded by Loggins and Messina) was included on an effort on Mercury Records.
Loggins and Messina
Loggins continued his career in the 1970s. After attracting the attention of fellow singer-songwriter Jim Messina, the two began a duo career as Loggins and Messina, which lasted until 1976. In 1977, Loggins went on to produce his first solo album, Celebrate Me Home, which included the hit "I Believe In Love," originally sung by Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born. Nightwatch, a popular album released in 1978, included the hit "Whenever I Call You Friend", a duet with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. He followed this in 1979 with Keep the Fire.
Loggins also wrote the song "What a Fool Believes" with Michael McDonald. Each man recorded his own version of the song, with McDonald's recording his version as a member of The Doobie Brothers. Loggins's version was released first, but The Doobie Brothers' version became better known, as it went to #1 on the pop charts. In 1980, Loggins and McDonald received a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year for "What a Fool Believes".
In 1979, Loggins and McDonald wrote "This Is It" which Loggins wrote for his ailing father who had to choose between life and death. The song earned Loggins a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal.
Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an Academy Award and Grammy award-winning American singer, songwriter, record producer, and occasional actor, who has sold more than 100 million records.
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, Richie grew up on the campus of Tuskegee Institute. His grandfather's house was across the street from the home of the president of the Institute. His family moved to Illinois where he graduated from Joliet Township High School, East Campus, in Joliet. A star tennis player in Joliet, he accepted a tennis scholarship back at Tuskegee Institute and later graduated with a major in economics.
Back as a student in Tuskegee, he formed a succession of R&B groups in the mid-1960s. In 1968 he became the lead singer and saxophonist with the Commodores. They signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records in 1968 for one record before moving on to Motown Records, being schooled as a support act to the Jackson Five. The Commodores became established as a popular soul group. Their first several albums had a danceable, funky sound (with such tracks as "Machine Gun" and "Brick House"). Over time, Richie wrote and sang more romantic, easy-listening ballads such as "Easy", "Three Times a Lady" and "Still".
By the late 1970s he had begun to accept songwriting commissions from other artists. He composed "Lady" for Kenny Rogers, which hit #1 in 1980, and he produced Rogers' Share Your Love album the following year. Richie and Rogers have maintained a strong friendship in later years. Also in 1981, Richie sang a duet with Diana Ross in the theme song for the film Endless Love. Issued as a single, the song topped the UK and U.S. pop music charts, and it became one of Motown's biggest hits. Its success encouraged Richie to branch out into a full-fledged solo career in 1982. His debut album, Lionel Richie, produced another chart-topping single, "Truly", which continued the style of his ballads with the Commodores.
He released his self-titled debut in 1982. The album hit #3 on the music charts and sold over 4 million copies. His 1983 follow up album, Can't Slow Down, sold over twice as many copies and won two Grammy Awards including Album Of The Year – propelling him into the first rank of international superstars. The album spawned the #1 hit "All Night Long", a Caribbean-flavored dance number that was promoted by a colorful music video produced by former Monkee, Michael Nesmith.
Several more Top 10 hits followed, the most successful of which was the ballad "Hello" (1984), a sentimental love song that showed how far Richie had moved from his R&B roots. Now described by one critic as 'the black Barry Manilow', in 1985 Richie wrote and performed a suitably soothing theme song, "Say You, Say Me", for the film White Nights, winning an Oscar for his efforts. He also collaborated with Michael Jackson on the charity single "We Are the World" by USA for Africa.
In 1986, Richie released Dancing on the Ceiling, his last widely popular album, which produced a run of US and UK hits including "Say You, Say Me", "Dancing on the Ceiling," and "Se La". The title selection, which revived the lively dance sound of "All Night Long(All Night)," was accompanied by another striking video, a feature that played an increasingly important role in Richie's solo career. The critical consensus was that this album represented nothing more than a consolidation of his previous work, though Richie's collaboration with the country group Alabama on "Deep River Woman" did break new ground. By 1987, Richie was exhausted from his work schedule and after a controversial year laid low taking care for his father in Alabama. His father, Lionel Sr., died in 1990. He made his return to recording and performing following the release of his first greatest-hits collection, Back to Front, in 1992.
Since then, his ever-more relaxed schedule has kept his recording and live work to a minimum. He broke the silence in 1996 with Louder Than Words, on which he resisted any change of style or the musical fashion-hopping of the past decade. Instead, he stayed with his chosen path of well-crafted soul music, which in the intervening years has become known as Contemporary R&B.
His albums in the 1990s such as Louder Than Words and Time all failed to achieve the previous decade's commercial success. Some of his recent work such as the album Renaissance has returned to his older style, achieving success in Europe, but only modest notice in the United States. Since 2004, he has produced a total of six Top 40 singles in the UK.
In 2002, Richie's song "Running with the Night" was featured on the Rockstar North video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City though the song was removed from later versions of the game. In 2004, he appeared on Canadian Idol as his songs were featured during a Canadian Idol week.
In November 2005, Lionel Richie performed with Kenny Rogers on a CMT Crossroads special. The show gave an informative insight into their friendship both in and out of the music world. Richie was also the headliner at a 2000 Fourth of July tribute concert with Fantasia Barrino at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Richie released his eighth studio album entitled "Coming Home" on September 12, 2006. The first single of the album was "I Call It Love" and was premiered in July 2006, becoming his biggest hit in the U.S. in ten years. The album was an incredible success for Richie in the United States, peaking at #6. His adopted daughter Nicole Richie stars in the music video for this track.
On December 9, 2006, Richie hosted and performed live on the British television show An Audience with Lionel Richie.
On February 11, 2007, Richie performed his 80s hit song "Hello" on the televised Grammy Awards show.
On November 25, 2007, he made a surprise appearance on the Australian Idol grand finale performing "All Night Long (All Night)" at the Sydney Opera House. Richie donated to Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign.
On May 2, 2008, Lionel Richie was the 21st recipient of the George and Ira Gershwin Lifetime Achievement Award at UCLA's annual Spring Sing. In accepting the award, Richie said: "Forget about surviving 30 some odd years in the music business, Lionel Richie survived 27 years of Nicole Richie".
Recently, he has announced that he would like to get The Commodores back together soon, "or in the next 10 years no one will care."
Richie is also a prominent member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.
In November 2008, Richie appeared in South Africa for the radio show called The Rude Awakening on Highveld Stereo where Jeremy Mansfield created a show called Lionels where the 4 Rude Awakening DJs Paul Rotherham, Sam Cowen, Whackhead Simpson and Bongani Nxumalo all performed as contestants in this Idols style show called Lionels. Richie showed how much of a good sport he was when Sam Cowen threw off the wig she was wearing to declare how much she loved him, Richie went along with it - even running around the room so she could chase him.
On December 31, 2008, Richie performed in Times Square for the New Year's Eve celebration and ball drop.
Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie (born August 16, 1958), known as Madonna, is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in Bay City, Michigan and raised in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City for a career in modern dance. After performing as member of the pop musical groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her self-titled debut album in 1983, and then produced three consecutive number-one studio albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s and four more since year 2000.
Madonna is known for exploring religious symbolism and sexual themes in her work. This drew criticism from the Vatican in the late 1980s. In 1992, she founded an entertainment company, Maverick, which published a book of photographs (Sex). She also released a studio album (Erotica) and starred in a film (Body of Evidence) with erotic themes. These works generated negative publicity and coincided with a fall in commercial sales in the 1990s. Madonna's career was revived in 1998, when the release of her album Ray of Light garnered critical acclaim.
Madonna has acted in 22 films. Although most failed critically and commercially, she earned a Golden Globe Award for her role in the 1996 film Evita. In 1996 Madonna gave birth to a daughter, Lourdes Maria (also known as Lola) by personal trainer Carlos Leon before marrying film director Guy Ritchie in 2000. She and Ritchie have two sons, Rocco and David Banda, a Malawian boy they adopted in 2006, which caused media allegations they violated that country's adoption laws.
Madonna has been regarded as "one of the greatest pop acts of all time" and dubbed the "Queen of Pop" by various sources. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the best-selling female rock artist of the twentieth century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States with 63 million certified albums. Guinness World Records list her as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of US$490 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1970) is an American recording artist and actress. She made her recording debut in 1990 under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, and became the first recording artist to have her first five singles top the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993, a series of hit records established her position as Columbia's highest-selling act. According to Billboard magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States.
Following her separation from Mottola in 1997, Carey introduced elements of hip hop into her album work, to much initial success, but her popularity was in decline when she left Columbia in 2001, and she was dropped by Virgin Records the following year after a highly publicized physical and emotional breakdown, as well as the poor reception given to Glitter, her film and soundtrack project.
In 2002, Carey signed with Island Records, and after a relatively unsuccessful period, she returned to the top of pop music in 2005.
Carey was named the best-selling female pop artist of the millennium at the 2000 World Music Awards. She has the most number-one singles for a solo artist in the United States (eighteen; second artist overall behind The Beatles), where, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female and sixteenth overall recording artist.
In addition to her commercial accomplishments, Carey has earned five Grammy Awards, and is well-known for her vocal range, power, melismatic style, and use of the whistle register.
Paul Antony Young (born 17 January 1956) is an English pop musician.
Paul was born in Luton, Bedfordshire. He has an older brother Mark and an younger sister Joanne. After school, he went to work at the Vauxhall Motors factory and in his spare time played in several bands as bass guitarist. The first group for which he became lead singer was Kat Kool & The Kool Kats. In the late 1970s he joined the Streetband, who had one Top 20 hit in the UK, with the humorous, novelty track "Toast", reaching No. 18 in November 1978.
In December 1979 the Streetband broke up and Young formed the Q-Tips, who established their name by playing live but had no hits in the UK, although their single "Letter Song" did enjoy minor success in mainland Europe.
The Q-Tips went their separate ways in 1982, and Young was signed by CBS Records as a solo performer. His first two singles, "Iron Out the Rough Spots" and a re-make of "Love of the Common People" had no success, but the third, a cover of the Marvin Gaye classic "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)" was No. 1 in the UK singles chart for three weeks in the summer of 1983, the first of fourteen British Top 40 singles, and is on the soundtrack of the 1992 British comedy film Peter's Friends.
Similar success followed all over Europe. In the UK, follow-up single "Come Back and Stay" reached No. 4, and a re-release of "Love of the Common People" made it to No. 2, while his debut album No Parlez was certified platinum in various countries.
Young's style at the time was a warm, approachable white soul, though he sometimes received playful criticism for his fashion decisions. However, his choice of an Antony Price leather suit for the cover of No Parlez was impractical for stage, where an energetic show dictated more robust clothing.
1984 was a difficult year for Young, as his first heavy promotional and live concert tour of America affected his vocal cords to the extent that he couldn't sing at all for most of the year.[citation needed] He recovered, however, to famously perform the opening line to the Band Aid single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and his second album, The Secret of Association, secured his future success in the U.S., Japan and Australia. He continues to have occasional voice and throat difficulties, though.
Young's biggest worldwide hit followed in 1985 with a version of Daryl Hall's "Everytime You Go Away". The song reached #1 on the U.S. pop charts. In 1990, he released a cover of the Chi-Lites song Oh Girl, which peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
He continued to have a successful career, with some highlights such as singing the Crowded House track "Don't Dream It's Over" at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute in 1988, producing a popular duet, "Senza una donna-Without a Woman", with Italian blues singer Zucchero in 1991, and singing "Radio Ga Ga" with Queen in 1992, at the tribute concert to the recently deceased Freddie Mercury. In 1991, he recorded a duet with Irish group Clannad for the Blake Edwards film Switch, a cover of the Joni Mitchell song "Both Sides Now".
"Don't Dream It's Over", "Senza una donna-Without a Woman", and "Both Sides Now" all feature on his first greatest hits album, entitled From Time To Time - The Singles Collection, released in 1990, including the most prominent hit singles from his first four solo albums, the three above mentioned songs and a fourth previously unreleased track, called "I'm Only Foolin' Myself". Los Pacaminos at the 2006 Wickham Festival
Young has released fewer solo albums since he was freed from his contract with CBS/Sony Records in 1993. He reformed the Q-Tips for a short series of concerts that year. He contributed to the Vangelis album Voices in 1995. Young sang the British national anthem "God Save the Queen", on the eve of England's Euro '96 semifinal match against Germany. Now he divides his time between family, the informal Tex-Mex group Los Pacaminos, and performing live during Eighties revival tours in the UK (in 2001 to 2008).
Peabo Bryson (born Robert Peabo Bryson on April 13, 1951) is a two-time Grammy Award-winning American R&B and soul singer, born in Greenville, South Carolina.
He is well known for singing soft-rock ballads, often as a duo with female singers, and his contribution to several Disney animated feature soundtracks.
Bryson won a Grammy Award in 1992 for his performance of the song "Beauty and the Beast" with Céline Dion and another in 1993 for "A Whole New World" (Aladdin's Theme) with Regina Belle.
Peabo's greatest solo hits include 1978's "Feel The Fire", "Reaching For The Sky" & "I'm So Into You", 1982's "Let The Feeling Flow", 1984's "If Ever You're in My Arms Again" (his first Top 10 single, at #10 in the U.S.), 1989's "Show And Tell" and the 1991 hit "Can You Stop the Rain". In 1985, he appeared on the soap opera One Life to Live to sing a lyrical version of its theme song. Bryson's vocals were added to the regular theme song in 1987 and his voice was heard daily until 1992.
Among his duets:
* "Here We Go", with Minnie Riperton * "Gimme Some Time", with Natalie Cole * "Beauty and the Beast", with Céline Dion * "Light The World", with Deborah Gibson * "The Gift", with Roberta Flack * "I Can't Imagine", with Regina Belle * "A Whole New World (Aladdin's Theme)", with Regina Belle * "Tonight I Celebrate My Love", with Roberta Flack * "The Best Part", with Nadia Gifford * "Lovers After All", with Melissa Manchester * "You Are My Home" (from The Scarlet Pimpernel) with Linda Eder * "By the Time This Night Is Over" with Kenny G * "Without You", with Koda Kumi * "As Long As There's Christmas", with Roberta Flack
Bryson has also performed in theater and operatic productions, most notably the tenor role of "Sportin' Life" in the Michigan Opera Theater of Detroit's version of Porgy and Bess.
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO, (born 30 January 1951 in Chiswick, London) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, keyboardist and actor best known as the lead singer and drummer of English progressive rock group Genesis and as a Grammy and Academy Award-winning solo artist. He has also appeared in several films.
Collins sang the lead vocals on eight American chart-toppers between 1984 and 1989; seven as a solo artist and one with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", to the dance pop of "Sussudio", to the political statements of his most successful song, "Another Day in Paradise". His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay.
Collins' professional career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs: "For Absent Friends" from 1971's Nursery Cryme album and "More Fool Me" from Selling England by the Pound, which was released in 1973. On Gabriel's departure in 1975, Collins became the group's lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis's first international hit, "Follow You, Follow Me", demonstrated a drastic change from the band's early years.
His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins' total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2002, were 150 million.
Santana is a flexible number of musicians accompanying Carlos Santana since the late 1960s. Just like Santana himself, the band is known for helping make Latin rock famous in the rest of the world.
The band was formed in 1966 in San Francisco. The first members were Carlos Santana (lead guitar), Tom Fraser (rhythm guitar), Mike Carabello (percussion), Rod Harper (drums & percussion), Gus Rodriguez (bass guitar) and Gregg Rolie (lead vocals & keyboards). In the following years the members of the group changed frequently for a number of reasons, and from 1971 to 1972 there was a brief separation between the group and Santana.
Santana himself rarely sings in his songs despite being the leader of the band and recent hits have been frequently accompanied by a guest singer, rather than the members of the band.
In 1998, the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Mike Carabello, Gregg Rolie and Michael Shrieve being honored.
Simply Red are an English pop band. Their style draws influences from pop, rock, jazz, lovers rock, and blue-eyed soul.
Simply Red's roots originate from the 1976 Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. Manchester art student Mick Hucknall was one of the many young music fans present, along with original members of Joy Division, The Smiths and Buzzcocks. The first incarnation of the band was a punk group called The Frantic Elevators. This band existed for 7 years, with limited releases on local labels, but split in 1984 with only limited local attention and critical acclaim for their final single, "Holding Back the Years".
After the demise of The Frantic Elevators, Hucknall linked up with manager Elliot Rashman. By early 1985 Hucknall and Rashman had assembled a band of local session musicians and began to attract record company attention. Around this time the group adopted the name Simply Red (after Hucknall's nickname, which denoted hair colour, football allegiance to Manchester United and left-wing political affiliation[citation needed]). They signed to Elektra in 1985, with the somewhat changeable line-up of Hucknall, Tony Bowers (bass), Fritz McIntyre (keyboards), Tim Kellett (brass), Sylvan Richardson (guitar) and Chris Joyce (drums).
Their first single, released in 1985, was "Money's Too Tight (To Mention)", a cover of a soul standard originally recorded by The Valentine Brothers. This single had big international success, reaching the UK and Irish Top 20, later the American, French and Dutch Top 30, and the Italian Top 5, beginning a successful career in Italy, sometimes more successful than in the UK. Their debut album, Picture Book, was also released in 1985.
In 1986 the band re-recorded a song that the Frantic Elevators had recorded earlier, "Holding Back the Years", in a more accessible pop style, which was this time a major hit, peaking at #1 in Ireland, #2 in Great Britain, #3 in the Netherlands, #20 in Italy and later #1 in the United States, establishing Simply Red as a household name. The song remains one of the band's most recognized works. The album began to sell more copies, and became an international hit album.
Their second album, 1987's Men and Women saw the band adopting bowler hats and colourful suits instead of their earlier ragamuffin look, and the introspection and social commentary of their debut replaced by a blue-eyed soul sound with funk influences.
With their third album A New Flame in 1989, Simply Red adopted a yet more mainstream populist sound aimed for commercial rather than critical success, typified by their cover of Harold Melvin's pop classic "If You Don't Know Me By Now", which became their second U.S. #1 hit and one of the biggest singles of the year internationally; and their greatest success until now. Hucknall was by this time an international superstar, being photographed with models and Hollywood celebrities. This seemed to harm the band's coherence as a unit, with Hucknall declaring in 1991 that Simply Red was "essentially a solo project".
The band's popular career peaked later that year with the release of Stars, which became the best-selling album for two years running in Europe and the UK (though notably had far less success in the US than their previous albums). Stars mixed Hucknall's anti-Thatcherite political lyrics with an easy-listening lounge-jazz sound, apparently to avoid alienation of their existing fanbase. It was featured on the soundtrack of the 1995 movie Jack and Sarah.
After touring and promoting Stars for two years, Simply Red returned in 1995 with "Fairground", a dance-influenced track featuring prominently a sample from Zki & Dobri's Goodmen project. A massive radio hit, "Fairground" went on to become the band’s first British #1, amid critical panning[citation needed]. Its parent album Life sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, making it the fourth-biggest seller of the year. The band followed this up with cover heavy Blue in 1998 and Love and the Russian Winter. Subsequent releases have mostly been greatest-hits collections, although the band did release "Home" in 2003, a mixture of original songs and covers, including a version of The Stylistics song "You Make Me Feel Brand New". Simplified followed in 2005, mainly an album of stripped down versions of their Classic hits.
The single "Oh! What A Girl!" released in September 2006 from their album Stay, their 10th, released on 12 March 2007. This was preceded by the single “So Not Over You”, released on 5 March 2007. The third single from the album was the title song "Stay", released on 28 May 2007. The fourth and the last single of Simply Red, "The World And You Tonight", was released in November 2007.
Simply Red will perform a greatest hits show on December the 3rd, in support of their newest Greatest Hits album.
Mick Hucknall announced that the band were due to split in 2010, after a farewell tour, starting in early 2009, ending in 2010.
"I've kind of decided that the 25 years is going to be enough, so I intend that the 2009 will be the last Simply Red tour."
Hucknall released his first solo album, Tribute to Bobby on 19 May 2008.
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE (born 2 October 1951), almost universally known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician from Wallsend in North Tyneside.
Prior to starting his solo career, he was the principal songwriter, lead singer and bassist of the rock band The Police.
As a solo musician and member of The Police, Sting has sold over 100 million records, and received over sixteen Grammy Awards for his work, receiving his first Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1981, and receiving an Oscar nomination for best song.
The Beatles were a rock and pop band from Liverpool, England that formed in 1960. During their career, the group primarily consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals).
Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and skiffle, the group worked with different musical genres, ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock.
Their clothes, style and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.
After the band broke up in 1970, all four members embarked upon successful solo careers.
The Beatles are one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music, selling over one billion records internationally.
In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one, earning more number one albums (15) than any other group in UK chart history. This commercial success was repeated in many other countries; their record company, EMI, estimated that by 1985 they had sold over one billion records worldwide.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles have sold more albums in the United States than any other band. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Beatles number one on its list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
According to that same magazine, The Beatles' innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today.
In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the chart's fiftieth anniversary; The Beatles topped it.
The Bee Gees were a singing trio of brothers — Barry, Robin, Maurice Gibb. They were born on the Isle of Man to English parents, lived in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, England, United Kingdom and during their childhood years moved to Brisbane, Australia, where they began their musical careers. Their worldwide success came when they returned to the United Kingdom and signed with producer Robert Stigwood.
The multiple award-winning group was successful for most of its forty years of recording music, but it had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a harmonic "soft rock" act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as the foremost stars of the disco music era in the late 1970s.
Barry sang lead on many songs, in an R&B falsetto introduced in the disco years; Robin provided the clear vibrato lead that was a hallmark of their pre-disco music; Maurice sang high and low harmonies throughout their career. The three brothers co-wrote most of their hits, and they said that they felt like they became 'one person' when they were writing. The group's name was retired after Maurice died in January 2003.
The Bee Gees were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997; fittingly, the presenter of the award to "Britain's first family of harmony" was Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys, America's first family of rock harmony.
It has been estimated that the Bee Gees' record sales total more than 200 million, easily making them one of the best-selling music artists of all-time.
The above figure in record sales does not include record sales for artists for whom they have written and with whom they have collaborated.
Their 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame citation says "Only Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees".
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (born August 9, 1963) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, record producer, film producer, and former fashion model.
Houston rose to international fame in the mid-1980s and her crossover success opened doors for many other African American women to find success in pop music and movies. She is frequently referred to as "The Voice", and is known for her "powerful, penetrating pop-gospel voice".
In the 1980s, Houston was one of the first African-American female artists to receive heavy rotation on MTV in its early years, when the network was leaning more towards a white male rock dominated format. Her debut album became the biggest selling debut album of all time for a solo artist, her follow up album was the first album by a female artist to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200, and she holds a record seven consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, beating a record of six held previously by both The Beatles and The Bee Gees.
Houston continued her success into Hollywood in the 1990s, starting with the box office hit The Bodyguard. The soundtrack to the movie is the best-selling soundtrack of all time, and the single "I Will Always Love You" the best-selling single by a female artist and 6th best-selling song in the history of music. She continued the decade with other successful and culturally significant projects before returning to the studio. Houston is the fourth best-selling female recording artist in the U.S according to the RIAA, and is the "The Most Awarded Female Artist of All Time" according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
After Houston married former R&B singer Bobby Brown at the height of her career, rumors of drug abuse started to affect her popularity. This led to a decline in her public image and her album sales dropped during the 2000s. Her personal troubles and erratic behavior became more talked about than any of her music, with stories regularly appearing in the tabloid press. After successful trips to rehab, Houston divorced Brown and gained custody of their only daughter in 2006. She has since been working on her seventh studio album.
Michael Bolton (born Michael Bolotin on February 26, 1953), is a universally acclaimed American singer-songwriter and a former heavy metal singer, best known for his soft rock ballads and tenor vocals.
His achievements include selling 53 million albums, eight top ten albums, two number one singles on the Billboard charts, and awards from both the American Music Awards and Grammy Awards.
Bolton's hard rock band, Blackjack, once toured with heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne. He began recording as Michael Bolotin in 1975, after gaining his first major hit as a songwriter, co-writing "How Am I Supposed to Live Without You" for Laura Branigan, previously best-known for singing the disco-pop classic "Gloria". Narrowly missing the Top 10 on the U.S. pop chart, Branigan took the song to number one on the Adult Contemporary chart for three weeks. The two sought to work with each other again, and their next of several associations was when Bolton co-wrote "I Found Someone" for Branigan in 1985. Her version was only a minor hit, but two years later, Cher resurrected the song, and with it her own singing career. Bolton co-wrote several other songs for both singers.
Bolton would achieve his greatest success in the late eighties and early nineties as a singer in the adult contemporary/easy listening genre. One of his first major hits was his 1987 interpretation of the Otis Redding classic, "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay." Always interested in soul and Motown classics, Bolton's success with that song encouraged him to tackle the standard "Georgia On My Mind," with which he had another hit. Most of Bolton's recordings are original material, however, he has also written songs for such artists as Barbra Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Kenny G, Peabo Bryson and Patti LaBelle. Bolton's early songwriting collaborators included Doug James and Mark Mangold, and as his fame grew he began to cowrite with higher-profile writers such as BabyFace, Diane Warren, and Bob Dylan. As a singer, he has performed with Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras, Lucia Aliberti, Renée Fleming, Zucchero, Patti LaBelle, Céline Dion, Ray Charles, Percy Sledge, Wynonna Judd, and BB King.
Bolton's last charting single in the US was the 1997 hit "Go the Distance" (featured in the Walt Disney motion picture Hercules), which peaked at #1 on the U.S. billboard chart.
Bolton also hired conductor Larry Baird (orchestral musical director/conductor/arranger for The Moody Blues, Kansas, Three Dog Night, Al Jarreau, Alan Parsons) for his 2001 tour.
In March 2007, Bolton toured South Africa for the first time. He was the headline act at Jacaranda 94.2 FM's two day concert.
Bolton recorded the song "New York, New York" (also on his Bolton Swings Sinatra album), for an album which was recorded in five days, Over the Rainbow. This was for an episode of the TV series, Challenge Anneka. The proceeds from the album went to children's hospices across the UK.
Bolton performed a duet entitled "Il Mio Amico" with the Italian singer Anna Tatangelo at the Sanremo Music Festival 2008. The song was originally sung by Tatangelo alone, but the duet version contained English lyrics as well. It is a song about the difficulties of being a homosexual in Italy, written by Tatangelo's partner, Gigi D'Alessio.
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou (Greek: Γεώργιος Κυριάκος Παναγιώτου) (born 25 June 1963), best known as George Michael, is a two-time Grammy Award winning, English singer-songwriter, who has had a career as frontman of the duo Wham! as well as a soul-influenced, solo pop musician.
He has sold over 110 million records worldwide, encompassing 12 British #1 singles, 7 British #1 albums, 10 US #1 singles, and 2 US #1 albums. His 1987 debut solo album, Faith became one of the best selling albums of all time, as well as the first album to produce six top 5 singles in the United States. It has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
All four of his solo studio albums have all reached #1 on the U.K. charts and have gone on to become huge international successes. This success has made George Michael the most played artist on British radio over the past two decades.
George Benson (born March 22, 1943 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American musician, whose recording career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist. He is however, better known to the public at large as a Pop and R&B singer, famous for such hits as "Give Me the Night", "Lady Love Me (One More Time)", "Turn Your Love Around", "Inside Love(So Personal)", "In Your Eyes", and "This Masquerade", among others.
Benson is an accomplished scat singer, often developing intricate melodic voice phrases alongside his guitar, accurately parallelling it in pitch, accent, tempo, and syncopation.
Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945) is an English blues-rock guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer. He is "probably most famous for his mastery of the Stratocaster guitar."
Clapton has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Yardbirds, of Cream, and as a solo performer.
Often viewed by critics and fans alike as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Clapton was ranked fourth in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #53 on their list of the Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Although Clapton has varied his musical style throughout his career, it has always remained grounded in the blues.
Yet, in spite of this focus, he is credited as an innovator in a wide variety of genres. These include blues-rock (with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and the Yardbirds) and psychedelic rock (with Cream).
Additionally, Clapton's chart success was not limited to the blues, with chart-toppers in Delta blues (Me and Mr. Johnson), pop ("Change the World") and reggae (Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff").
One of his most successful recordings was the hit love song "Layla," which he played with the band Derek and the Dominos.
Christopher Stephen Botti or Chris Botti (born October 12, 1962) is an American trumpeter and composer.
Born in Portland, Oregon and raised in Corvallis, Oregon, he spent two years of his childhood growing up in Italy.
His earliest musical influence was his mother, a classically trained pianist and part-time piano teacher.
He plays a Martin Committee Handcraft trumpet made in 1940, and uses a 3 silver plated mouthpiece from Bach made in 1926, having recently retired his 1920 3C Bach mouthpiece.
He counts Miles Davis among his most significant influences.
Botti attended Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon where he studied under Larry McVey whose renowned jazz program had come to be a regular stop for Stan Kenton and Mel Tormé when they were looking for new players.
It was here he played alongside his friend, trombonist and future Academy Award nominated filmmaker, Todd Field.
After leaving Mount Hood, Botti studied under David Baker and Bill Adam at Indiana University.
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, OC, C.C OQ (born March 30, 1968 in Charlemagne, Quebec) is a Canadian pop singer, occasional songwriter and actress.
Born to a large, impoverished family, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record.
In 1990, she released the anglophone album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.
Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest. Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to Sony Records in 1986.
During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide success with several English and French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history.
However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a temporary retirement from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. She returned to the music scene in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star theatrical show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals.
In 2004, after surpassing 175 million in album sales worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award at the World Music Awards for becoming the best selling female artist of all time. In April 2007 Sony BMG announced that Celine Dion had sold over 200 million albums worldwide.
Kenneth Gorelick (born June 5, 1956), better known by his stage name Kenny G, is an American saxophonist. His fourth album, Duotones, brought him breakthrough success in 1986. Kenny's main instrument is the soprano saxophone, but he also on occasion plays alto and tenor saxophone and flute.
Kenny was born in Seattle, Washington, and first came into contact with a saxophone when he heard someone performing with one on The Ed Sullivan Show. He learned how to play under the direction of local trumpeter Gerald Pfister and by practicing along with records (mostly of Grover Washington, Jr.), "trying" to emulate the sounds that he was hearing. At Franklin High School he failed to get into the jazz band when he applied, although was accepted the following year when he tried again. He also played for his high school golf team, a sport which he had loved ever since his older brother, Brian Gorelick, introduced it to him when he was ten years old.
Aaron Neville (born January 24, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American soul and R&B singer.
He made his debut in 1966 with the hit single "Tell It Like It Is", a Number One hit on the Billboard R&B charts.
Neville did not chart again, however, until 1989, when he collaborated with Linda Ronstadt on three consecutive duets: "Don't Know Much", "All My Life", and "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", of which the first two reached Number One on the Adult Contemporary charts.
Neville has released more than twenty singles, including three Number Ones on the Adult Contemporary format, and a fourth on the R&B format.
David Sanborn - Hideaway
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David Sanborn - Hideaway
David Sanborn has been a frequent visitor to the Montreux Jazz Festival,
either headlining in his own right, as a sideman or as p...
