Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing (12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003), nicknamed elder brother (哥哥), was an actor and musician from Hong Kong. Cheung was considered as "One of the founding fathers of Cantopop," and "combining a hugely successful film and music career".

In 2000, Cheung was named Asian Biggest Superstar by China Central Television, and voted as The Most Favorite Actor in 100 Years of Chinese Cinema in 2005.

In 1977, Cheung won second prize by singing Don McLean's "American Pie" at the Asian Music Contest held by Rediffusion Television (RTV). He signed a contract with RTV, which subsequently became Asia Television Limited (ATV) and began his career in the entertainment industry. He also signed a music contract with Polydor Records, releasing Day Dreaming (1977) and Lover's Arrow (1979).

The early days of his career were not easy. He was once booed off the stage during a public performance, and his first two albums were not welcomed by the public. He left Polydor Records at the end of his contract. Cheung's first film, The Erotic Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓春上春) in 1978 was a soft porn film. Cheung later stated that he was unaware of the sexual nature of the film when he signed the contract.

During the 1970s and 1980s, he appeared in a number of TV dramas such as The Young Concubine (我家的女人), Agency 24 (甜甜廿四味), Pairing (對對糊), and The Spirit Of The Sword (浣花洗劍錄). These TV dramas helped turn him into a household name in South East Asia.

In 1982, Cheung joined Capital Artists upon the end of his contract with RTV. It was at Capital Artists that Florence Chan became his music agent and remained as such through his entire career. While at Capital Artists, he also met Anita Mui, another Hong Kong Cantopop idol, starting a long lasting friendship. In 1983, Cheung released his first hit song, "The Wind Blows On" (風繼續吹). In 1984, he released his first top ten hit song "Monica", which became the first so-called "fast" song that won the RTHK Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Award. "Monica" became representative of a new genre of Hong Kong music in the mid 1980s. Fans began to demand fast and energetic Cantopop songs that would be suitable for both dancing and listening. Other Top Ten Gold Songs released by Cheung through Capital Artists included "Wild Wind" (不羈的風) (album, For Your Love Only, 1985); "Who Can Be With Me" (有誰共鳴) (album, Leslie Cheung: Allure Me, 1986) and "Love in Those Years" (當年情) (theme song for A Better Tomorrow, album Leslie Cheung: Allure Me, 1986). "Who Can Be With Me" became the Gold of the Gold Songs (Best Song) of the Year for 1986.

Cheung's movie career was a little slower to take off. He appeared in supporting roles in his second and third movies Encore (1980) and On Trial (1981). However, his acting talent was soon recognized with his nomination for the Hong Kong Film Awards' Best Supporting Actor for his role in On Trial. Subsequently after this nomination, he began to star as the leading man in Teenage Dreamers (1982) and has held the lead role in almost every movie he had been in since. From the early 1980s through 1986, most of the movies in which he had starred were teenage movies. Among them, Nomad (1982, directed by Patrick Tam Kar-ming) is widely considered by film critics as representative of Hong Kong "New Wave" films. Cheung's role as Louis in Nomad won him his first Best Actor nomination of the Hong Kong Film Awards. Later, Cheung stated that he considers Nomad as his first "real" movie. During this period, Cheung continued to act in a number of Television Broadcasts (TVB) dramas, such as Once Upon an Ordinary Girl (儂本多情) and The Fallen Family (武林世家).

Roman Tam

Roman Tam

Roman Tam, known by the stage name Lo man (羅文), nickname Law Kee (蘿記) was a renowned cantopop singer. He is regarded as the "Godfather of Cantopop".

In the far east, he is equivalent to the western world Elton John.

Tam was seen as a cultural icon to Chinese communities around the world (including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and, later Mainland China). He had a string of hits in a career spanning 30 years. He was well-respected for his singing skills, his positive outlooks, and his insistence on correct pronunciations. He was also groundbreaking for being the first major Hong Kong singer to pose in drag and to pose in nude.

Born in Guangxi, China, he later immigrated to Hong Kong in 1962 at the age of 12. After forming a short-lived band known as Roman and the Four Steps, he became a contract singer under studios term at Television Broadcasts Limited. He briefly switched to Asia Television Ltd in the early 1990s.

During the 1990s he accepted many budding singers as his students. Some of which who became famous included Joey Yung and Ekin Cheng. He had sang many well known songs for various TV series including Below the Lion Rock and the famous 1982 TVB adaption of The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Tam was unmarried and was rumoured to be gay. He died in Hong Kong at the Queen Mary Hospital from liver cancer. The title of "Godfather of Cantopop" was confirmed in his obituary.

Anita Mui

Anita Mui

Anita Mui Yim-fong (10 October 1963 - 30 December 2003) was a popular Hong Kong singer, actress, and sex symbol. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva. Once she held a sell-out concert at Hammersmith, London, England, where she was dubbed the title "Madonna of Asia". That title has stayed with her throughout her career, and has been used as a comparison for both Eastern and Western media.

In the 1980s the gangtai style of music was revolutionized by her wild dancing and femininity on stage. She was famous for having outrageous costumes and also high powered performances. Her fanbase reached far beyond Hong Kong, and into many parts of Asia including Taiwan, Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia as well as the overseas market. In the Hong Kong entertainment industry where stars often come and go, Mui was able to remain a major star in the spotlight for 20 years. Her career only came to a stop in 2003 when she was suddenly diagnosed with cervical cancer, dying at the age of only 40.

Even so, her music and film legacy continues to live on. Her success reached well beyond that of the entertainment circle with humanitarian work, donations and charities that played a major role in helping society even well into the present day.

Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson

Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American recording artist and actress. Born in Gary, Indiana and raised in Encino, Los Angeles, California, she is the youngest child of the Jackson family of musicians. She first performed on stage with her family beginning at the age of seven, and later started her career as an actress with the variety television series The Jacksons in 1976. She went on to star in other television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times and Diff'rent Strokes.

At age sixteen in 1982, Jackson signed a recording contract with A&M, releasing her self-titled debut album the same year. She faced criticism for her limited vocal range, and for being yet another member of the Jackson family to become a recording artist. Beginning with her third studio album Control (1986), Jackson began a long-term collaboration with record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Her music with Jam and Lewis incorporated contemporary R&B with elements of rap music, sample loop, triple swing and industrial beats, which led to crossover appeal in popular music. In addition to receiving recognition for the innovation in her albums, music videos and choreography, Jackson was acknowledged as a role model for her socially conscious lyrics.

In 1991, she signed the first of two record-breaking, multi-million dollar recording contracts with Virgin Records, which established her as one of the highest paid artists in the recording industry. Her debut album under the Virgin label, janet. (1993), saw Jackson develop a public image as a sex symbol as she began to explore sexuality in her music. That same year she appeared in her first starring film role in Poetic Justice; since then she has continued to act in feature films. By the end of the decade Jackson was named the second most successful recording artist of the 1990s. All for You (2001), became her fifth consecutive studio album to debut at number one the Billboard 200 album charts. In 2007, she changed labels, signing with the Island Def Jam Music Group and released her tenth studio album Discipline the following year.

Jackson is ranked by Billboard magazine as one of the top ten best-selling music artists in the history of contemporary music, having sold over 100 million albums worldwide. The Recording Industry Association of America lists her as the eleventh best-selling female artist in the United States with 26 million certified albums. Jackson's longevity in the recording industry has rivaled that of several entertainers and her musical style and choreography have influenced a number of contemporary pop and R&B artists.

Three Degrees

Three Degrees

The Three Degrees are a female Philadelphia soul and disco vocal musical group, formed in 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Although always fronted by a three person line-up, there have been a number of personnel changes, and a total of twelve women have represented the group so far.

The original members were Fayette Pinkney, Shirley Porter and Linda Turner.

The trio, tagged by the media as 'Prince Charles' favourites' were the first girl group to top the UK Singles Chart since The Supremes in 1964. They are best known for their million selling 1974 hit song, "When Will I See You Again".

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an innovative cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing, or wordless vocalizing.

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and deep, instantly recognizable voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extended well beyond jazz, and by the end of his career in the '60s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general: critic Steve Leggett describes Armstrong as "perhaps the most important American musician of the 20th century."

Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, author, actor and philanthropist, known for her prolific work in country music. In the 44 years since her national chart debut, she remains the most successful female artist in the history of country music, with 25 number-one singles (a record for a female artist), and a record 42 top-10 country albums. She has the distinction of having performed on a top-5 country hit in each of the last five decades. Teen sensation, Miley Cyrus, Is Dolly's Goddaughter.

She is known for her distinctive mountain soprano, sometimes bawdy humor, flamboyant dress sense and voluptuous figure.

Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diane Ernestine "Diana" Ross (born March 26, 1944) is a recording artist, actress, and entertainer. During the 1960s, she helped shape the Motown Sound as lead singer of The Supremes before leaving for a solo career in the beginning of 1970. Since the beginning of her career with The Supremes and as a solo artist, Diana Ross has sold more than 100 million records.

During the 1970s and through the mid 1980s, Ross was one of the most successful female artists of the rock era, crossing over into film, television and Broadway. She received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her 1972 role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues. She won a Golden Globe award for Lady Sings the Blues. She won American Music Awards, garnered twelve Grammy Award nominations, and won a Tony Award for her one-woman show, An Evening with Diana Ross in 1977.

In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the "Female Entertainer of the Century." The Guinness Book Of World Records declared Diana Ross as the most successful female music artist of the 20th century with a total of eighteen American number-one singles: twelve as lead singer of The Supremes and six as a soloist. Ross was the first female solo artist to score six number-ones. This feat puts her in a tie for fifth place among solo female artists with the most No. 1s on the Hot 100. She is also one of the few recording artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--one as a solo artist and the other as a member of the trio "The Supremes." In December 2007, she received a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Honors Award.

Including her work with the Supremes, Ross has recorded 61 studio albums.

Diane Ernestine Ross, the daughter of a former United States Army soldier from Bluefield, West Virginia and a schoolteacher from Bessemer, Alabama, was born at Hutzel Women's Hospital, in Detroit, Michigan. After living on Detroit's St. Antoine street, Ross' family eventually settled at the low-income Brewster-Douglass housing projects. Ross aspired to be a fashion designer and learned how to design and sew clothes while attending Cass Technical High School in Midtown Detroit.

In 1959 Ross was brought to the attention of Milton Jenkins, the manager of the local doo-wop group The Primes, by friend Mary Wilson. According to sources, Primes member Paul Williams convinced Jenkins to enlist Ross in the sister group The Primettes, which included Wilson, Florence Ballard and Betty McGlown. Ross, Wilson and Ballard each sang lead during live performances and in 1960, the group signed with Lupine Records where the label issued the Ross-led single "Tears of Sorrow" b/w the Wilson-led "Pretty Baby". The single, however, flopped.

Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers

Kenneth Ray "Kenny" Rogers (born August 21, 1938, in Houston, Texas) is an American country music singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor and entrepreneur.

He has been very successful, charting more than 70 hit singles across various music genres and topping the country and pop album charts for more than 420 individual weeks in the United States alone.

Two of his albums, The Gambler and Kenny, are featured in the About.com poll of "The 200 Most Influential Country Albums Ever". He was voted the "Favorite Singer of All-Time" in a 1986 joint poll by readers of both USA Today and People. He has received hundreds of awards for both his music and charity work. These include AMAs, Grammys, ACMs and CMAs, as well as a lifetime achievement award for a career spanning six decades in 2003.

Success in recent years include the 2006 album release, Water & Bridges, an across the board hit, that peaked at #5 in the Billboard Country Albums sales charts, also charting high in the Billboard 200. The first single from the album, "I Can't Unlove You," was also a chart hit. Remaining a popular entertainer around the world, the following year he completed a tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland telling BBC Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright, his favorite hit of his was "The Gambler".

He also starred as John J. Macshayne in MacShayne: Winner Takes All and MacShayne: The Final Roll of the Dice.

Marie Osmond

Marie Osmond

Olive Marie Osmond (born October 13, 1959) is an American actress, singer, doll designer, and a member of the show business family, The Osmonds. Although she was never part of her family's singing group, she gained success as a solo country music artist in the 1970s and 1980s. Her best known song is a cover of the country pop ballad "Paper Roses." In 1976, she and her singer brother Donny Osmond began hosting the TV variety show Donny & Marie.

Born Olive Marie Osmond in Ogden, Utah to Olive and George Osmond, Marie Osmond was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, along with her eight brothers Virl, u Tom, Alan, Wayne, Merrill, Jay, Donny, and Jimmy Osmond. Since an early age, her brothers maintained a career in show business, singing and performing on national television. Osmond debuted as part of her brothers' act The Osmond Brothers on the The Andy Williams Show when she was three, but generally did not perform with her brothers in the group's television performances through the 1960s.