Sir James Paul McCartney is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and record and film producer who gained worldwide fame as co-lead vocalist and bassist for the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine.
Matthew James Bellamy is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. He is the lead vocalist, guitarist, pianist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Muse. He is recognised for his eccentric stage persona, wide tenor vocal range and musicianship. Bellamy has released solo compositions, and plays bass in the supergroup the Jaded Hearts Club; he produced their debut album, You've Always Been Here (2020).
Chester Burton 'Chet' Atkins, known as 'Mr. Guitar' and 'The Country Gentleman', was an American musician, occasional vocalist, songwriter, and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music style which expanded its appeal to adult pop music fans. He was primarily known as a guitarist. He also played the mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and ukulele.
Stephen Lawrence Winwood is an English singer, songwriter, and musician whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, and pop rock. Though primarily a vocalist and keyboard player, Winwood proficiently plays other instruments, including drums, mandolin, guitars, bass, and saxophone.
Carl Maria von Weber was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist and critic who was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas, he was a crucial figure in the development of German Romantische Oper.
Francisco Gustavo Sánchez Gómez, known as Paco de Lucía, was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a 'titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar', and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as 'one of history's greatest guitarists'.
Sufjan Stevens is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released eight solo studio albums and multiple collaborative albums with other artists. Stevens has received Academy Award and Grammy Award nominations.
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American singer-songwriter, activist and film-maker. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity, and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his era.
Mike Post is an American composer, best known for his TV theme music for various shows, including Law & Order; Law & Order: SVU; The A-Team; NYPD Blue; Renegade; The Rockford Files; L.A. Law; Quantum Leap; Magnum, P.I.; and Hill Street Blues.
Michael Gordon Oldfield is a British musician, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter best known for his debut studio album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success and propelled him to worldwide fame. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield is known for playing a range of instruments, which includes keyboards and percussion, and doing vocals. He has adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient, and new age music.
Arjen Anthony Lucassen is a Dutch singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist musician and record producer best known for his long-running progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon. Lucassen started his career in 1980 as the guitarist and backing vocalist of Dutch band Bodine as Iron Anthony, before joining Vengeance in 1984. After eight years he left the band, wanting to go into a more progressive direction, and released two years later an unsuccessful solo album entitled Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy under the nickname Anthony.