Eric Johnson is an American guitarist, vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. His 1990 album Ah Via Musicom was certified platinum by the RIAA, and the single 'Cliffs of Dover' won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
Kourosh Yaghmaei is an Iranian singer-songwriter, composer and record producer, who started his career in the early 1970s. Regarded as one of the greatest Persian psychedelic rock musicians in the history of Iranian rock music, he is known as 'the Godfather of Iranian psychedelic rock', as well as 'the king of rock'.
John Laird Abercrombie was an American jazz guitarist. His work explored jazz fusion, free jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Abercrombie studied at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. He was known for his understated style and his work with organ trios.
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as the guitarist, primary songwriter and frontman of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona, Cobain's compositions widened the thematic conventions of mainstream rock music. He was often heralded as a spokesman of Generation X and is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in the history of alternative rock.
Vincent Grant Gill is an American country singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a vocalist and musician have placed him in high demand as a guest vocalist and a duet partner.
Billy Ray Cyrus is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has released 16 studio albums and 53 singles since 1992, and is known for his hit single 'Achy Breaky Heart', which topped the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart and became the first single ever to achieve triple platinum status in Australia. It was also the best-selling single in the same country in 1992. Due to the song's music video, the line dance rose in popularity.
Corey Todd Taylor is an American singer, musician and songwriter. He is known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour.
Joseph Satriani is an American guitarist, composer, songwriter, and guitar teacher. Early in his career, Satriani worked as a guitar instructor, with many of his former students achieving fame, including Steve Vai, Larry LaLonde, Rick Hunolt, Kirk Hammett, Andy Timmons, Charlie Hunter, Kevin Cadogan, and Alex Skolnick; he then went on to have a successful solo music career. He is a 15-time Grammy Award nominee and has sold over 10 million albums, making him the bestselling instrumental rock guitarist of all time.
Sir George Ivan Morrison is a Northern Irish Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer, whose recording career is in its seventh decade. He began performing as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Known as 'Van the Man' to his fans, he rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B and rock band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic 'Gloria'. His solo career began in 1967, under the pop-hit orientated guidance of Bert Berns, with the release of the hit single 'Brown Eyed Girl'. After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought out Morrison's contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). While initially a poor seller, the album is now regarded as a classic.
Justin David Hayward is an English musician best known as songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the rock band The Moody Blues. Hayward became the group's principal lead guitarist and vocalist over the 1967–1974 period, and the most prolific songwriter and composer of several international hit singles for the band.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and recording artist. She attained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar that was extremely important to the origins of rock and roll. She was the first great recording star of gospel music and among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll audiences, later being referred to as 'the original soul sister' and 'the Godmother of rock and roll'. She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians, including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Ezra Michael Koenig is an American musician, singer-songwriter, television producer, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, playwright, YouTuber, and radio personality. He is best known as the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of indie rock band Vampire Weekend. Additionally, Koenig is the creator of the Netflix animated comedy series Neo Yokio and also hosts the Apple Music radio talk show Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig. Time Crisis is airing its seventh season, as of 2021.
Corey Harris is an American blues and reggae musician, currently residing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Along with Keb' Mo' and Alvin Youngblood Hart, he raised the flag of acoustic guitar blues in the mid-1990s. He was featured on the 2003 PBS television mini-series, The Blues, in an episode directed by Martin Scorsese.
Eric Patrick Clapton, is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and of Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone's list of the '100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time' and fourth in Gibson's 'Top 50 Guitarists of All Time'. He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of 'The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players' in 2009.
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American musician, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
Riley B. King, known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as 'the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century'.
David Albert Alvin is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, music producer and poet. He is a former and founding member of the roots rock band the Blasters. Alvin has recorded and performed as a solo artist since the late 1980s and has been involved in various side projects and collaborations. He has had brief stints as a member of the bands X and the Knitters.
Brittany Howard is an American musician, singer, and songwriter known for being the lead vocalist, guitarist, and main songwriter of rock bands Alabama Shakes, Thunderbitch and Bermuda Triangle. Her work with Alabama Shakes has garnered her nine Grammy Award nominations including Best New Artist and Album of the Year for Sound & Color. They eventually won four awards including Best Alternative Music Album.
Amanda Joy Michalka is an American actress, voice actress, singer-songwriter, and musician. She is best known as one half of the musical duo Aly & AJ, alongside her sister Aly Michalka. She has appeared in films such as The Lovely Bones (2008), Secretariat (2010), Super 8 (2011), Grace Unplugged (2013), Weepah Way for Now (2015), and Support the Girls (2018). Michalka also starred in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs (2013–present) and its spin-off series Schooled (2019–2020). She voiced a lead role as Catra in the Netflix animated adventure series She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018–2020).
Patrick Bruce Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.
Malcolm Mitchell Young was an Australian musician and songwriter. He was best known as the co-founder, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist, and songwriter of the rock band AC/DC. Except for a brief absence in 1988, he was with the band from its beginning in 1973 until retiring in 2014 due to health reasons. As a member of AC/DC, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
William Richard Frisell is an American guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell came to prominence as a jazz guitarist at ECM Records in the 1980s, and went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a member of the New York City Downtown Scene where he formed a long partnership with John Zorn. He was also a longtime member of Paul Motian's groups from the early 1980s until Motian's death in 2011. Since 2000, Frisell's output as a bandleader has included folk, country music, and Americana.
Jeffrey John Hanneman was an American musician, best known as a founding member and lead guitarist of the American thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman composed both music and lyrics for every Slayer album until his death in 2013 at age 49. He had his own signature guitar, the ESP Jeff Hanneman Signature model.
Kaki King is an American guitarist and composer. King is known for her percussive and jazz-tinged melodies, energetic live shows, use of multiple tunings on acoustic and lap steel guitar, and her diverse range in different genres.
Frank Gambale is an Australian jazz fusion guitarist. He has released twenty albums over a period of three decades, and is known for his use of the sweep picking and economy picking techniques.
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.
Shahram Shabpareh is an Iranian Pop singer and songwriter.
Carl Lee Perkins was an American singer-songwriter who recorded most notably at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Amongst his best-known songs are 'Blue Suede Shoes', 'Matchbox' and 'Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby'.
Dieter Bohlen is a German songwriter, producer, singer, and television personality. Often referred to as the 'Pop-Titan' in the German-speaking press, he first achieved fame as a member of pop duo Modern Talking in the 1980s, and has since produced numerous German and international artists. He is also a judge on casting shows Deutschland sucht den Superstar and Das Supertalent, having been present on all seasons of both shows.