Anjani Thomas is an American singer-songwriter and pianist, best known for her work with singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, as well as Carl Anderson, Frank Gambale, and Stanley Clarke. She became a solo artist in 2000.
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).
David John Matthews is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and record label owner. He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band (DMB). Matthews was born in Johannesburg, and moved frequently among South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States while growing up. Matthews started playing acoustic guitar at the age of nine.
Conor Mullen Oberst is an American singer-songwriter best known for his work in Bright Eyes. He has also played in several other bands, including Desaparecidos, The Faint, Commander Venus, Park Ave., Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Monsters of Folk, and Better Oblivion Community Center. Oberst was named the Best Songwriter of 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine.
Christopher Anthony John Martin is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and philanthropist. He is the lead singer, primary songwriter, and co-founder of the alternative rock band Coldplay. Born in Exeter, Devon, Martin went to University College London, where he formed a rock band with Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion in 1996 called Starfish, which was eventually renamed Coldplay in 1998.
Nicolas Godin is a French musician best known for being half of the music duo Air.
John Mayall, OBE is an English blues singer, guitarist, organist and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band which has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.
Declan Patrick Aloysius McManus, OBE, known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter. He has won multiple awards in his career, including Grammy Awards in 1999 and 2020, and has twice been nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. In 2003, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Costello number 80 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and mastery of recording techniques, he is widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and significant songwriters of the 20th century. Wilson is also known for his lifelong struggles with mental illness.
David Robert Jones OAL, known professionally as David Bowie, was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, Bowie is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music.
Jeremiah Griffin Harrison is an American songwriter, musician, producer, and entrepreneur. He began his professional music career as a member of the cult band the Modern Lovers before becoming keyboardist and guitarist for the new wave band Talking Heads. In 2002, Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads. Since the Talking Heads went on indefinite hiatus in 1991, he has focused more on producing other bands, a role he started while still with the Talking Heads, beginning with the Violent Femmes third album The Blind Leading the Naked in 1986. During the 1990s, he produced a number of hit albums for bands such as Live, The Verve Pipe, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd among others. He has also released three albums of solo music and has participated in a number of partial reunions of the Talking Heads. In 1999, he helped found the online music community GarageBand.com.
Gary Anthony James Webb, better known as Gary Numan, is an English musician, singer, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He entered the music industry as the frontman of the new wave band Tubeway Army. After releasing two albums with the band, he released his debut solo album The Pleasure Principle in 1979, topping the UK Albums Chart. While his commercial popularity peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s with hits including 'Are 'Friends' Electric?' and 'Cars', he maintains a cult following. He has sold over 10 million records.
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
David Peter Gray is a British singer-songwriter. He released his first album in 1993 and received worldwide attention after the release of White Ladder six years later. It was the first of three UK chart-toppers in six years for Gray, of which the latter two also made the Top 17 in the United States. White Ladder became the fifth best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK. In October 2019 it was ranked the tenth best-selling album of the 21st century in the United Kingdom. Gray has been nominated for four Brit Awards – twice for Best British Male.
Prince Rogers Nelson, known simply as Prince, or , was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor, and director. Widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation, he often played most or all instruments on his recordings. He was known for his flamboyant and androgynous persona, eclectic work, and wide vocal range, which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams.
Josh Adam Klinghoffer is an American musician best known for being the former guitarist for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers from 2009 to 2019, with whom he recorded two studio albums, I'm with You (2011) and The Getaway (2016), and the b-sides compilation, I'm Beside You (2013). Klinghoffer took the place of his friend and frequent collaborator John Frusciante in 2009, after a period as a touring member. Klinghoffer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2012, becoming the Hall of Fame's youngest-ever living inductee at age 32, passing Stevie Wonder, who was 38 when he was inducted. He was surpassed by Nine Inch Nails member Ilan Rubin in 2020.
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.
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.
Izear Luster 'Ike' Turner Jr. was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. An early pioneer of 1950s rock and roll, he is best known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with his then-wife Tina Turner as the leader of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
Bryan Ferry CBE is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an 'elegant, seductive croon'. He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style; according to The Independent, Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their appearances. Peter York described Ferry as 'an art object' who 'should hang in the Tate'.
Andrew Wells VanWyngarden is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitar player and songwriter for the band MGMT, praised for 'an uncanny knack for producing pop music that sounds as if it were filtered through a kaleidoscope.' One of his songs, 'Kids', received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, while the duo was nominated in the Best New Artist category.
Kevin Robert Morby is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He has released six studio albums: Harlem River (2013), Still Life (2014), Singing Saw (2016), City Music (2017), Oh My God (2019), and Sundowner (2020).
Michelle Lynn Johnson, better known as Meshell Ndegeocello, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, and bassist. She has gone by the name Meshell Suhaila Bashir-Shakur which is used as a writing credit on some of her later work. Her music incorporates a wide variety of influences, including funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, reggae and rock. She has received significant critical acclaim throughout her career, being nominated for eleven Grammy Awards, and winning one. She also has been credited for helping to 'spark the neo-soul movement'.
John Anthony White is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He is best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo the White Stripes, but has also had success in other bands and as a solo artist. White has enjoyed consistent critical and popular success and is widely credited as one of the key artists in the garage rock revival of the 2000s. He has won 12 Grammy Awards, and all three of his solo albums have reached number one on the Billboard charts. Rolling Stone ranked him number 70 on its 2010 list of 'The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time'. David Fricke's 2011 list ranked him at number 17.
Steve J. Morse is an American guitarist and composer, best known as the founder of the Dixie Dregs and as the lead guitarist of Deep Purple since 1994. Morse has also enjoyed a successful solo career and was briefly a member of the group Kansas in the mid-1980s. Most recently, Morse became a member of the supergroup Flying Colors.
Steve Marker is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as a cofounder and guitarist in the alternative rock band Garbage.
Eric Howard Carmen is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and keyboardist. He had numerous hit songs in the 1970s and 1980s, first as a member of the Raspberries, and then with his solo career, including hits such as 'All by Myself', 'Never Gonna Fall in Love Again', 'She Did It', 'Hungry Eyes', and 'Make Me Lose Control'.
Sylvester Stewart, better known by his stage name Sly Stone, is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer who is most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. Crawdaddy! has called him 'the founder of progressive soul'.
Troy Van Leeuwen is an American musician and record producer. He is best known as a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist in the rock band Queens of the Stone Age, with whom he has recorded four studio albums. Joining the band in 2002, he is the second longest serving member of the band, after founding member Josh Homme. Leeuwen is also a member of the supergroup Gone Is Gone and has fronted his own projects, Enemy and Sweethead.
Booker Taliaferro Jones Jr. is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and arranger, best known as the frontman of the band Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He has also worked in the studios with many well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, earning him a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
Peter Lawrence Buck is an American musician and songwriter. He was a co-founder and the lead guitarist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. He also plays mandolin on several R.E.M. songs. Throughout his career with R.E.M. (1980–2011), as well as during his subsequent solo career, Buck has also been at various times an official member of numerous 'side project' groups. These groups included Arthur Buck, Hindu Love Gods, The Minus 5, Tuatara, The Baseball Project, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Tired Pony, and Filthy Friends, each of which have released at least one full-length album. Additionally, another side project group called Full Time Men released an EP while Buck was a member, as has a current project called The No-Ones. As well, ad hoc 'supergroups' Bingo Hand Job and Nigel & The Crosses have each commercially released one track.
William Henry Marcus Miller Jr. is an American film composer, jazz composer, record producer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as a bassist. He has worked with trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Herbie Hancock, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, among others.