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Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn (/ˈælbɑːrn/; born 23 March 1968) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He is the frontman of the rock band Blur and the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual band Gorillaz. Raised in Leytonstone, East London, and around Colchester, Essex, Albarn attended the Stanway School, where he met the guitarist Graham Coxon and formed Blur. They released their debut album Leisure in 1991. After spending long periods touring the US, Albarn's songwriting became increasingly influenced by British bands from the 1960s. The result was the Blur albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). All three received critical acclaim, while Blur gained mass popularity in the UK, aided by a Britpop chart rivalry with Oasis. Albums such as Blur (1997), 13 (1999) and Think Tank (2003) incorporated influences from lo-fi, art rock, electronic and world music. These were followed by The Magic Whip (2015), Blur's first studio album in 12 years.

Dave Grohl

David Eric Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is an American musician. He is the founder of the rock band Foo Fighters, for which he is the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter. Prior to forming Foo Fighters, he was the drummer of rock band Nirvana from 1990 to 1994. At 17, Grohl joined the punk rock band Scream after the departure of their drummer Kent Stax. Grohl became the drummer for Nirvana after Scream broke up in 1990. Nirvana's second album, Nevermind (1991), was the first to feature Grohl on drums and became a worldwide success. After Nirvana disbanded following the death of lead singer Kurt Cobain in April 1994, Grohl formed Foo Fighters as a one-man project. The first Foo Fighters album was released in 1995, and a full band was assembled to tour and record under the Foo Fighters name; they have released 11 studio albums.

Dave Mustaine

David Scott Mustaine (born September 13, 1961) is an American musician. He is the co-founder, frontman and primary songwriter of the thrash metal band Megadeth, as well as their sole consistent member. Mustaine has released sixteen studio albums with Megadeth, sold over 38 million records worldwide, with six albums platinum-certified, and won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2017 at the 59th Grammy Awards, for the title track of their fifteenth studio album, Dystopia. Prior to forming Megadeth, Mustaine was the original lead guitarist of Metallica but did not appear on any albums. He was, however, credited on four songs from Kill 'Em All and two songs from Ride the Lightning. Mustaine was born into a family of Jehovah's Witnesses. He now identifies as a born-again Christian. Mustaine has been to rehab throughout his life, fighting alcohol and drug problems, and briefly battled throat cancer in 2019. Mustaine has been married to Pamela Anne Casselberry since 1991, with whom he has two children, Electra and Justis Mustaine.

David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.

David Byrne

David Byrne (/bɜːrn/; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads. Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography, opera, fiction, and non-fiction. He has received an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, a Special Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and he is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Talking Heads.

David Guetta

Pierre David Guetta (/ˈɡɛtə/ GHET-ə, French: [pjɛʁ david ɡeta]; born 7 November 1967) is a French DJ and music producer. He has over 10 million album and 65 million single sales globally, with more than 14 billion streams. In 2011, 2020 and 2021, Guetta was voted the number one DJ in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs poll. In 2013, Billboard crowned 'When Love Takes Over' as the number one dance-pop collaboration of all time. Pierre David Guetta was born and raised in Paris, France. Guetta's father, Pierre Guetta, was a sociologist who was born in a Moroccan Jewish family. His mother, Monique, was of Belgian descent. Through his father, David Guetta is the younger half-brother of the prominent French journalist Bernard Guetta and French actress Nathalie Guetta. He also has a half-brother, Dominique Vidal and a half-sister, Joëlle Vidal from his mother's first marriage to French cybernetician Jacques Vidal.

Deadmau5

Joel Thomas Zimmerman (born January 5, 1981), known professionally as Deadmau5 (stylized as deadmau5; pronounced 'dead-mouse'), is a Canadian electronic music producer and DJ. He mainly produces progressive house and electro house music, though he also produces and DJs other genres of electronic music, including techno under the alias Testpilot. Zimmerman has received six Grammy Award nominations for his work. He has worked with other DJs and producers, such as Kaskade, Wolfgang Gartner, Rob Swire, and Chris Lake. He has also collaborated with Steve Duda under the group name BSOD (Better Sounding On Drugs), and was part of the group named WTF? with Duda, Tommy Lee and DJ Aero. In 2007, he founded his own record label, Mau5trap. Deadmau5 is currently one of the highest paid electronic music producers in the world, and is a masked music artist similar to Marshmello and Daft Punk. His works have been included in compilation albums such as Tiësto's In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza and presented on Armin van Buuren's A State of Trance radio show.

Derek Trucks

Derek Trucks (born June 8, 1979) is an American guitarist, songwriter, and founder of The Derek Trucks Band. He became an official member of The Allman Brothers Band in 1999. In 2010, he formed the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife, blues singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi. His musical style encompasses several genres and he has twice appeared on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He is the nephew of the late Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allman Brothers.

Dick Dale

Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known as 'The King of the Surf Guitar', which was also the title of his second studio album. Dale was one of the most influential guitarists of all time and especially of the early 1960s. Most of the leading bands in surf music, such as The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and The Trashmen, were influenced by Dale's music, and often included recordings of Dale's songs in their albums. His style and music influenced guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Eddie Van Halen and Brian May.

Django Reinhardt

Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953), known by his Romani nickname Django (French: [dʒãŋɡo ʁɛjnaʁt] or [dʒɑ̃ɡo ʁenɑʁt]), was a Romani-Belgian jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most significant exponents. With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. The group was among the first to play jazz that featured the guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt recorded in France with many visiting American musicians, including Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, and briefly toured the United States with Duke Ellington's orchestra in 1946. He died suddenly of a stroke in 1953 at the age of 43.

Don Henley

Donald Hugh Henley (born July 22, 1947) is an American musician, and a founding member of the rock band Eagles, for whom he is the drummer and one of the lead vocalists, as well as the sole continuous member of the band. Henley sang the lead vocals on Eagles hits such as 'Witchy Woman', 'Desperado', 'Best of My Love', 'One of These Nights', 'Hotel California', 'Life in the Fast Lane', 'The Last Resort', 'The Long Run' and 'Get Over It'. The Eagles have sold over 150 million albums worldwide, won six Grammy Awards, had five number one singles, 17 top 40 singles, and six number one albums. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and are the highest selling American band in history. As a solo artist, Henley has sold over 10 million albums worldwide, had eight top 40 singles, won two Grammy Awards and five MTV Video Music Awards. Combined with the Eagles and as a solo artist, Henley has released 25 top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. He has also released seven studio albums with the Eagles and five as a solo artist. In 2008, he was ranked as the 87th greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Dr Dre

Andre Romell Young (born February 18, 1965), known professionally as Dr. Dre, is an American rapper and record producer. He is the founder and CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics, and previously co-founded, co-owned, and was the president of Death Row Records. Dr. Dre began his career as a member of the World Class Wreckin' Cru in 1985 and later found fame with the gangsta rap group N.W.A. The group popularized explicit lyrics in hip hop to detail the violence of street life. During the early 1990s, Dre was credited as a key figure in the crafting and popularization of West Coast G-funk, a subgenre of hip hop characterized by a synthesizer foundation and slow, heavy beats.

Drake

Aubrey Drake Graham (/ɔːˈbriː/ aw-BREE; born October 24, 1986) is a Canadian rapper, singer, and songwriter. An influential figure in contemporary popular music, Drake has been credited for popularizing singing and R&B sensibilities in hip hop. Gaining recognition by starring as Jimmy Brooks in the CTV teen drama series Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–08), he pursued a career in music releasing his debut mixtape Room for Improvement in 2006. He followed this with the mixtapes Comeback Season (2007) and So Far Gone (2009) before signing with Young Money Entertainment.

Dusty Hill

Joe Michael 'Dusty' Hill (May 19, 1949 – July 28, 2021) was an American musician who was the bassist of the rock band ZZ Top for more than 50 years. He also sang lead and backing vocals and played keyboards. Hill was born in Dallas, Texas. As a child, he began performing music with his brother, Rocky Hill. In 1968, he and the drummer Frank Beard joined the guitarist Billy Gibbons in ZZ Top; they went on to release albums including the bestselling Eliminator (1983). Hill favored simple compositions and a 'big', distorted sound. Critics described his basslines as a critical part of ZZ Top's sound, complementing Gibbons' guitar showmanship.

Ed Sheeran

Edward Christopher Sheeran (/ˈʃɪərən/; born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter. Born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk, he began writing songs around the age of eleven. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play No. 5 Collaborations Project. He signed with Asylum Records the same year. Sheeran's debut album, + ('Plus'), was released in September 2011 and topped the UK Albums Chart. It contained his first hit single 'The A Team'. In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act. Sheeran's second studio album, × ('Multiply'), topped charts around the world upon its release in June 2014. It was named the second-best-selling album worldwide of 2015. In the same year, × won Album of the Year at the 2015 Brit Awards, and he received the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. A single from ×, 'Thinking Out Loud', earned him the 2016 Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

Eddie Van Halen

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen (/væn ˈheɪlən/ van HAY-lən, Dutch: [ˈɛtʋɑrt ˈloːdəʋɛik fɑn ˈɦaːlə(n)]; January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician. He was the guitarist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he founded with his brother Alex in 1972. Van Halen is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitar players in rock history, and was well-known for popularizing the tapping guitar technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard.

Eddie Vedder

Eddie Jerome Vedder (born Edward Louis Severson III; December 23, 1964) is an American singer, musician, songwriter, and the lead vocalist and one of three guitarists for the rock band Pearl Jam. He previously was a guest vocalist for supergroup Temple of the Dog, a tribute band dedicated to the late singer Andrew Wood. Vedder, who is known for his powerful baritone vocals, was ranked seventh on a list of 'Best Lead Singers of All Time,' based on a readers' poll compiled by Rolling Stone. In 2007, Vedder released his first solo album as a soundtrack for the film Into the Wild (2007). His second album, Ukulele Songs, and a live DVD titled Water on the Road were released in 2011. His third solo album Earthling was released in 2022. In 2017, Vedder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pearl Jam.

Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Acclaimed by critics and musicians, John's music and showmanship have had a significant, lasting impact on popular music. His songwriting partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin is one of the most successful in history.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), often referred to mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the 'King of Rock and Roll', he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and initial controversy. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was aged 13. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience.

Eminem

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (/ˌɛmɪˈnɛm/; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is widely considered as one of the greatest rappers of all time. Eminem's global success and acclaimed works are widely regarded as having broken racial barriers for the acceptance of Caucasian rappers in popular music. While much of his transgressive work during the late 1990s and early 2000s made him widely controversial, he came to be a representation of popular angst of the American underclass and has been cited as an influence for many artists of various genres.

Enrique Iglesias

Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (Spanish pronunciation: [enˈrike miˈɣel iˈɣlesjas ˈpɾejsleɾ]; born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. He started his recording career in the mid-1990s on the Mexican indie label Fonovisa and became the bestselling Spanish-language act of the decade. By the turn of the millennium, he made a successful crossover into the mainstream English-language market. He signed a multi-album deal with Universal Music Group for US$68 million with Universal Music Latino to release his Spanish albums and Interscope Records to release English albums.

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton (born 30 March 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. He 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.

Flea

Michael Peter Balzary (born October 16, 1962), known professionally as Flea, is an American musician and actor. He is a founding member and bassist of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea was born in Melbourne, Victoria; his family moved to Rye, New York when he was four. After his parents divorced, Flea spent his childhood in the United States and Australia, before settling in California. In high school, he befriended singer Anthony Kiedis with whom he formed the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1983. Flea is also a member of the supergroups Atoms for Peace, Antemasque, Pigface, and Rocket Juice & the Moon, and has played with acts including The Mars Volta, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Alanis Morissette, Young MC, Nirvana, What Is This?, Fear, and Jane's Addiction.

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experimentation, 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; he also 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 generation.

Fred Durst

William Frederick Durst (born Frederick Allen Mayne III; August 20, 1970) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, actor and director. He is the frontman and lyricist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, formed in 1994, with whom he has released nine studio albums. Since 2006, Durst has worked on a number of independent films. He co-starred in Population 436, and made his directorial debut in 2007 with The Education of Charlie Banks. He followed with The Longshots in 2008. His latest film, The Fanatic, came out in 2019. He appears as a super secret playable character in the video games Fight Club, WWF Raw, and WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It.

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Geezer Butler

Terence Michael Joseph 'Geezer' Butler (born 17 July 1949) is an English retired musician and songwriter. He is best known as the bassist and primary lyricist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He has also recorded and performed with Heaven & Hell, GZR, and Ozzy Osbourne. Butler was the bassist of Deadland Ritual, which has since disbanded. Butler adopted the nickname 'Geezer' at an early age. 'It came because when I was at school, my brother was in the army, and he was based with a lot of Cockneys. And people in London call everybody a 'geezer.' [It means] just a man — like, 'Hello, mate.' It's just like somebody calling you 'dude' over here (in the United States). In England, it'd be 'geezer.' So my brother used to come home from leave from the army, and he'd be going, 'Hello, geezer. How are you, geezer?' So because I had looked up to my brother when I was about seven years old, I'd go to school calling everybody a geezer. So that's how I got cursed with it.'

Gene Simmons

Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; Hebrew: חיים ויץ [χaˈim ˈvits]; born August 25, 1949) is an American musician. Also known by his stage persona the Demon, he is the bassist and co-lead singer of the hard rock band Kiss, which he co-founded with Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss in the early 1970s. Simmons was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 as a member of Kiss. Simmons was born as Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949, at Rambam Hospital in Haifa, Israel, to Jewish immigrants from Hungary. His mother, Florence Klein (1925–2018; née Flóra Kovács), was born in Jánd and survived internment in Nazi concentration camps. She and her brother, Larry Klein, were the only members of the family to survive the Holocaust. Simmons' father, Ferenc 'Feri' Yehiel Witz (1925–2002), was a carpenter. Simmons spent his early childhood in Tirat Carmel and was raised in a practicing Jewish household. He has said that his family was 'dirt poor', scraping by on rationed bread and milk. At the age of seven, he began to pick wild fruit and sell it on roadsides together with a friend.

George Harrison

George Harrison MBE (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician, singer and songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called 'the quiet Beatle', Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work. Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include 'Taxman', 'Within You Without You', 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'Something'. Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; subsequent influences were Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry.

Hans Zimmer

Hans Florian Zimmer (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈfloːʁi̯aːn ˈtsɪmɐ] ; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living Geniuses, published by The Daily Telegraph. His works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements. Since the 1980s, Zimmer has composed music for over 150 films. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score for The Lion King (1994), and Dune (2021). His works include Gladiator, The Last Samurai, the Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Man of Steel, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and No Time To Die.

Harry Styles

Harry Edward Styles (born 1 February 1994) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as part of One Direction, a boy band formed on the British music competition series The X Factor. Each member of the band had been eliminated from the solo contest. They became one of the best-selling boy groups of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.

Hozier

Andrew John Hozier-Byrne (born 17 March 1990), known professionally as Hozier (/ˈhoʊziər/ HOH-zee-ər), is an Irish musician, singer and songwriter. His music primarily draws from folk, soul, and blues, often using religious and literary themes. He had his international breakthrough after releasing his debut single 'Take Me to Church', which has been certified multi-platinum in several countries.

Iggy Pop

James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter, actor, and radio broadcaster. Called the 'Godfather of Punk', he was the vocalist and lyricist of proto-punk band The Stooges, who were formed in 1967 and have disbanded and reunited many times since. Initially playing a raw, primitive style of rock and roll (progressing later towards more experimental and aggressive rock), the Stooges sold few records in their original incarnation and gained a reputation for their confrontational performances, which often involved acts of self-mutilation by Pop. He had a long collaborative relationship and friendship with David Bowie over the course of his career, beginning with the Stooges' album Raw Power in 1973. Both musicians went to West Berlin to wean themselves off their respective drug addictions and Pop began his solo career by collaborating with Bowie on the 1977 albums The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop usually contributing the lyrics. Throughout his career, he is well known for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics, poetic lyrics and distinctive voice. He was one of the first performers to do a stage-dive and popularized the activity. Pop, who traditionally (but not exclusively) performs bare-chested, also performed such stage theatrics as rolling around in broken glass and exposing himself to the crowd.

Jack White

John Anthony White (né Gillis; born July 9, 1975) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and music producer, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the duo The White Stripes. 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 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 2010 list ranked him at number 17. In 2012, the New York Times called White 'the coolest, weirdest and savviest rockstar of our time'.

James Brown

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American musician. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by various honorific nicknames, some of which include 'the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business', 'Godfather of Soul', 'Mr. Dynamite', and 'Soul Brother No. 1'. In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.

James Hetfield

James Alan Hetfield (born August 3, 1963) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, co-founder and a primary songwriter of heavy metal band Metallica. He is mainly known for his intricate rhythm playing, but occasionally performs lead guitar duties and solos, both live and in the studio. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering an advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler. Metallica has won nine Grammy Awards and released eleven studio albums, three live albums, four extended plays and 24 singles. Hetfield is often regarded as one of the greatest heavy metal rhythm guitar players of all time.

Jay-Z

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. Widely regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, he has been central to the creative and commercial success of artists including Kanye West, Rihanna, and J. Cole. He is the founder and chairman of entertainment company Roc Nation, and was the president and chief executive officer of Def Jam Recordings from 2004 to 2007.

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold Beck (24 June 1944 – 10 January 2023) was an English guitarist. He rose to prominence as a member of the rock band the Yardbirds, and afterwards founded and fronted the Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice. In 1975, he switched to an instrumental style with focus on an innovative sound, and his releases spanned genres and styles ranging from blues rock, hard rock, jazz fusion and a blend of guitar-rock and electronica. Beck was ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone and other magazines' lists rankings of the greatest guitarists. He was often called a 'guitarist's guitarist'. Rolling Stone described him as 'one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock'. Although he recorded two successful albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck did not establish or maintain commercial success like that of his contemporaries and bandmates. He recorded with many artists.

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935 – October 28, 2022) was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. Nicknamed 'The Killer', he was described as 'rock 'n' roll's first great wild man'. A pioneer of rock 'n' roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made his first recordings in 1952 at Cosimo Matassa's J&M Studio in New Orleans, Louisiana, and early recordings in 1956 at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. 'Crazy Arms' sold 300,000 copies in the Southern United States, but it was his 1957 hit 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On' that shot Lewis to worldwide fame. He followed this with the major hits 'Great Balls of Fire', 'Breathless', and 'High School Confidential'. His rock and roll career faltered in the wake of his marriage to Myra Gale Brown, his 13-year-old first cousin once removed.

Jim Morrison

James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer-songwriter and poet who was the lead vocalist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his wild personality, poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, unpredictable and erratic performances, and the dramatic circumstances surrounding his life and early death, Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most influential frontmen in rock history. Since his death, Morrison's fame has endured as one of popular culture's top rebellious and oft-displayed icons, representing the generation gap and youth counterculture.