Daniel Gaston Ash (born 31 July 1957, in Northampton, England) is an English musician, songwriter and singer. He came to prominence in the late 1970s as the guitarist for the iconic goth rock band Bauhaus, which spawned two related bands led by Ash: Tones on Tail and Love and Rockets. He has also recorded several solo albums.
William Thomas "Bill" Berry (born July 31, 1958) is a retired American musician and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the drummer for the alternative rock band R.E.M. In addition to his drumming duties, Berry played many other instruments including guitar, bass guitar, and piano, both for songwriting and on R.E.M. records. After 17 years with the band, Berry left the music industry to become a farmer, and has since maintained a low profile, making sporadic reunions with R.E.M. and appearing on other artists' records.
R.E.M. was formed in 1980. In addition to his duties as a drummer, Berry contributed occasional guitar, bass, mandolin, vocals, keyboards and piano on studio tracks. In concert, he sometimes performed on bass, and supplied regular backing vocals. Berry also made notable songwriting contributions, particularly for "Everybody Hurts" and "Man on the Moon", both from Automatic for the People. Other Berry songs included "Perfect Circle", "Driver 8", "Cant Get There from Here" and "I Took Your Name". The song "Leave" was also written by Berry for R.E.M.'s 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi, which was his last album with the band.
Berry was also responsible for toning down the lyrics of the song "Welcome to the Occupation." Stipe's original lyric was "Hang your freedom fighters" which, given the Reagan administration's active support for the contra "freedom fighters" in Nicaragua, sounded very violent and militant, although Stipe himself countered that the line could be taken multiple ways ("hang" as in either "lynch" or "frame on a wall"). Berry's objection ultimately led the line to be changed to "hang your freedom higher."
During 1984 Berry also was drummer for the impromptu Hindu Love Gods, which featured his R.E.M. bandmates Mike Mills, Peter Buck, and rocker Warren Zevon, and also Bryan Cook.
In 1995, at the Patinoire Auditorium in Lausanne, Switzerland, Berry collapsed on stage during an R.E.M. show from a ruptured brain aneurysm. He recovered and rejoined the band, but left in October 1997, saying that he no longer had the drive or enjoyment level to be in the band, and that he wanted a career change, he explained on VH-1's Behind The Music:
I didn't wake up one day and decide, 'I just can't stand these guys anymore' or anything. I feel like I'm ready for a life change. I'm still young enough that I can do something else. I've been pounding the tubs since I was nine years old ... I'm ready to do something else.
Acquiescing to Berry's wishes, R.E.M. announced that it would continue as a three-piece outfit. They continued to tour with several accompanying musicians, including long-time sidemen Ken Stringfellow and Scott McCaughey and employed Joey Waronker and Bill Rieflin as live drummers.
Berry left the music business and became a farmer, working on his hay farm in Farmington, Georgia, near Athens.
His musical activities after leaving R.E.M. have been sporadic, but did include recording for the Tourette Syndrome Charity Album Welcome Companions in 2000. He is also an avid golfer.
Prior to the group's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Berry granted his first interview in several years, discussing life after retirement. "It's a great chance to get back together and perform with R.E.M., which I always loved doing," he said. "This opportunity also does not require me to climb onto [a] bus or plane to do it again and again for several consecutive months."
Catherine "Kate" Bush, CBE (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer known for her eclectic musical style and her idiosyncratic soprano vocal performances.
In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single, "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written song. She has since released ten albums, three of which topped the UK Albums Chart. She has had 25 UK Top 40 hit singles, including the Top 10 hits "Wuthering Heights", "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", "Babooshka", "Running Up That Hill" (as well as its 2012 remix), "Don't Give Up" (a duet with Peter Gabriel) and "King of the Mountain".
Bush has been nominated 13 times for British Phonographic Industry accolades, and in 1987 she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Artist. During the course of her career, she has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards. In 2002, she was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. She is the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at Number 1. She is also the first (and to date only) female artist to have Top 5 albums in the UK charts in five successive decades. In August 2014, she became the first female performer to have eight albums in the Official UK Top 40 Albums Chart simultaneously, putting her at number three for simultaneous UK Top 40 albums (behind Elvis Presley with 12 albums in 1977, and The Beatles in 2009 with 11 albums); altogether she had 11 albums in the top 50.
Bush was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music. She received the award from Queen Elizabeth II on 10 April 2013 at Windsor Castle.
Martin Lee Gore (born 23 July 1961) is an English singer songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, producer, remixer, and DJ. He is a founding member of Depeche Mode and has written the majority of their songs. His work now spans over three decades. Gore's best-known compositions include hits such as "Personal Jesus", "Enjoy the Silence", "Stripped","It's No Good", "In Your Room", "I Feel You", "People Are People","Precious","A Question of Time", "Policy Of Truth", "Everything Counts", "Behind the Wheel", "Shake the Disease", "Never Let Me Down Again" and many more.
In addition to composing music and writing lyrics for Depeche Mode songs, he has also been lead vocalist on several, and usually solo (some examples are, "Somebody", "A Question of Lust" and "Home"), as evidenced by most of the Depeche Mode concerts, and has been a backing vocalist on many others.
In 1999, Gore received the Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors for "International Achievement".
Al Di Meola (born Al Laurence Dimeola, July 22, 1954 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an acclaimed American jazz fusion and Latin jazz guitarist, composer, and record producer of Italian origin (from Cerreto Sannita). With a musical career that has spanned more than three decades, he has become respected as one of the most influential guitarists in jazz to date. Albums such as Friday Night in San Francisco have earned him both artistic and commercial success with a solid fan base throughout the world.
In 1971 Di Meola enrolled in Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1974 he joined Chick Corea's band, Return to Forever for the album Where Have I Known You Before. Two more albums, No Mystery (1975) and Romantic Warrior (1976) were released during Di Meola's stay in the band. This lineup featured him playing with Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White until it was disbanded in 1976.
Di Meola went on to explore a variety of styles, but is most noted for his Latin-influenced jazz fusion works. He is a four-time winner as Best Jazz Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine's Reader Poll.
In addition to a prolific solo career, he has engaged in successful collaborations with bassist Stanley Clarke, keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, and guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía. He also guested on "Allergies" from Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones'" album (1983).
In the beginning of his career, as evidenced on his first solo album Land of the Midnight Sun (1976), Di Meola was noted for his technical mastery and extremely fast, complex guitar solos and compositions. But even on his early albums, he had begun to explore Mediterranean cultures and acoustic genres like flamenco. Good examples are "Mediterranean Sundance" and "Lady of Rome, Sister of Brazil" from the Elegant Gypsy album (1977). His early albums were very influential among rock and jazz guitarists alike. Di Meola continued to explore Latin music within the jazz fusion genre on albums like Casino and Splendido Hotel. He exhibited a more subtle touch on acoustic numbers like "Fantasia Suite for Two Guitars" from the Casino album, and on the best-selling live album with McLaughlin and de Lucia, Friday Night in San Francisco. The latter album became one of the most popular live albums for acoustic guitar ever recorded and was sold more than two million times worldwide. In 1980, he also toured with fellow Latin rocker Carlos Santana.
He has continued to tour, playing in smaller venues like The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, and House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada. Recent concerts have included a sampling of his newer material (a mix of acoustic, "distorted acoustic music", and guitar/synthesizer with a looser format than the songs on the early solo albums) along with a selection of electric guitar numbers from the early albums. Di Meola often closes out shows with an energetic rendition of one of his most challenging pieces, "Race with Devil on Spanish Highway", from the Elegant Gypsy album. Because of his early recordings, Di Meola became arguably the most important pioneer of shred guitar influencing guitarists such as Yngwie Malmsteen (with whom he appeared on keyboardist Derek Sherinian's solo album Black Utopia in 2003), Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi with his speed runs as a child and Dream Theater's John Petrucci. However, in most cases after the early 1980s, Di Meola has largely distanced himself from this approach. In various interviews, Di Meola has stated that his reason for stepping away from the electric guitar is due to hearing damage (manifested as tinnitus) from years of playing at excessive volumes; the acoustic guitar does not aggravate his condition.
However, in 2006 he rediscovered his love of the electric guitar, and the DVD of his concert at the Leverkusen Jazz Festival 2006 bears the subtitle Return to Electric Guitar.
Emily Saliers (born July 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and member of the Indigo Girls. Saliers plays lead guitar as well as banjo, piano, mandolin, ukulele, bouzouki and many other instruments.
Saliers first met her future Indigo Girls counterpart Amy Ray when they were students at Laurel Ridge Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia. As students at Shamrock High School, they started performing music together at talent shows and local venues under the band names of "Saliers & Ray" and the "B-Band". When Saliers—the elder of the duo—left Georgia to attend Tulane University, Ray frequently visited her and they would play together for tips in New Orleans' famed French Quarter. Saliers and Ray eventually reunited when they transferred from their respective colleges to Emory University. It was at Emory that they settled upon the band name of "Indigo Girls", when Ray came across the word "indigo" in the dictionary and "thought it sounded cool".
James "Jim" Kerr (born 9 July 1959) is a Scottish musician and singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Simple Minds who achieved five UK No. 1 albums and a No. 1 single "Ballad of the Streets EP". He released his first solo album, Lostboy! AKA Jim Kerr, on 27 May 2010.
Born in Toryglen, Glasgow to Irish parents, Kerr attended Holyrood R.C. Secondary School there. In 1977, he was one of the founding members of the 6-piece punk rock band Johnny and the Self Abusers. Calling himself Pripton Weird, he played keyboards and shared vocals with John Milarky. Allan McNeill was also involved with the band, and went on to be the manager of the Pop band Hue and Cry. The band lasted 8 months, during which time Kerr emerged as one of the main songwriters. In November 1977 they changed their name to Simple Minds, quickly reduced to 4 members, then increased to 5, then 6, then back to 5 before a period of stability ensued.
He continues to record and tour with Simple Minds, who released their latest album Graffiti Soul in May 2009. He currently lives in Taormina, Sicily, where he runs a hotel, Villa Angela.
Andy Fletcher (born 8 July 1961), popularly known as "Fletch", is an English keyboardist and founding member of the electronic band Depeche Mode.
In the late 1970s, Fletcher and schoolmate Vince Clarke formed the short-lived band No Romance in China, in which Fletcher played bass guitar. In 1980, Fletcher met Martin Gore at the Van Gogh Pub on Paycocke Road in Basildon. With Clarke, the trio, now all on synthesizer, formed another group called Composition of Sound. Clarke served as chief songwriter and also provided lead vocals until singer Dave Gahan was recruited into the band later that year, after which they adopted the name Depeche Mode at Gahan's suggestion. Clarke left the group in late 1981, shortly after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell.
Their 1982 follow-up, A Broken Frame, was recorded as a trio, with Gore taking over primary songwriting duties. Musician & producer Alan Wilder joined the band in late 1982 and the group continued as a quartet until Wilder's departure in 1995. Since then, the core trio of Gahan, Gore and Fletcher have remained active, most recently releasing the 2013 album Delta Machine, and with the ensuing world tour, which concluded in early 2014.
John Leslie Keeble (born 6 July 1959 in Hampstead, London) is an English pop musician, who is the drummer with the 1980s new wave band, Spandau Ballet.
Spandau Ballet disbanded in 1990, after their final studio album, Heart Like a Sky, failed to live up to the critical and commercial success of their earlier albums, such as True and Parade.
Keeble has consistently played in the Tony Hadley Band, and was on tour throughout 2006. He also played drums on Fish's 1989 hit single "State of Mind".
He has also formed his own band, I PLAY ROCK, with whom he plays drums.
On 25 March 2009, John Keeble joined the rest of his original classic-line-up Spandau Ballet bandmates for a press conference at HMS Belfast, to announce that the band had reformed for a world tour starting in Dublin in October 2009.
Robbie Robertson, OC (born Jaime Royal Robertson; July 5, 1943) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter and guitarist best known for his work as lead guitarist and primary songwriter within The Band. As a songwriter, Robertson is credited for such songs as "The Weight", "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", "Up On Cripple Creek", "Broken Arrow" and "Somewhere Down the Crazy River". He has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and was ranked 59th in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Paul Barrere (born July 3, 1948, Burbank, California, United States) is a member of the band Little Feat, founded in 1969 by Lowell George having joined the band in 1972. Barrere has also recorded and performed with many notable musicians including Taj Mahal, Jack Bruce, Chicken Legs, Blues Busters, Valerie Carter, Helen Watson, Chico Hamilton, Robert Palmer, Eikichi Yazawa, and Carly Simon. Paul can be seen in the 1979 Nicolette Larson Warner Brothers promotional video of "Lotta Love".
Some of Barrere's best known contributions to Little Feat as a songwriter include "Skin It Back", and "Feats Don't Fail Me Now" from the album Feats Don't Fail Me Now, "All That You Dream" from The Last Record Album, "Time Loves a Hero" from Time Loves a Hero, and "Down on the Farm" from Down on the Farm.
Barrere is a swing man as a guitarist who plays a wide variety of styles of music including blues, rock, jazz, and cajun music and is proficient as a slide guitarist.
Barrere also records and tours as an acoustic duo with fellow Little Feat member Fred Tackett.
Barrere played several concerts with Phil Lesh and Friends in October 1999 and from March to June 2000. He has also toured with Bob Dylan, and most recently, he has been writing and recording with Roger Cole for their own label BetterDaze records as well as making videos for some of their newest songs.
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry (born July 1, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known as the lead singer of the new wave and punk rock band Blondie. She recorded several number one singles with Blondie and is sometimes considered the first rapper to chart at number one in the United States as well, due to her work on "Rapture". She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she recorded and performed with The Jazz Passengers. Her acting career spans over thirty film roles and numerous television appearances.
Harry was born in Miami, Florida, and adopted by Catherine (Peters) and Richard Smith Harry, gift shop proprietors in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She attended Hawthorne High School, where she graduated in 1963. She graduated from Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey, with an Associate of Arts degree in 1965. Before starting her singing career she moved to New York City in the late 1960s and worked as a secretary at BBC Radio's office there for one year. Later, she was a waitress at Max's Kansas City, a go-go dancer in a Union City, New Jersey, discothèque, and a Playboy Bunny.
In the late 1960s, Deborah Harry began her musical career as a backing singer for the folk rock group, The Wind in the Willows, which released one self-titled album in 1968 on Capitol Records. The group also recorded a second album, which was never released and the studio tapes remain lost.
In 1974, Harry joined The Stilettoes with Elda Gentile and Amanda Jones. Her eventual boyfriend and Blondie guitarist, Chris Stein, joined the band shortly after
After leaving The Stilettoes, Harry and Stein formed Angel and the Snake with Tish and Snooky Bellomo. Shortly thereafter, Harry and Stein formed Blondie, naming it after the term of address men often called her when she bleached her hair blonde. Blondie quickly became regulars at Max's Kansas City and CBGB in New York City. After a debut album in 1976, commercial success followed in the late 1970s to the early 1980s, first in Australia and Europe, then in the United States.
John Peter Farnham AO (born 1 July 1949), (formerly billed as Johnny Farnham from his professional debut 1967 until 1980), is an English-born Australian pop singer. Farnham was a teen pop idol from 1964 to 1979, and has since forged a career as an adult contemporary singer. His career has mostly been as a solo artist although he temporarily replaced Glenn Shorrock as lead singer of Little River Band during 1982–1985. In September 1986 his solo single, "You're the Voice" peaked at No. 1 on the Australian singles charts. The associated album, Whispering Jack, held the No. 1 position for a total of 25 weeks, and is the highest-selling album in Australian history. Both the single and the album had Top Ten success internationally including No. 1 in Sweden.
Domestically he has remained one of Australia's best-known performers with a career spanning over 45 years, and he is the only Australian artist to have a number one record in five consecutive decades (echoing that of Cliff Richard in the UK) with singles: "Sadie (The Cleaning Lady)" in 1967, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" in 1969/1970, and "Age of Reason" in 1988; and albums: Age of Reason, Chain Reaction in 1990, Then Again... in 1993, Anthology 1: Greatest Hits 1986–1997 in 1997, 33⅓ in 2000 and The Last Time in 2002.
Farnham has been recognized by honors and awards including 1987 Australian of the Year, 1996 Officer of the Order of Australia, and 19 ARIA Awards including his 2003 induction into the Hall of Fame. From 1969 he was voted by TV Week readers as the 'King of Pop' for five consecutive years. Aside from his recording career, Farnham performed on stage with lead roles in Australian productions of Charlie Girl, Pippin and 1992's Jesus Christ Superstar. He starred in his own TV series and specials including It's Magic (With Colleen Hewett) and Bobby Dazzler and as a guest on numerous other popular shows such as Countdown and Hey Hey It's Saturday. Australian rock historian, Ian McFarlane described him as "the most successful solo artist in the history of Australian rock and pop ... Farnham has retained an affable sense of humor and a simple, unpretentious 'everyman' charm which also makes him one of the most respected celebrities in Australian entertainment history."
Frederick William "Fred" Schneider III (born July 1, 1951) is an American vocalist, best known as the frontman of the rock band the B-52's, of which he is a founding member. Schneider is well known for his sprechgesang, which he developed from reciting poetry over guitars.
Aside from duties as the frontman of the B-52's, Fred Schneider has released two solo albums. He is currently working on a side project called the Superions. The group released a self-titled EP and the album Destination... Christmas! in 2010 and in February 2011 began working on a proper full-length album.
Fred Schneider & the Shake Society (1984 and 1991)
Just Fred (1996), which was produced by Steve Albini.
