James Alexander reformed his band, the Bar-Kays following the plane crash that took the lives of three members, and singer Otis Redding. The new band was created in tribute to those kil...
Billy Arnold played drums behind several Motown recordings including those with saxophonist, Junior Walker. While he often played a Gretsch kit, Billy never fussed about having to set up ...
Percy Bady grew up surrounded by gospel, thanks largely to the fact his father was a minister. Since he was six years old, Percy expressed his feelings through music, especially in churc...
Jewel Bass is known for singing backup on countless Malaco recordings since 1969 and with her own band, These Days. She started singing in church, influenced by her uncles who sang in a g...
Archie Bell, a native of Houston, Texas, grew up listening to his mother sing in the Baptist church. Out of her seven sons she singled out Archie and suggested that he should try to be a ...
Miriam Bienstock was one of three founders of Atlantic Records, which set the stage for over 60 years of recordings of primarily black artists. In the early years this was one of the only...
Bobby Brooks Wilson is the son of famed soul singer, Jackie Wilson, but he didn’t always know that. Bobby grew up loving music and only found out who his biological father was after so ma...
Misty Browning loved to watch the smiles on the faces of those in her church as a child when they began to sing. She noticed their mannerisms and expressions completely changed once the m...
Ben Cauley can be heard on hundreds of Stax Record hits including those with Otis Redding. Ben was a member of Otis's backup band called the Bar-Kays, which originated as the horn sectio...
Willie Chambers and his brothers fell in love with gospel music while growing up singing in church. Even though they received some strong criticism, they expanded the places where church ...
Joe Chambers was inspired by his older brother George to play guitar and write songs. The brothers, Joe, George, Willie and Lester, formed The Chambers Brothers and began singing gospel m...
Jeannie Cheatham played roots music before anyone was calling it that. She grew up on church music, and progressed to the blues in a time and place where black women were encouraged to ex...
Dennis Coffey was a member of the studio musicians at Motown known as the Funk Brothers. Dennis recorded a string of hits with the group in the 1960s and 70s. He later joined the songwrit...
Charles Connor was a pioneer in the early beat of rock and roll. As a drummer in New Orleans in the early 1950s, he played with Professor Longhair and became the original drummer for Litt...
Tommy Couch was born in Tuscumbia, not too far from Muscle Shoals, Alabama and grew up with many of the studio musicians and engineers at the Fame Recording Studio. He later moved to Jack...
Sal Cracchiolo learned how to play the trumpet on his mother’s horn. As his love of the instrument grew she saw to it that Sal received classical trumpet lessons with some of the top teac...
Papa John DeFrancesco's musical journey began under the guidance of his father, a saxophonist for several big bands during the great Swing era. Initially a trumpet player, Papa John later...
Bo Diddley was the pioneering rhythm and blues performer who taught the industry one main point in the early days of the electric guitar era. With his square cigar box guitar, patented by...
Lamont Dozier was one of the most successful songwriters in popular music history. From 1962-1967 he teamed with Brian and Eddy Holland to write a string of impressive hit records for Mo...
Leroy Emmanuel often shares a telling story about his musical heritage—his parents met in their school band, both playing the violin. Born in Georgia, he moved to Detroit at the age of ei...
Rick Estrin and Charles Baty started playing blues together and decided to form a group in 1976. They brought in two other players and called themselves Little Charlie & the Nightcat...
Mike Finnigan was a leading Hammond B3 performer who recorded with many of the top performers in pop, rock, and jazz for nearly 60 years, although his soul had always been rooted in rhyth...
James Gadson is among the most recorded drummers in history! His career began as a member of the Charles Wright band in the late 1960s and soon expanded to studio work. James can be hea...
Grady Gaines jumped onto the piano during a gig with Little Richard and wailed on his saxophone back in the early 1950s. The photograph of that event has become iconic as it represents th...
Kenneth Gamble was singing and playing the guitar in a band he formed in Philly when he first met his future songwriting partner, Leon Huff. The two discovered they had the same goals of...
Bill Gardner grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by music. His mother worked at a local record store where he heard the music that would forever shape his life. Years later, Bill went on th...
Bob Hardy was greatly influenced by the American rock and roll artists he heard on the radio as a kid growing up in 1950's Liverpool, during which time he was a pupil at the Liverpool Ins...
Donald Harrison Jr. was born in New Orleans to a deeply musical family steeped in all styles of music: brass bands, jazz, R&B, funk, and world music. His father was a Mardi Gras India...
Roy Head was born a sharecropper's son in the tiny town of Three Rivers, Texas. Growing up listening to every style of music available on his small radio, Roy became heavily influenced by...
Gary Hobbs is a third generation professional drummer. His grandfather Harry led several big bands during the Great Depression era and his father, who later became a strong leader within ...
Eddie Holland gained worldwide fame as a Motown Record’s songwriter and music publisher along with his brother Brian. Eddie was also a recording artist who performed the chart-topping hit...
Brian Holland and his brother Eddie are among the most popular songwriting teams in the history of popular music! For decades they have created the words and music to Motown’s classic sou...
