- Ike Turner
Izear Luster Turner (born November 5, 1931) is an African American musician (piano, guitar), bandleader, talent scout and record producer, best known for his work with his former wife Tina Turner. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2001 was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. - Michael McDonald
Michael McDonald (born February 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American R&B/soul singer (sometimes described as a "blue-eyed soul" singer), known for his striking blue eyes and his trademark husky baritone voice. - Ronnie Devoe
Ronnie DeVoe, aka R.D., (born Ronald Boyd DeVoe, Jr. on November 17, 1967 in Roxbury, Massachusetts) is one of the members of the R&B sextet New Edition. DeVoe was the last member to join the group after being brought in by his uncle (the group's choreographer) Brooke Payne. In 1982, the group took second place at a talent show. - James Debarge
James DeBarge (born 22 August 1963, Grand Rapids, Michigan) is an American R&B and soul singer. He was one of the charter members of the family group DeBarge, who became stars with their 1980s classic songs "All This Love", "In a Special Way", "Rhythm of the Night", and "Who's Holding Donna Now?". James DeBarge is arguably more famous for his 1984 marriage to pop icon Janet Jackson. - Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Mayfield (June 3, 1942 - December 26, 1999) was an American soul, funk and R&B singer, songwriter and guitarist best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions and composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film "Superfly." From these works and others, he was highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a bassist, pianist, saxophonist and drummer. - Maurice White
Maurice White (born December 19 1941 in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American soul, funk, and R&B singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and bandleader. - Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician and songwriter who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as The King of the Jukebox, Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the later years of the swing era. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #59 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. - Deniece Williams
Deniece Williams, often referred to by the nickname "Niecy", is an American singer, songwriter and record producer who achieved success in the 1970s and 1980s. Williams, whose music has been influenced by pop, soul, gospel, R&B and dance, is known for her hits such as "Let's Hear It for the Boy" and "Silly" and for her vocal-duets with Johnny Mathis. - Jerry Butler
Jerry Butler, Jr. (born December 8, 1939 in Sunflower, Mississippi) is an American soul singer also known as "The Ice Man" because of his cool demeanour while singing often intensely emotional lyrics. - Jimmy Edgar
Jimmy Edgar is a Detroit-based electronic music artist, signed to Warp Records. 22-year old Edgar has been stitching beats since he was 10, when he started producing sounds electronically and fashioned his first analogue pieces. Influenced mostly by Jazz, funk, street beat and r&b in these early years, he began his musical pursuit by playing the drums in experimental bands and by making tape recordings. Most of these recordings, consisting mainly of pitch bended tape loops, … - Michael McCary
Michael Sean McCary (born December 16 1971, in Philadelphia) is an African-American R&B singer, best known as the bass singer of the popular R&B group, Boyz II Men. He also worked with the pop music legend Mariah Carey. In 2003, Michael McCary left the Boyz II Men due to chronic back problems resulting from scoliosis and personal problems. - Randy Jackson
Steven Randall "Randy" Jackson (born October 29 1961 in Gary, Indiana) is an American singer and musician, a member of the Jacksons. Nicknamed "Little Randy", he was the ninth out of ten Jackson children to be born (one was stillborn) and is the youngest son in the Jackson family. - El Debarge
Eldra Patrick DeBarge (born June 4, 1961 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is an American R&B and soul falsetto singer, the focal point and lead singer of the DeBarge family group throughout the early 1980s. He is currently married to Monique DeBarge but the two are separated. - Bootsy Collins
William "Bootsy" Collins (born October 26, 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a funk bassist, singer, and songwriter. - Fred Wesley
Fred Wesley (born 1943) is an American jazz and funk trombonist, best known for his work with James Brown in the 1960s and 1970s. Wesley was born in Mobile, Alabama, the son of a high school teacher and big band leader. During the 1960s and 1970s he was a pivotal member of James Brown's bands, playing on many hit recordings including "Say it Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud", "Mother Popcorn" and co-writing tunes such as "Hot Pants". - Edwin Starr
Edwin Starr was an American soul music singer. Born Charles Edwin Hatcher in Nashville, Tennessee, Starr is most famous for his Norman Whitfield produced Motown singles of the 1970s, most notably the number one hit "War". - Bobby Byrd
Bobby Byrd (born August 15 1934) is an African American funk/soul/R&;B/gospel musician, best known as James Brown's longtime sideman and co-vocalist on songs such as "Licking Stick - Licking Stick", "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine" and "Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved". Byrd also recorded many solo funk tracks, most famously "I Know You Got Soul" (1971), which have been sampled by musicians including Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, Ice Cube, … - Percy Sledge
Percy Sledge (born November 25 1940, in Leighton, Alabama) is a US-American R&B and soul performer. - Sly Stone
Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart, 15 March 1943, in Denton, Texas) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly & the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and 1970s. Sly & the Family Stone was started in Vallejo, California and eventually had artists from around the San Francisco Bay Area. - Marc Nelson
Marc Nelson (born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American singer. His mother was Phyllis Nelson, known for the songs "I Like You" and "Move Closer". He was a member of Boyz II Men while still attending Philadelphia's High School of Performing Arts. However, Nelson left the group before they released their first album to pursue his own solo career. After signing a solo deal with Capitol Records, … - Eddie Kendricks
Eddie Kendricks was an American singer and songwriter. He is noted for his distinctive falsetto singing style and was one of the lead singers of the Motown singing group The Temptations during the 1960s and early 1970s, and also for recording hits as a solo artist during the 1970s. - Jermaine Jackson
Jermaine LaJaune Jackson (born December 11, 1954), is an American Grammy Award-winning singer, bass guitarist, former member of The Jackson 5 and brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. - Sheila E.
Sheila Escovedo (born December 12 1957, in Oakland, California), known by her stage name Sheila E., is an American musician, perhaps best known for her work with Prince and Ringo Starr. - Billy Ocean
Billy Ocean (born Leslie Sebastian Charles, 21 January 1950 in Fyzabad, Trinidad), is a UK based popular music performer, who had a string of rhythm and blues tinged international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s. - Edwin Hawkins
Edwin Hawkins (born August 18, 1943 in Oakland, California) is a Grammy Award-winning American gospel and R&B musician, pianist, choir leader, composer and arranger. He is one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. He (and the Edwin Hawkins Singers) are best known for his arrangement of "Oh Happy Day" (1968-69), which was included on the Songs of the Century list. - Teddy Riley
Teddy Riley (born Edward Theodore Riley, October 8, 1967 in Harlem, New York) is an American R&B and hip hop singer-songwriter, musician and record producer who was the ring leader of one of the most influential groups of R&B in two separate decades - Guy in the '80s and Blackstreet in the '90s. Riley is mostly responsible for making a successful fusion of hip-hop and R&B in the late '80s and early '90s which was called New Jack Swing. - Shawn Stockman
Shawn Patrick Stockman (born September 26 1972, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an African-American R&B singer, best known as a member of the vocal group Boyz II Men. Stockman recorded a solo album as a side project during the late 1990s, but the LP was never released. He has written the songs "Forever", "Hot Thing", and "Let It Go"; the latter of which was played during the Disney movie "Seventeen Again". Shawn has the most silky smooth voice of Boyz II Men, … - Jackie Brenston
Jackie Brenston was an R&B musician who recorded, with Ike Turner's band, the first version of the proto-rock and roll song “Rocket 88”. Returning to Clarksdale from army service in 1947, Brenston learned to play the tenor saxophone, linking up with Ike Turner in 1950 as sax player and occasional singer in his band. The local success of Turner’s Kings of Rhythm prompted B.B. King to recommend them to studio owner Sam Phillips in Memphis, … - Dennis Edwards
Dennis Edwards (born February 3, 1943 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American soul and R&B singer, most noted for being one of Motown act The Temptations' lead singers. A member of The Contours during the late-1960s, Edwards soon replaced David Ruffin as lead singer of The Temptations in 1968 after Ruffin was fired for what has been deemed unprofessional behavior. Edwards had been a friend of the group before hand and in particular had been a friend of Ruffin's. - David Ruffin
David Ruffin (Davis Eli Ruffin) (January 18, 1941 - June 1, 1991) was an American soul singer most famous for his work as lead singer of The Temptations from 1964 to 1968 - Andre Williams
Andre Williams (born Zeffrey Williams in Bessemer, Alabama, on November 1, 1936) is an American R&B and rock and roll musician. Some sources believe that Williams is the long-lost brother of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, a blues musician whose song "I Put A Spell On You" landed on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll charts. He lived in a housing project with his mother until she died when he was only six years of age. - Ralph Tresvant
Ralph Tresvant, aka Rizz (born Ralph Edward Tresvant Jr., on May 16, 1968 in Roxbury, Massachusetts) is an American tenor singer, best known as one of the lead singers in R&B act New Edition. - Jimmy Clanton
Jimmy Clanton (born 2 September 1940, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) known as the "swamp pop R&B teenage idol", and his band recorded a hit song "Just A Dream" which Clanton had written in 1958 for the Ace Records label. It reached number four on the Billboard charts and sold over a million copies. Clanton performed on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. He toured with popular artists like Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and The Platters. - Otis Williams
Otis Williams (born Otis Miles, Jr. on October 30, 1941, in Texarkana, Texas) is an American second tenor/baritone. He has also acted as a sporatic songwriter and producer. Williams is the leader of the Temptations, a group he co-founded in early 1960 as "The Elgins", and in which he continues to perform as the sole surviving original member. - Marlon Jackson
Marlon David Jackson (born March 12, 1957) is an American singer, former member of The Jackson 5, and brother of American pop stars Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. - Ron Tyson
Ron Tyson (born Ronald Tyson Presson on February 8 1948 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American tenor/falsetto singer and songwriter. Tyson, raised in Monroe, North Carolina, is the current tenor for long-lived singing group The Temptations, filling the role made famous by Eddie Kendricks in the 1960s. Before joining the Tempts in 1983, he wrote for them on their Atlantic album, "Hear To Tempt You". - Melvin Franklin
Melvin Franklin (Born David Melvin English; October 12 1942 - February 23 1995) was an American bass singer, best known for his role as a member of Motown singing group The Temptations from 1961 to 1994. Franklin's nephew was Rick James, later a Motown star in his own right during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, David English, the son of a preacher, moved to Detroit, Michigan at the age of nine. - Betty Wright
Betty Wright (born December 21 1953, in Miami, Florida) is a soul and R&B singer, who influenced a generation of female singer-songwriters and also influenced the world of hip hop, who sampled some of her more famous material. - Martha Davis
Martha Davis (December 14, 1917 - April 6, 1960) was an African American singer and pianist whose musical comedy act, "Martha Davis & Spouse", was popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Davis was born in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. By the mid 1930s she had met and been influenced by Fats Waller, and performed regularly as a singer and pianist in Chicago clubs. In 1939 she met, and later married, bass player Calvin Ponder (October 17, … - Fontella Bass
Fontella Bass (born July 3, 1940 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American soul singer, who is best known for the 1965 R&B hit "Rescue Me".
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