- Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March, 1947) is a five-time Grammy and one-time Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist. In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially in the 1970s. John has sold more than 250 million albums plus hundreds of millions of singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. - Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 - August 5, 1962), was a Golden Globe Award-winning American actress, singer, model and pop icon. She was known for her comedic skills and screen presence, going on to become one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. At the later stages of her career, she worked towards serious roles with a measure of success. - Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan and later called Lady Day, was an American jazz singer. - Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 - May 14, 1998) was an American jazz oriented popular singer and Academy Award-winning actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid 1940s, being the idol of the 'bobby soxers'. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. - Diana Krall
Singer/pianist Diana Krall got her musical education when she was growing up in Nanaimo, British Columbia, from the classical piano lessons she began at age four and in her high school jazz band, but mostly from her father, a stride piano player with an extensive record collection. "I think Dad has every recording Fats Waller ever made," she said, "and I tried to learn them all." - Norah Jones
Norah Jones (born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar on March 30 1979 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American singer-songwriter, musician and occasional actress. Jones's career was launched with the massive success of her 2002 debut album "Come Away with Me", a contemporary pop album with a sensual, plaintive soul/folk/country tinge, that sold over twenty million copies worldwide and received six Grammy Awards, with Jones winning "Best New Artist". - Peggy Lee
Peggy Lee was an American jazz and traditional pop singer and songwriter and Oscar-nominated performer. She was born Norma Deloris Egstrom and was famous for her "soft and cool" singing style. Though she recorded dozens of hit songs (many of which she wrote or cowrote), Lee might be best known for her interpretation of the Davenport/Cooley composition "Fever" and the song written by her and Dave Barbour, "It's a Good Day." - Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922 - June 22, 1969) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress and singer, best known for her role as Dorothy Gale from "The Wizard of Oz". Garland's singing voice had a natural vibrato, which she was able to maintain at an extremely low volume. The effects which she was able to project enabled her to convey a wide range of emotion when she interpreted a song. - Ruth Etting
Ruth Etting was an American singing star of the 1930s, who had over sixty hit recordings. Her signature tunes were "Shine On Harvest Moon", "Ten Cents a Dance" and "Love Me or Leave Me", and her other popular recordings included "Button Up Your Overcoat", "Mean to Me", "Exactly like you", and "Shaking the Blues Away". - Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Although she disliked being categorized, Simone is generally classified as a jazz musician. Her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles, such as jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and even pop music. Her vocal style is characterized by passion, breathiness, and tremolo. Simone recorded over 40 live and studio albums, … - Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline was an American country music singer, who enjoyed pop music cross-over success during the era of the Nashville Sound in the early 1960s. Since her death at the age of 30 in a 1963 plane crash at the height of her career, she has been considered one of the most influential, successful, revered and acclaimed female vocalists of the 20th century. Her life and career has been the subject of numerous books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays. - Helen Morgan
Helen Morgan (August 2, 1900 - October 9, 1941) was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. She was born on 2 August 1900 in rural Danville, Illinois. She was born 'Helen Riggins' to a farmer and schoolteacher but became 'Morgan' when her mother remarried. By 20 she had taken voice lessons and was singing in speakeasies in Chicago. - K.D. Lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC (born November 2, 1961), best known by the stage name k.d. lang, is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian singer and songwriter. - Julie London
Julie London was an American singer and actress. Best known for her smoky, sensual voice, as a singer she was at her peak in the 1950s; her acting career lasted more than 35 years, ending with the role of nurse Dixie McCall, RN, on the TV show "Emergency!" (1972–1979). - Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-born actress, singer, and entertainer. Throughout her long career, starting as a cabaret singer, chorus girl and film actress in 1920s Berlin, Hollywood movie star in the 1930s, World War II frontline entertainer during the 1940s, and finally as an international stage show performer from the 1950s to the 1970s, Dietrich constantly re-invented herself and eventually became one of the entertainment icons of the 20th century. - Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (nicknamed "Sassy" and "The Divine One") (March 27 1924, Newark, New Jersey - April 3 1990, Los Angeles, California) was an American jazz singer, described as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century - Rosemary Clooney
Rosemary Clooney (May 23, 1928 - June 29, 2002) was an American popular singer and actress. She was most popular singing Traditional Pop music in the 1940s and 50s with songs like "Come On-a My House". She was the aunt of actor George Clooney, and the sister to former television personality Nick Clooney. - Kay Starr
Kay Starr (born July 21 1922) is an American jazz and popular singer. - Neko Case
Neko Case (born September 8, 1970 in Alexandria, Virginia) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and as a member of The New Pornographers. Her music is frequently labeled alternative country, although Case doesn't care for that description. She recorded and toured for several years as Neko Case & Her Boyfriends before switching to her own name. - Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley (November 17, 1966 - May 29, 1997), born Jeffrey Scott Buckley and raised as Scotty Moorhead, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Known for his ethereal singing voice, Buckley was considered by critics to be one of the most promising artists of his generation after the release of his critically acclaimed 1994 debut album "Grace." However, at the height of his popularity, … - Beth Gibbons
Beth Gibbons (born 4 January 1965, in Exeter, Devon) is the vocalist for the English trip-hop band Portishead. - Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (born February 20 1937) is an American singer whose sixty-plus albums have blended jazz and pop music. She currently hosts "Jazz Profiles", a jazz radio program on NPR. - Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is a Grammy Award winning American singer-songwriter. She is best known as Fiona Apple. - Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is an Oscar, BRIT, Grammy and Golden Globe award-winning Scottish pop musician and vocalist. She is both a solo artist and the lead singer of the duo Eurythmics, often hailed as "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" (VH1, "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll" 1999) - Carmen McRae
Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920-November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer. Considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th Century, it was her behind-the-beat phrasing and her ironic interpretations of song lyrics, that made her memorable. - Anita O'Day
Anita O'Day (October 18, 1919 - November 23, 2006) was an American jazz singer. Many place her among the greatest female jazz singers (the only white one) in a group that includes Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter. Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". - Dinah Shore
Dinah Shore (born Frances Rose Shore February 29, 1916 - February 24, 1994) was an American singer and actress. She was most popular during the Big Band era of the 1940s and 1950s. She became one of the popular "girl singers" from that era. She enjoyed a string of popular hits and afterwards became a successful actress for a number of years, being compared to singers such as Doris Day. - Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 - September 1, 1977) was an Oscar-nominated American blues vocalist and actress. She was the second African American to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. Waters frequently performed jazz, big band, gospel, and popular music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts. Her best-known recording was her version of the spiritual "His Eye is on the Sparrow". - Katie Melua
Ketevan "Katie" Melua is a British-Georgian singer and musician, who was born in Georgia, but moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then relocated to England at the age of 14. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of songwriter Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003. She is, as of 2006, the United Kingdom's biggest-selling female artist and Europe's highest selling European female artist. - Holly Cole
Holly Cole (born November 25, 1963 in Halifax, Nova Scotia) is a Canadian jazz singer, particularly popular in Canada and Japan for her versatile voice and her adventurous repertoire, which spans such divergent genres as show tunes, rock, and country music. In 1983, she travelled to Toronto to seek a musical career. In 1986, she founded a trio with bassist David Piltch and pianist Aaron Davis. Offered a record deal in 1989, the Holly Cole Trio released an EP, … - June Christy
June Christy (born November 20, 1925 - died June 21, 1990) was an American Jazz singer popular in the 1950s. She started eventually gaining her fame when, in 1945, she became the vocalist for the Stan Kenton orchestra. She pursued a solo career in 1954 and is best known for her recording of "Something Cool" written by Hollywood composer/lyricist Billy Barnes. - Patti Lupone
Patti LuPone (born April 21 1949 in Northport, Long Island, New York) is a Tony Award-winning American singer and actress. - John Pizzarelli
John Pizzarelli, Jr. (born April 6, 1960) is an Italian-American jazz guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and bandleader born in Paterson, New Jersey. He is married to torch singer Jessica Molaskey who he has recorded with on each of her albums, and is also the son of fellow jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli. Pizzarelli has had a lengthy career as a recording artist, performing for a variety of labels that include Telarc Records, RCA Records and Chesky Records, among others. - Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf was one of France's most beloved singers, and became a national icon. Her singing reflected her tragic life, with her specialty being the poignant ballad performed in a heartbreaking voice. Among her famous songs are "La vie en rose" (1946), "Hymne à l'amour" (1949), "Milord" (1959), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (1960). A filmed biography on her life, titled "La Vie En Rose", is currently in release (June, 2007). - Jane Olivor
Jane Olivor, an American cabaret singer born May 18, 1947, pursued a career that caused her to be compared favorably to such music-world public figures as Barbra Streisand and to the chanteuse Édith Piaf during the 1970s. But personal and professional setbacks almost ruined her career. - Maxine Sullivan
Maxine Sullivan (b. Marietta Williams, May 13 1911, Homestead, Pennsylvania - d. April 7 1987, New York City) was an American vocalist and singer. She was an inductee in the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1998. - Little Annie
Little Annie Bandez (also "Little Annie Anxiety Bandez" or "Annie Anxiety") is a singer, painter, and stage actor, perhaps most widely known for her vampish performance of the song "Things Happen", with the band Coil. She has recorded extensively with vanguard figures of late twentieth century music such as rock musician Kid Congo Powers, dub stalwart Adrian Sherwood, punk/experimental band Crass, and experimental/electronica band Coil, … - Ute Lemper
Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress. Born in Münster, she graduated from the Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna. At age 16, she joined the punk music group the Panama Drive Band. Her diverse credits include musicals, such as her breakthrough role in the original Viennese cast of the "Cats", the title role in Peter Pan, a recreation of the Marlene Dietrich-created Lola in "The Blue Angel", … - Sammy White
Sammy White (May 28, 1894 - March 3, 1960) was an American vaudeville song-and-dance comedian who appeared in a few films. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island. With his then-wife, Eva Puck, White appeared in the original 1927 Broadway stage version of the classic musical "Show Boat". In the musical, he played the role of comic dancer Frank Schultz, and Puck played the role of Ellie May Chipley, who eventually marries Frank. - Maude Maggart
Maude Maggart (born Amber Taleullah McAfee Maggart) is an American cabaret singer and recording artist who performs throughout the United States, but most often in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City. She was born in New York City to Broadway veterans Brandon Maggart and Diane McAfee and is the sister of singer/songwriter Fiona Apple. At age 20, she changed her first name to Maude after her paternal great-great grandmother, Maude Apple.
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