Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston was born on April 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. She started her music career singing backup for other artists. She cut her first album Whitney Houston in 1985, and she rose in fame very quickly. She released hit after hit, and was on the top of the charts. She also did some acting and voice acting. She was in the movie Bodyguard and in The Prince of Egypt. Her last performance was on February 9, 2012, was of "Jesus Loves Me" the night before the Grammys. Two days later, she was found dead in her bathtub. She was found to have drug in he system, with which she had always struggled. She fell to drugs while trying to cope with abuse from her husband. She was such an inspiration to many, including myself. Her most famous song is I Will Always Love You.
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The Jackson 5

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The Jackson 5 was comprised of five brothers from the Jackson family - Jackie Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Marlon Jackson, and Michael Jackson. They grew up in Gary, Indiana. They joined the Motown movement in the music world, and really gained fame when Diana Ross publicly announced who they were. They were very famous, and the remaining members held a tour in 2012. One of their most famous songs was ABC.

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Otis Redding

Otis Redding was born on September 9, 1941, at Robins Air Force Base, where his father worked as a sharecropper and preacher. He started singing very young, and began taking music lessons by the age of 10. He began to win local contests in his area, and soon he was touring with Pat T. Cake and the Mighty Panthers. He cut his first album in 1963; but one of his most famous songs, which he released in 1966, was Try a Little Tenderness. Another of his famous songs was Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay, which is my personal favorite. On December 9, 1967, he boarded a plane to fly to a gig he had, and the plane crashed in Lake Monona, Wisconsin, and he died a young death of 26 years old. He was an amazing performer, with a rich, raspy voice that naturally excited all listeners.
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Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson was born on May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. When she was still a toddler, her brothers were already performing as the Jackson 5. At a young age, she began to sing with her family and record music. Her first album was titled Janet Jackson. She rose quickly in fame, and starred in movies in addition to making music. One of her most famous songs is Control.
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Dizzy Gillespie

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Dizzy Gillespie (John Burks Gillespie) was born on October 21, 1917, in Cheraw, South Carolina. He had taught himself how go play the trumpet and trombone by the age of twelve. He was a brilliant musician, and was quickly able to join bands, including Cab Calloway's band and Ella Fitzgerald's band. He was one of the first in the bebop style of jazz. He was also involved in the Afro-Cuban music movement. He was especially known for the way his cheeks puffed out when he played the trumpet. On January 3, 1993, he died of pancreatic cancer. He was an amazing musician with great style and swinging rhythm. A famous song by him is Salt Peanuts.

Diana Ross

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Diana Ross was born on March 26, 1944, in Detroit, Michigan. Growing up, she aspired to be a clothing designer. When she was fifteen, she joined a singing group called The Primettes. They renamed themselves The Supremes, and eventually settled on the name Diana Ross and the Supremes. Eventually the group split in 1977, and Diana started her solo career. In her career, she cut albums and appeared and starred in films, one of which was The Wiz. In 2000, Diana Ross and the Supremes reunited for a tour. The tour was discontinued halfway through and they went separate ways again. Diana continues to make music and perform to this day. One of her most famous songs from her solo career is Ain't No Mountain High Enough.
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James Brown

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James Brown was born on May 3, 1933, in Barnwell, South Carolina. He had a poor family, which left him to work at a young age. In his spare time, he learned instruments such as the piano, guitar, and harmonica. He began performing when he was twelve years old in 1945. He became very famous, and joined many different groups. He also earned for himself the title of Godfather of Soul. In 2006, he became very ill, and died of congestive heart failure on December 25, 2006. He was very famous and his music is still listened to today. One of his most famous songs was I Feel Good.
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Ray Charles

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Ray Charles was born on Septemeber 23, 1930, the son of a sharecropper. He began to lose his sight when he was five and fully lost it when he was seven. He started playing piano with bands when he was fifteen, and started his first band the next year. He first started recording in 1952, and he played and sang all sorts of genres including blues, jazz, and ballads. He was very loved by his fans. The climax of his career was in the late 1950s, but it slowly began to fall as rock became a more popular genre. He died of hepatitis C on June 10, 2004, at the age of 73. He was an inspirational man and performer who left a great legacy of music. One of his most famous song is Hit the Road Jack
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Jimi Hendrix

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Jimi Hendrix was born on February 27, 1942, in Seattle, Washington. He lived a very rough childhood. Both of his parents were neglectful and addicted to alcohol. He got his first guitar when he was fifteen, and it cost five dollars. He learned listening to blues. He was an amazing guitarist, and had a great career. He played so many gigs in his career. He died young on September 18, 1970, because of alcohol and drub abuse that taxed greatly on his health. He was a fantastic musician.
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B.B. King

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B.B. King (Riley B. King) was born in Berclair, Mississippi, on September 16, 1925. He grew up with is grandmother in Kilmichael, Mississippi, and sang in his church choir from a young age. He bought his first guitar when he was twelve. He was spectacular at the guitar; and by the age of twenty-four, he was recording for a company based in Los Angeles. He hit fame and was very famous. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980. In his career he topped the R&B and pop charts. He began his farewell tour in 2006 and it ended in July of 2012. He is an incredible artist who has touched many with his music. One of his most famous songs is The Thrill Is Gone.

Ethel Waters

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Ethel Waters was born on October 31, 1896, in Chester, Pennsylvania, to a single mother who was a rape victim. She got married when she was thirteen, but she separated from her husband soon after because her husband abused her. She began singing when she was seventeen after her friends convinced her to sing two songs at a club. She had a very sporadic early career, and was very poor because of it. She finally gained popularity in 1920, when she moved to Harlem in New York City. She sangs jazz, blues, ballads, and even Broadway in her later career. She died on September 1, 1977, of cancer and kidney failure. One of her most famous songs was His Eye Is On The Sparrow.
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Gloria Gaynor

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Gloria Gaynor was born on September 7, 1949, in Newark, New Jersey. She grew up listening to musicians such as Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. She started singing school, joining all sorts of singing clubs and groups. In the 1960s, she joined the Soul Satisfiers; but in 1965, she began to record solo singles. Her first album to really attract attention was Never Can Say Goodbye. She was a hit in the disco world with many songs that were popular in clubs and mainstream radio. One of her most famous songs, of which she still makes profit off, is I Will Survive. She currently lives with her husband in Green Brook, New Jersey, and is a practicing Christian.
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Billie Holiday

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Billie Holiday was born on April 15, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a troubled family. Her parents were not married, and Billie -named Eleanora Harris at the time- lived with her half-sister's mother-in-law. She moved to live with her mother, who owned a restaurant at the time. Billie's mother made her work long hours, and by the age of eleven, Billie had dropped out of school. In 1926, Billie's mother came home to find a neighbor man raping Billie; the man was arrested and Billie was sent away to be in protective custody during the trial. Her mother eventually moved to New York City, where she began to work as a prostitute. Billie came to live with her mother; before she turned fourteen, she had also become a prostitute. She and her mother were arrested and sent to prison, where Billie stayed for six months. She began to sing in nightclubs, performing in a duo with a tenor saxophone player. She began to sing at all sorts of clubs in Harlem, and grew in popularity. In 1947, Billie was arrested for possessing narcotics, and went to prison for ten months. She had a terrible struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, and was arrested several other times for possessing illegal drugs. Her health deteriorated at a faster rate because of these addictions, and her relationships with rotten, abusive men. In 1959, she was hospitalized because she had cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease. She was arrested on her death bed for drug possession. Police officers guarded her room, and she died on July 17, 1959. She died with a $750 tabloid fee on her person and only $.70 in her bank account. She had a tragic life, filled with poor parenting and deadly addictions. She tried to hide the pain of her past with the consumption of alcohol and drugs, and it affected her health. She had a slow, emotional voice which "brought grown men to tears." As an artist, she was nickname Lady Day. By far her most popular song was Strange Fruit, a song about the racism in the southern United States.
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Louis Armstrong

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Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. His family was poor, and he had sold papers to help earn money, and he sang in a small street quartet as a young boy. He began learning to play the cornet when he was eleven. He played with many bands all over the New Orleans area, and earned a reputation for his skill. As a young man, Louis moved to Chicago to join Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. He loved his work with Oliver, but his wife Lil Hardin Armstrong convinced him to leave, and he joined her band. He was one of the first to begin the use of scat singing, and one of his most famous songs featuring scat was "Heebie Jeebies." He grew in fame, and was an all-star of the jazz and blues world, both in his voice and his instrument playing. He died of a heart attack on July 6, 1971. He was a hilarious man with a grew talent and unique voice. He has personally inspired me because I as a musician am a little old to be still learning to read music, but he learned when he was twenty years old, which just goes to show it is never too late to start. One of my favorite and one of his most famous songs is What a Wonderful World.
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Nat King Cole

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Nat King Cole (Nathaniel Adams Cole) was born on March 17, 1919, Montgomery, Alabama. His family moved to Chicago when he was very young, and he grew up singing in his church. When he was twelve, he began to sing jazz, classical, and gospel music. He began performing when he was still a teenager, and while he was living in Long Beach, California, he and two other artists formed the King Cole Swingers. His first hit, recorder in 1943, was "Straighten Up and Fly Right." He gained a great deal of fame in the jazz and big-band world of music. Nat King Cole died on February 15, 1965, after fighting lung cancer for a year. He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, and was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. One of his most famous songs is Nature Boy.

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Cab Calloway

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Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was born on December 25, 1907, in Rochester, New York. He began music in church, where his parents recognized his talent and arranged private lessons. He began to pursue jazz, against his parents' approval, and he performed in clubs in Baltimore and was mentored by Chick Webb. By 1930, he had a band and was performing in the Cotton Club, a famous club in Harlem area, New York City. He was famous for his ability to scat, which is vocal improvisation using syllables instead of words. He was very famous in the jazz world. He was a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and Grammy Hall of Fame Award. He died on November 18, 1994, having suffered a stroke five month prior. One of his most famous songs was Minnie The Moocher.

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Aretha Franklin

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Aretha Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. Her family moved to Buffalo, New York, soon after her birth. She began music at a young age, in her father's church. She began making secular music when she was eighteen years old. Her first single was "Today I Sung the Blues," and it reached the top ten of the Billboard R&B chart. She performed and recorded many different genres including jazz, blues, doo-wop, and R&B. She earned her first two Grammy awards in 1968 for her single "Respect." She has earned a total of 18 Grammy awards, 2 honorary Grammy awards, and a Grammy Legend Award, as well as many others. One of her most famous singles is "Respect".

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Stevie Wonder

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Stevie Wonder (Stevland Hardaway Morris) was born on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan. Because he was born six weeks mature, his eyes were not fully developed, and he was blind from birth. He began learning very young and sand in his church choir. He released his first two albums in 1962, at the age of twelve. A year later, his hit "Fingertips" brought him to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which made him the youngest musician to reach the top. He grew extremely popular and made music and continues to make music. He has won 22 Grammy awards as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He has made so much fun music to which many still love to listen and sing. One of his most famous songs is Superstition.
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Feeling Good

I covered Feeling Good by Nina Simone! Sorry I haven't been able to do any covers lately, I have been sick for the past two weeks, so I might just have to wait until March to do double the covers. Hope you guys enjoy, and please subscribe and share it!
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Nina Simone

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Nina Simone (Eunice Kathleen Waymon) was born on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina. She began to learn piano when shew as three years old and began to play in church when she turned twelve. After she graduated high school, she moved to New York City to study at Juilliard School of Music in piano. She began performing in bar in Atlanta City, and the owner made her both sing and play piano. She cut her first album Little Girl Blue in 1958. During the Civil Rights movement, she would always give a speech at her performances concerning equal rights. In 1970, she fled the country to avoid paying taxes. She finally settled in Southern France in 1993. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and fought if for some months before she died in her sleep on April 21, 2003. One of her most famous songs is Feeling Good. She had such a neat tone and had a very low voice for a woman.
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Bob Marley

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Bob Marley (Nest Robert Marley) was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. Although his father was white and his mother was black, he identified himself as black. Bob began to make music when he was still in school, but he released his first two singles after he and his mother had moved to Trenchtown, Kingston. He started a band called Bob Marley and the Wailers, and they made a lot of music. Bob was very involved in the Rastafari movement, which caused the main development of the reggae style. Eventually, his original band memebers left, though he kept the same name. In 1977, Bob was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. He continued to perform and held his final concert on September 23, 1980, due to his deteriorating health. He died May 11, 1981, at the age of 36. He was a very unique musician who inspired many with his songs.
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Marian Anderson

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Marian Anderson was born on February 27, 1897. She was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and began singing in her church choir. She was soon recognized as a true talent, and was given lessons in high school and began to succeed in music. When she applied to go to Philadelphia Music Academy to learn opera, they declined her saying, "We don't take colored." She took private lessons and was very proficient at opera. She tried to book places to sing in the United States, but was typically turned down because of her race. She went to Europe and toured all over the continent, winning the hearts of all who heard her. As her popularity grew, she began to get more shows in the U.S. She was very involved in the Civil Rights movement, singing for integrated audiences. She sang for many years, and announced her farewell tour in 1964. In her lifetime she received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement and honorary doctoral degrees from Howard University, Temple University, and Smith College. She died  on April 8, 1993, of congestive heart failure. She was an amazing opera singer and civil rights activist who was passionate about what she believed. Here's a video of her performance of Ave Maria.
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Gladys Knight and the Pips

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Gladys Knight and the Pips was an all family R&B and soul group. Gladys took the lead and her brother Merald "Bubba" Knight and her cousins Edward Patten and William Guest sang backup vocals. The group got together in 1953, taking the name "The Pips" with a few other family members who left soon after they started. Gladys briefly left the group in 1962 for two years to start a family, but joined back after having two children. They were not a popular as some of the other groups such as The Temptations and Diana Ross and the Supremes, and felt as though they had been cheated of popularity because they never got hits. They had many hits, though, such as I Heard it Through the Grapevine and Midnight Train to Georgia. They broke up in 1988 after their final tour. They had such a fun sound and looked like they had so much fun when they were performing.

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Chick Webb

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Chick Webb (William Henry Webb) was born on February 10, 1905. He grew up suffering from tuberculosis of the spine, which gave him a shortened height and irregularity of the spine. It was suggested to him that he should play drums to loosen up his back, and he loved it. He moved to New York to pursue music when he was 17 years old, and had a band of his own after fours years. He was the drummer, of course, and he hosted many different things in Harlem. He held a battle of the bands in which another band would come and "challenge" his band to see which the crowd loved more. His was the first band that Ella Fitzgerald joined when she started her career as an artist. In the late 1930s, his health began to fail, and he eventually died on June 16, 1939, his last words being, "I'm sorry, I've go to go." He was such an inspirational musician who worked hard and played well, even though his condition left him at a disadvantage. Here's a sample of the Chick Webb Band Playing with Ella Fitzgerald.
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The Four Tops

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The Four Tops was a quartet doo-wop, R&B, and jazz group that has sung together from 1953 to the present time. The original four members were Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Levi Stubbs, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, and Lawrence Payton. They started out as a high school group, performing for a birthday party, and decided to stay together after graduation. They first chose the name The Four Aims, but later changed it to The Four Tops so as not to be confused with The Ames Brothers. They became very popular in the Motown years. As they grew older, some died of disease, and others such as Theo Peoples from The Temptations and Ronnie McNair joined in to replace the deceased ones. In the later years, that took on the name The Tops. They have won many awards including the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Billboard Magazine Top 100 Artists of All Time. One of their most famous songs is I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch). 
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Lena Horne

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Lena Horne was born on June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. She first performed when she was sixteen years old in the chorus group of the Cotton Club. She began to rise in fame as orchestras, radio shows, and movies picked her up and she made her way in Hollywood. Although she had more fame in Hollywood, she grew bored and returned to the clubs to do what she loved where she loved. She was also very active in the Civil Rights Movement and performed at various venues that encouraged civil rights. She even married a white man just to make a point of being in an interracial couple. Her ethnicity was questioned a lot, because she did not have dark skin, nor the typical features of African-Americans. She was an inspirational singer who had a great stage personality and a beautiful voice. Lena Horne died of heart failure on May 9, 2010, in New York City, New York. One of her most famous songs and her debut song for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was Stormy Weather. 

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Sam Cooke

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Sam Cooke was born on January 22, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He began singing when he was nine years old in a children's group called The Singing Children.  As he grew older, he joined many other gospel groups until in 1956, he cut his first secular pop single "Lovable." He took off in the pop world and was quickly at the top of the Billboard R&B chart. One of his most famous songs was A Change is Gonna Come. He had many hardships in his life, but the worst was the when, in 1963, his 18-month-old son Vincent accidentally drowned. This put him in a dark depression, which caused him to turn to alcoholism and drugs to take away the pain. One night on December 11, 1963, he was in a drunken or high craze at a motel in Los Angeles, and broke into the manager's office, saying he was looking for a woman who had come with him. She pulled out a gun, and in her fear, shot him in the torso, and he ran at her saying, "Lady, you shot me!" and she hit him in the head with a broomstick and shot him two more times until he died.
Sam Cooke was a brilliant artist, and I would love to be able to sing his songs one day.
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Etta James

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Etta James was born on January 25, 1938 in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in a strong musical setting, starting when she was only five years old. As she grew as a singer, she grew more interested in R&B and jazz styles. She cut her first album At Last in 1960 with her most famous song, "At Last." As she grew older she explored and performed in the genres of rock, jazz, and blues. She won six Grammys, seventeen Blues Music Awards, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Blues Hall of Fame, and the Grammy Hall of Fame. She died on January 20, 2012, after battling leukemia for a year. She was an amazing singer whose life story inspires many to be confident in who they are.

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Check out this video of her hit song, "At Last."
Thanks for reading!
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Ella Fitzgerald

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Ella Fitzgerald was born on April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Virginia to William and Temperance Fitzgerald. Her parents divorced soon after and her mother married Joseph Da Silva. Ella's mother died while Ella was  a teenager, and Ella was taken away from home to save her from her abusive stepfather. She jumped from institution to institution, but eventually ran away to live on the streets. When she was seventeen years old, she performed for the first time. She had always wanted to be a dancer, and on the amateur night at Apollo Harlem Theatre, she made a split-second decision that would change her whole life - she sang Judy by the Boswell Sisters. She was soon picked up by the Chick Webb band, and her career took off with a bang. She sang swing, jazz ballads, and just about anything her managers threw at her, always adding a creative spin to the melody. She earned the titles "The First Lady of Song" and "The Queen of Jazz." One of her most  popular songs with a great deal of improvisation was How High the Moon. Because of weight issues, she had many health issues, which eventually took her life on June 15, 1996. She was an inspirational singer, and has greatly influenced the jazz industry. She has been a personal hero of mine in music.
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