Maria Linda Ronstadt (born July 15, 1946), known as Linda Ronstadt, is an American popular music vocalist and entertainer whose vocal styles in a variety of genres have resonated with the general public over the course of her four-decade career. As a result, she has earned multiple Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden Globe nominations. A singer-songwriter and record producer, she is recognized as a definitive interpreter of songs. Being one of musicu2019s most versatile, and commercially successful female singers in U.S. history, she is recognized for her many public stages of self-reinvention and public incarnations .. With a one time standing as the Queen of Rock - where she was bestowed the title of "highest paid woman in rock" - recently, she's emerged as music matriarch and a national arts advocate.. In total, she has released over 30 solo albums, more than 15 compilations or greatest hits albums, and has collaborated with various artists on over 120 other albums. She also has charted 38 Billboard Hot 100 singles, 21 of which have reached the top 40, 10 of which have reached the top 10, three peaking at No. 2, and the No. 1 hit, "You're No Good."

Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9, 1941 in Staten Island, New York) is a folk singer and songwriter known for her highly individual vocal style. Many of her songs are topical and deal with social issues. She is perhaps best known for her hit "Diamonds & Rust" and her covers of Phil Ochs' "There But For Fortune" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", and to a lesser extent,"We Shall Overcome," "Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word" and "Farewell Angelina," "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "Joe Hill" . She remains known for her long relationship with Bob Dylan and her lifelong passion for activism, notably in the areas of nonviolence, civil, human rights and, more recently, the environment. Baez has performed publicly for over 50 years, released over 30 albums and recorded songs in at least eight languages. She is considered a folk singer although her music has strayed from folk considerably after the 1960s, encompassing everything from rock and pop to country and gospel. Although a songwriter herself, especially in the mid-1970s, Baez is most often regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, covering songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and myriad other artists. In more recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of diverse songwriters such as Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant and Ryan Adams. She has a three-octave vocal range and a distinctively rapid vibrato.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an influential Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, guitarist and a pioneer of rock and roll whose recording career spanned more than four decades. Orbison is best known for the songs, "Only the Lonely," "In Dreams," "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Crying," "Running Scared," and "You Got It". He was known for his smooth high baritone voice, with a range of at least two and a half octaves. He was rarely seen on stage without his trademark tinted prescription glasses. In 1987, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1989, he was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet and painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of both the civil rights movements and of the opposition to the Vietnam War. After a lifetime of writing, recording, and performing, Dylan's latest record—his 33rd studio album—Together Through Life was released on April 28, 2009. The album reached the number one spot on both the Billboard 200 chart of top selling albums, and the UK album charts in its first week of release. Dylan's early lyrics incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has explored many traditions of American song, from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing. Dylan performs with the guitar, piano and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the "Never Ending Tour". Although his accomplishments as performer and recording artist have been central to his career, his songwriting is generally regarded as his greatest contribution. Throughout his career, Dylan has won many awards for his songwriting, performing, and recording. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a "Cultural Pathway" was named in Dylan's honor in his birthplace, Duluth. In 2008, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (born May 17, 1942), who goes by the stage name Taj Mahal, is an internationally recognized blues musician with two Grammy Awards to date who folds various forms of world music into his offerings. A self-taught singer-songwriter and film composer who plays the guitar, banjo and harmonica (among many other instruments), Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music during his 40+ year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa and the South Pacific.

Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. In 2004, Browne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by fellow American musical artist and good friend, Bruce Springsteen. In the same year, Browne received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Los Angeles' Occidental College for "a remarkable musical career that has successfully combined an intensely personal artistry with a broader vision of social change and justice".

Donna Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines December 31, 1948) is an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of music. Summer was trained as a gospel singer prior to her introduction to the music industry. Though she is most notable for her disco hits, Summer's repertoire has expanded to include contemporary R&B, rock, mainstream pop, and gospel. Summer is one of the most successful recording artists of the 1970s, and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums hit #1 on the Billboard charts. She also became the first female artist to have four number-one singles in a thirteen-month period. Summer's website reports an estimate that she has sold more than 130 million records worldwide.

Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 - September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for weaving his offbeat, sardonic view of life into his music, composing dark, sometimes humorous songs often laced with political or historical themes. Zevon's best-known compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner" and "Johnny Strikes Up The Band", all of which are featured on his 1978 release, Excitable Boy. Other well known Zevon songs include "Accidentally Like a Martyr", "Mutineer" and "Mohammad's Radio". Along with his own compositions Zevon recorded or performed occasional covers, including Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan". He was a frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show with David Letterman.

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 - October 4, 1970) was an American singer, songwriter, and music arranger, from Port Arthur, Texas. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Odetta Holmes, (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she was influential musically and ideologically to many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin.

John Dawson "Johnny" Winter III (born 23 February 1944) is an American blues guitarist, singer and producer. Johnny and Edgar Winter were nurtured at an early age by their parents in their musical pursuits. Johnny Winter is known for his southern blues and rock and roll style, as well as his physical appearance. Both he and his brother were born with albinism. In 2003 Winter was ranked 74th in Rolling Stone magazine list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time"

Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (January 5, 1895 - June 29, 1987) was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter. Self-taught and having no knowledge of conventional guitar tunings, Cotten developed her own original style. Her approach to left-handed guitar playing involved keeping the guitar in standard tuning but holding it upside down. This position required her to play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature, alternating bass style has become known as "Cotten picking".

Snooks Eaglin, born Fird Eaglin, Jr. (January 21 1936 – February 18 2009), was a guitarist and singer in New Orleans. He has also been referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin in this early years. His vocal style is reminiscent of Ray Charles; indeed, in the 50s, when he was in his late teens, he would sometimes bill himself as "Little" Ray Charles. He is generally regarded as a New Orleans R&B artist playing a wide range of music from blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, country to Latin music. In his early years, he also played some straight-ahead acoustic blues. His ability to play a wide range of songs and his ability to perfectly understand and make the tunes his own earned him the nickname the "human jukebox." Eaglin claimed in interviews that his musical repertoire included some 2,500 songs.At live shows, he did not usually prepare set lists, and was unpredictable, even to his bandmates. He played songs that come to his head, and he also took requests from the audience.

James Lawrence "Jimmie" Vaughan (born March 20, 1951) is an American blues guitarist and singer from Dallas, Texas. He is the older brother of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan. Jimmie Vaughan's style was influenced by Freddie King who gave him personal advice. Also two other blues guitarists, Albert King and B. B. King, were important influences. Johnny "Guitar" Watson was another important early influence (Jimmie says that he and his younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan studied Johnny "Guitar" Watson more than any other single guitarist).

Emmylou Harris (born April 2 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other highly successful, well-known artists.