James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 - December 25, 2006), originally James Joseph Brown, Jr., was an American entertainer. He is recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music and was renowned for his vocals and feverish dancing. He was known, and still is, as "The Godfather of Soul". As a prolific singer, songwriter, dancer and bandleader, Brown was a pivotal force in the music industry. He left his mark on numerous artists. Brown's music also left its mark on the rhythms of African popular music, such as afrobeat, ju00F9ju00FA and mbalax, and provided a template for go-go music. Brown began his professional music career in 1956 and rose to fame during the late 1950s and early 1960s on the strength of his thrilling live performances and string of smash hits. In spite of various personal problems and setbacks he continued to score hits in every decade through the 1980s. In addition to his acclaim in music, Brown was also a presence in American political affairs during the 1960s and 1970s. Brown was recognized by numerous titles, including Soul Brother Number One, Sex Machine, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, The King of Funk, Minister of The New New Super Heavy Funk, Mr. Please Please Please Please Her, I Feel Good, The Boss and foremost The Godfather of Soul.

Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 - July 1, 2003), better known as Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flautist and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played saxophones and clarinets, but Mann was among the first jazz musicians to specialize on the flute and was perhaps jazz music's preeminent flautist during the 1960s.

The Raelettes were a girl group in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, formed, as their name suggests, to provide backing vocals for Ray Charles. Its membership originally consisted of Darlene McCrea, Margie Hendricks, Patricia Lyles, and Gwendolyn Berry. Later members included Mable John, Merry Clayton, and Susaye Greene. The 1980s' set of Raelettes included Avis Harrell, Madlyne Qubeck, Estella Yarobourgh, Trudy Cohran, and Pat Peterson; they recorded with Charles and featured in one of his biggest concerts not long before his death. The concert featured the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and was televised on KCET Television in Canada. Although they never gained fame for their singles, they had a number of pop and R&B hits and several have gone on to promising solo careers. According to the biopic Ray, before becoming the Raelettes, the group were known as The Cookies.

David "Fathead" Newman (February 24, 1933 – January 20, 2009) was an American saxophonist.

Harry James (March 15, 1916 - July 5, 1983) was an American musician and bandleader, and a well-known trumpet virtuoso. James was one of the most outstanding instrumentalists of the swing era, employing a bravura playing style that made his trumpet work instantly identifiable. He was also one of the most-popular bandleaders of the first half of the 1940s, and he continued to lead his band until just before his death, 40 years later.

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr., better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye (April 2, 1939 - April 1, 1984) was an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a three-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label's top-selling solo artist during the sixties. Due to solo hits including "How Sweet It Is ", "Ain't That Peculiar", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned "The Prince of Motown" and "The Prince of Soul". Notable for fighting the hit-making but restrictive Motown process in which performers and songwriters and producers were kept separate, Gaye proved with albums like his 1971 What's Going On and his 1973 Let's Get It On that he was able to produce music without relying on the system, inspiring fellow Motown artists such as Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson to do the same. His mid-1970s work including the Let's Get It On and I Want You albums helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the late seventies, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-winning hit, "Sexual Healing" and the Midnight Love album before his death. Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye #6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked #18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Stevie Wonder(born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13, 1950, name later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. A prominent figure in popular music during the latter half of the 20th century, Wonder has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits, won twenty-two Grammy Awards the most ever won by a solo artist in history, and the lifetime achievement. He has also won an Academy Award for Best Song, and been inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame. He has also been awarded the Polar Music Prize. Blind from birth, Wonder signed with Motown Records at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for the label. He has ten U.S. number-one hits on the pop charts as well as 20 R&B number one hits, and album sales totaling more than 100 million units. Wonder has recorded several critically acclaimed albums and hit singles, and writes and produces songs for many of his label mates and outside artists as well. Wonder plays the piano, synthesizer, harmonica, congas, drums, bass guitar, bongos, organ, melodica, and clavinet. In his childhood, he was best known for his harmonica work, but today he is better known for his keyboard skills and vocal ability. Wonder is the first Motown artist and second African American musician to win an Academy Award for Best Original Song for his 1984 hit single "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from the movie The Woman in Red. According to britishhitsongwriters. com he is the eleventh most successful songwriter in U.K. chart history based on weeks that his compositions have spent on the chart.

Betty Carter (May 16, 1929 – September 26, 1998) was an American jazz singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style. Carmen McRae once claimed that "there's really only one jazz singer - only one: Betty Carter."

William "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. (born February 19, 1940) is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. Robinson is noted for being one of the primary figures associated with Motown Records, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy. Robinson's countless hits, and consistent contributions to the Motown label earned him the title of the "King of Motown". As both a member of Motown group The Miracles and a solo artist, Robinson recorded thirty-seven Top 40 hits for Motown between 1960 and 1987, and also served as the company's vice president from 1961 to 1988.

William Martin "Billy" Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American rock musician, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. He released his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973. According to the RIAA, Billy Joel is the sixth best-selling recording artist in the United States. Joel had Top 10 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and has 33 Top 40 hits in the United States overall. He is also a five-time Grammy Award winner, a 23-time Grammy nominee and has sold in excess of 150 million albums worldwide. He was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame . Joel "retired" from recording pop music in 1993 but continued to tour . In 2001, he released Fantasies & Delusions, a CD of classical compositions for piano. In 2007, he briefly returned to pop songwriting and recording with a single entitled "All My Life" -- written for his third wife Katie Lee Joel. Joel returned to touring in 2006 after a three-year hiatus from the road and has toured extensively ever since, covering many of the major world cities. In March 2009, Joel resumed his popular Face to Face tour with fellow piano man Elton John. The tour is expected to go on and off for two years and travel around the world. The two artists first paired up in 1994 but hadn't toured together since May 2003.

Onaje Allan Gumbs (born 1949, New York City), is a New York-based pianist, composer, and bandleader.

Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an African American singer, songwriter and pianist commonly referred to as "The Queen of Soul". Although renowned for her soul recordings, Franklin is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, R&B and gospel. In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Franklin #1 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time. Franklin is one of the most honored artists by the Grammy Awards, with 20 Grammys to date, which include the Living Legend Grammy and the Lifetime Achievement Grammy. She also sang at the presidential inauguration of 44th President of the United States Barack Obama. She has scored a total of 20 #1 singles on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, two of which also became #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Respect" and "I Knew You Were Waiting " (1987), a duet with George Michael. Since 1961, Franklin has scored a total of 45 "Top 40" hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.In 1987, Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Donny Edward Hathaway (October 1, 1945 - January 13, 1979) was an American soul musician. He signed with Atlantic Records in 1969, and with his first single "The Ghetto, Part I", Rolling Stone magazine "marked him as a major new force in soul music." His collaborations with Roberta Flack took him to the top of the charts and won him the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for the duet "Where Is the Love" in 1973. On January 13, 1979, his body was found outside the luxury hotel Essex House in New York City; his death was ruled a suicide.

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as "Lady Ella" and the "First Lady of Song", is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century. With a vocal range spanning three octaves, she was noted for her purity of tone, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She is widely considered to have been one of the supreme interpreters of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards, and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.

Milton (Milt) Jackson was an American jazz vibraphonist and one of the most important figures in the hard bop style, although he performed in several subgenres of jazz. A very expressive player, Jackson differentiated himself from other vibraphonists in his attention to variations on harmonics and rhythm. He was particularly fond of the 12-bar blues at slow tempos. He preferred to set the vibraphone's oscillator to a low 3.3 revolutions per second for a more subtle vibrato. On occasion, Jackson would also sing and play piano professionally.