Mary Esther Wells (May 13, 1943 – July 26, 1992) was an American singer who defined the early sound of Motown Records in the early sixties. Along with The Miracles, The Temptations, The Supremes, and The Four Tops, Wells was said to have been part of the charge in black music onto radio stations and record shelves of mainstream America "bridging the color lines in music at the time." With a string of hit singles mainly composed by Smokey Robinson including "Two Lovers", the Grammy-nominated "You Beat Me to the Punch" and her signature hit, "My Guy" (1964), she became recognized as "The Queen of Motown" until her departure from the company in 1964, at the height of her popularity. In other circles, she's referred to as the "The First Lady of Motown" and was one of Motown's first singing superstars.

Robert Dwayne "Bobby" Womack is an American singer-songwriter and musician. An active recording artist since the early 1960s where he started his career as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career has spanned more than 40 years and has spanned a repertoire in the styles of R&B, soul, rock and roll, doo-wop, gospel, and country. As a songwriter, Womack is notable for penning and originally recording The Rolling Stones' first UK No. 1 hit, "It's All Over Now" and New Birth's "I Can Understand It" among other songs. As a singer he is most notable for the hits "Lookin' For a Love", "That's The Way I Feel About Cha", "Woman's Gotta Have It", "Harry Hippie","Across 110th Street" and his 1980s hit "If You Think You're Lonely Now". On January 14, 2009 Womack was announced as one of the 2009 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was inducted on April 4.

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.

Johnnie Harrison Taylor (May 5, 1937] – May 31, 2000) was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from Gospel, blues and soul to pop, doo-wop and disco.

Otis Ray Redding, Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American soul singer. Often called the "King of Soul", he is renowned for an ability to convey strong emotion through his voice. According to the website of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Redding's name is "synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm and blues into a form of funky, secular testifying." In addition, rock critic Jon Landau said in 1967 that '"Otis Redding is rock & roll". Redding died in a plane crash at the age of 26, one month before his biggest hit, " The Dock of the Bay", was released.

Ike Wister Turner (November 5, 1931 – December 12, 2007) was an American musician, bandleader, talent scout, and record producer. His first recording, "Rocket 88" by "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats," in 1951, is considered by some to be the "first rock and roll song" ever. However, he is best known for his work with his ex-wife Tina Turner as one half of the Ike & Tina Turner revue. Spanning a career that lasted half a century, Ike's repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk. Alongside his former wife, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and in 2001 was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Turner won two Grammy Awards.

William Everett "Billy" Preston (September 2 1946 - June 6 2006) was an American soul musician from Houston, Texas, raised mostly in Los Angeles, California. In addition to his successful, Grammy-winning career as a solo artist, Preston collaborated with some of the greatest names in the music industry, including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Eric Burdon, Ray Charles, George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, King Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Mick Jagger, Richie Sambora, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He played the Fender Rhodes electric piano and the Hammond organ on the Get Back sessions in 1969. Preston along with Tony Sheridan are the only two non-Beatles to receive billing as an artist alongside the Beatles (as distinct from receiving credit as a session musician on album packaging) on an official Beatles record release. The label of the Get Back single credits the artists on the record as "The Beatles with Billy Preston".

One of the most popular and influential gospel groups of the 20th century, the Soul Stirrers were pioneers in the development of the quartet style of gospel and, without intending it, in the creation of soul music, the secular music that owed much to gospel. The group was formed by Roy Crain, who had launched his first quartet, which sang in a jubilee style, in 1926 in Trinity, Texas. In the early 1930s, after Crain moved to Houston, he joined an existing group on the condition that it change its name to "the Soul Stirrers." Among the members of that group was R.H. Harris, who soon became its musical leader. Harris, also from Trinity, Texas, brought several changes to the Soul Stirrers that affected gospel quartet singing generally. He used a falsetto style that had its antecedents in African music, but which was new to the popular jubilee singing style of the time. He pioneered the "swing lead", in which two singers would share the job of leading the song, allowing virtuoso singers to increase the emotional intensity of the song as the lead passed between them. That innovation led the Soul Stirrers, while still called a quartet, to acquire five members; later groups would have as many as seven but still consider themselves "quartets", which referred more to their style than their number. The Soul Stirrers made other important changes in those years: ad-libbing lyrics, singing in delayed time, and repeating words in the background as both a rhythmic and emotional support for the lead singers. The Soul Stirrers dropped the "flatfooted" style of jubilee quartets before them and expanded their repertoire from spirituals and traditional hymns to the newer gospel compositions. The group also loosened the rigid arrangements that jubilee quartets had favored to permit individual singers within the group more space for individual development. In 1936 Alan Lomax recorded the Soul Stirrers for the Library of Congress's American music project. They later moved to Chicago, where they broadcast a weekly radio show. Their nationwide touring gained them an even larger audience, as they delivered the emotional fervor that popular jubilee groups, such as the Golden Gate Quartet, did not. The Soul Stirrers signed with Specialty Records, where they recorded a number of tracks, including "By and By" and "In that Awful Hour". Harris, the most popular member of the group, soon quit, however, in order to form a new group. He was replaced by the then-unknown Sam Cooke. One of the first singles with Cooke was "Jesus Gave Me Water", a major hit that brought the Soul Stirrers massive acclaim. Thomas L. Breuster was replaced by Bob King and, briefly, Julius Cheeks. When Cooke left in 1957 to pursue a career in pop music, the Soul Stirrers' preeminence in gospel was essentially over, though a brief period of success with Johnnie Taylor sustained the group for a time. Various line-ups continued touring and recording throughout the last half of the century to a small and devoted following. The group - and all of its members - was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 as one of rock's Early Influences, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2000.

Curtis Ousley (February 7, 1934 - August 13, 1971), who performed under the name King Curtis, was an American tenor, alto, and soprano saxophonist and session musician who played rhythm and blues, Rock and roll, soul, Funk and soul jazz. He was also a musical director and record producer. He is best known for his distinctive sax riffs and solos on such hits as The Coasters' "Yakety Yak", and his own "Memphis Soul Stew".

Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), known by the stage name Little Richard, is anAmerican singer, songwriter and pianist. He is considered a key figure in the transition from rhythm & blues to rock & roll in the 1950s. Penniman's reputation rests on a string of groundbreaking hit singles from 1955 through 1957, such as "Tutti Frutti", "Lucille" and "Long Tall Sally", which helped lay the foundation for rock and roll music, and influenced generations of rhythm & blues, rock and soul music artists. Little Richard's injection of funk during this period, via his saxophone-studded mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters, also influenced the development of that genre of music. He was subsequently honored by being one of seven of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and was one of only four of these honorees to also receive the Rhythm & Blues Foundation's Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award. Little Richard's early work was a mix of boogie-woogie, rhythm & blues and gospel music, but with a heavily accentuated back-beat, funky saxophone grooves and raspy shouted vocals, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections that marked a new kind of music. In 1957, while at the height of stardom, he became a born-again Christian, enrolled in and attended Bible college, and withdrew from recording and performing secular music. Claiming he was called to be an evangelist, he has since devoted large segments of his life to this calling. Little Richard has earned wide praise from many other performers. James Brown called Little Richard his idol and credited him with "first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat." Dick Clark described his music as "the model for almost every rock and roll performer of the '50s and years thereafter." Ray Charles asserted that Little Richard was "the man that started a kind of music that set the pace for a lot of what's happening today." In his high school year book, Bob Dylan declared that his ambition was "to join the band of Little Richard." In 1966, Jimi Hendrix, who played and recorded with Little Richard's band from 1964 to 1965, was quoted as saying, "I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice." In addition, Otis Redding,Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, and David Bowie and many other music stars have cited Little Richard as being their first major influence. He was chosen as the eighth greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, although at least six of the seven artists who preceded him on the list were influenced significantly by Little Richard's music.

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 - June 10, 2004), known by his stage name Ray Charles, was a blind musician. He brought a soulful sound to country music and pop standards through his Modern Sounds recordings, as well as a rendition of "America the Beautiful" that Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes called the "definitive version of the song, an American anthem — a classic, just as the man who sang it." He also appeared in the 1980 hit movie, The Blues Brothers. Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in the business". In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Charles number ten on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and also voted him number two on their November 2008 list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s known in the United States as part of the British Invasion. Known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman Eric Burdon, as exemplified by their signature songs "The House of the Rising Sun" and "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place", the band balanced tough, rock-edged pop singles against rhythm and blues-oriented album material. The Animals underwent numerous personnel changes and emerged as an exponent of psychedelic rock before dissolving at the end of the decade. They had a comeback in 1983 and started a world tour. In early 1984 the band disbanded.

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.

Terry Alan Kath (January 31, 1946 - January 23, 1978) born in Chicago, Illinois, was the original guitarist and founding member of the rock band Chicago. He died in 1978 at the age of 31 from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.

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.