Alanis Morissette was one of the most unlikely stars of the mid-'90s. A former child actress turned dance-pop diva, Morissette transformed herself into a confessional alternative singer/songwriter, in the vein of Liz Phair and Tori Amos. However, she added enough pop sensibility, slight hip-hop flourishes, and marketing savvy to that formula to become a superstar with her third album, Jagged Little Pill.

Morissette was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada. In her childhood, she began playing piano and writing songs. At the age of ten, she joined the cast of You Can't Do That on Television, a children's television program. Using money that she earned on the show, Morissette recorded an independent single, "Fate Stay With Me," which was released when she was ten. After leaving the show, she concentrated on a musical career, signing a music publishing contract when she was 14. The publishing contract led to a record deal with MCA ...

The Allman Brothers Band played numerous shows in the south before releasing their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band. Critics loved it, but the blues-rock album found few listeners, attracting only a cult audience. Most of the record had a blues-rock sound, but "Dreams", a spacey number in 12/8 time, would provide the framework for some of their best jams. The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East, their 1971 breakthrough album Idlewild South (1970), the followup, produced by Tom Dowd, was a massive critical success, and managed to be quite lucrative, as well. The upbeat "Revival" and the moody-but-resolute "Midnight Rider" showed the band getting more adept at shorter, radio-friendly song forms. (It was after the release of Idlewild South that Duane Allman recorded the classic Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs with Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos group.)

AMERICA 30 years after they hit the top of the charts with "Horse With No Name" and became serial hitmakers through the Seventies notching up 11 U.S. Top 40 singles and 17 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums, Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley are back on the road in concert. Now you can take your very comfortable front row seat at the Sydney Opera House as America bring you their unique mellow harmonies and appealing blend of rock, pop and folk. Relive the experience or finally catch the concert event you thought you'd missed. Combining all their hits with plenty of surprises, America Live At The Sydney Opera House will have you rockin' and cruisin' back down the "Ventura Highway."

After moving to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin teamed up with producers Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin, resulting in some of the most influential R&B recordings of the 1960s, including "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", a much more soulful and impassioned song than most of her earlier work. By the late 1960s, Franklin had earned the nickname "The Queen of Soul", having become an internationally famous artist and a symbol of pride for the Black community. Franklin said herself of this period, "When I went to Atlantic, they just sat me down at the piano and the hits started coming."

She released numerous Top Ten hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dabbling in gospel music, blues music, pop music, psychedelic music and rock and roll, including notable covers of songs by The Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby"), The Band ("The Weight"), Simon & Garfunkel ("Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Sam Cooke and The Drifters. Live at Fillmore West and Amazing Grace were two of her most influential full-length releases, the latter a double LP of live gospel music recorded in a Los Angeles Baptist church. Surprisingly she never made it to number one in the UK pop charts — the best result being a number four with her version of Burt Bacharach's "I Say a Little Prayer" in 1968...

In the winter of 1949, King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. In order to heat the hall, a barrel half-filled with kerosene was lit, This was quite common. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the burning barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. This triggered an evacuation. Once outside, King realized that he had left his guitar inside the burning building. He entered the blaze to retrieve his guitar, a Gibson acoustic. Two people died in the fire. The next day, King discovered that the two men were fighting over a woman named Lucille. King named that first guitar Lucille, as well as every one he owned since that near-fatal experience, "to remind me never to do a thing like that again." King first found success outside of the blues market with the 1969 remake of the Roy Hawkins tune, "The Thrill Is Gone," which became a hit on both pop and R&B charts, which was rare for an R&B artist. King's mainstream success continued throughout the 1970s with songs like "To Know You Is to Love You" and "I Like to Live the Love." From 1951 to 1985, King appeared on Billboard's R&B charts an amazing 74 times.
The 1980s, 1990s and 2000s saw King recording less and less, but maintaining a highly visible and active career appearing on numerous television shows, major motion pictures and performing 300 nights a year. In 1988 he reached a new generation of fans via the single "When Love Comes To Town", together with the Irish band U2. In 2000, King teamed up with guitarist Eric Clapton to record Riding With the King…

He became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s with his band The Santana Blues Band, which created a highly successful blend of salsa, rock, blues, and jazz fusion. Their sound featured his often high-pitched and clean guitar lines set against Latin instrumentation such as timbales and congas. Santana continued to work in these forms over the following decades, and experienced a sudden resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s. Over his career he has sold an estimated 80 million albums worldwide.
On the tour to support the album, the band played at Woodstock Music and Art Festival. They were one of the surprises of the festival; their set was legendary, and later the exposure of their eleven-minute instrumental "Soul Sacrifice" in the Woodstock film and soundtrack albums vastly increased Santana's popularity. Santana became a huge hit, reaching number four on the U.S. album chart, and the catchy single "Evil Ways" reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100…

After a short-lived attempt at launching a career with her sister Lucy as "The Simon Sisters" (they had a minor hit in 1964 called "Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod" and made 3 albums together before Lucy left to get married and start a family), Carly hooked up with eclectic New York rockers Elephant's Memory for about 6 months. She also appeared in the 1971 Milos Forman movie Taking Off where she plays an auditioning singer. Carly sings the song "Long Term Physical Effects" which was included in Taking Off, the 1971 soundtrack for the movie. Simon launched her solo career in 1971 with the self-titled Carly Simon for Elektra Records. The album contained a top-ten hit, "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be", and was followed quickly by a second album, Anticipation, the title cut from which also scored airplay. Simon's major breakthrough, though, was 1972's No Secrets. The album spawned several successful singles, including Simon's biggest hit, "You're So Vain". (See that article for the enduring mystery of who the song is about). In 1973 Simon performed on Lee Clayton's album Lee Clayton co-singing on the song "New York Suite 409" and on Livingston Taylor's album Over The Rainbow singing with both Livingston and James Taylor on the songs "Loving Be My New Horizon" and "Pretty Woman"...

Clapton grew up a self-confessed "nasty kid." During his secondary school years he attended the Hollyfield School in Surbiton. His first job was as a postman. Influenced by the blues from an early age, at age 13 Clapton received an acoustic guitar for his birthday, but he found learning the instrument so difficult he nearly gave up. After high school, Clapton studied stained-glass design at Kingston Art School but was later kicked out for lack of progress in his studies. Clapton joined his first band at 17 and stayed with this band - the early British R&B outfit The Roosters - from January through to August 1963. Clapton did a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones and the Engineers, in September 1963.

Clapton joined The Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band in 1963 and stayed with them until March 1965. Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Freddie King and B.B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene. The band initially played covers of Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and began to attract a large cult following when they took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. They toured …

By the time Johnson released his Capitol debut Ah Via Musicom in 1990, he was a bona fide "guitar hero;" regularly winning awards for his musicianship in the guitar press. During this period, Johnson was also drawing recognition for the rich, violin-like tone he coaxed from his vintage Fender Stratocaster. The album's second cut, Cliffs of Dover, exemplified his unique sound and won Johnson a 1991 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Ah Via Musicom was a crossover hit, and was soon certified platinum.
Despite his fluidity on the electric guitar, Johnson is an admitted perfectionist, and those traits seemed to work against Ah Via Musicom's follow-up release. Unhappy with his recordings, Johnson mastered—then subsequently scrapped—several completed tracks for the new album and delayed its release for a period of six years. When Venus Isle was finally released in late 1996, it received mixed reviews and did not match the success of its predecessor. However, a successful tour with fellow guitarists Joe Satriani and Steve Vai ensued the following year, as did their live recording…

In 1957, he emigrated to New York City as a child with his mother—a Hungarian immigrant and the only member of her family to survive the Holocaust—after his father, Feri Witz, abandoned his family. After emigrating to America, he took the name Gene Klein; he felt that "Gene" was more American than "Chaim," and his mother's maiden name was Klein. In the late 1960s, he changed his name again, to Gene Simmons, as he simply felt that "Gene Klein" didn't have enough of a ring to it. As a kid Gene was very much into comics and especially Marvel Comics which also published first KISS comic in 1977. Many of Gene's influences can be found from comics or movies and those influences have also affected his "Demon" character, costume and gestures. Lon Chaney Sr. was and is one of his favorite actors...