Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She began her music career in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the mid-1980s. Grant has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop".
Patricia Louise Holt, known professionally as Patti LaBelle, is an American R&B singer and actress. She has been referred to as the "Godmother of Soul".
Samantha Brown is an English singer, songwriter and musician.
Etta Moten Barnett was an American actress and contralto vocalist, who was identified with her signature role of "Bess" in Porgy and Bess. She created new roles for African-American women on stage and screen. After her performing career, Barnett was active in Chicago as a major philanthropist and civic activist, raising funds for and supporting cultural, social and church institutions. She also hosted a radio program in Chicago and represented the United States in several official delegations to nations in Africa.
Vincent Grant Gill is an American country, bluegrass, and rock singer, songwriter, and musician. He began in a number of local bluegrass bands in the 1970s, and from 1978 to 1982, he achieved his first mainstream attention as lead singer of the soft rock band Pure Prairie League. After leaving that band, Gill served as a backing musician for Rodney Crowell before beginning a solo career in 1984. Gill recorded for RCA Records Nashville from then until 1988. A year later, he signed with MCA Nashville, where he would have his country music breakthrough with When I Call Your Name. Gill has remained with MCA for all subsequent albums.
Kim Carnes is an American singer and songwriter born and raised in Los Angeles. She began her career as a songwriter in the 1960s, writing for other artists while performing in local clubs and working as a session background singer with the famed Water Sisters. After she signed her first publishing deal with Jimmy Bowen, she released her debut album Rest on Me in 1971. Carnes' self-titled second album primarily contained self-penned songs, including her first charting single "You're a Part of Me", which reached No. 35 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in 1975. In the following year, Carnes released Sailin', which featured "Love Comes from Unexpected Places". The song won the American Song Festival and the award for Best Composition at the Tokyo Song Festival in 1976.
Wendy Joan Matthews is a Canadian-born Australian singer-songwriter who has been a member of Models and Absent Friends and is a solo artist. She released Top 20 hit singles in the 1990s including "Token Angels", "Let's Kiss ", "The Day You Went Away" and "Friday's Child" with Top 20 albums, You've Always Got The Blues, Émigré, Lily, The Witness Tree and her compilation, Stepping Stones. She has won six Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Awards. According to rock music historian, Ian McFarlane she provides "extraordinary, crystal-clear vocals [...] a soulfulness that was the mark of a truly gifted singer".
Patty Loveless is an American country music singer. She began performing in her teenaged years before signing her first recording contract with MCA Records' Nashville division in 1985. While her first few releases were unsuccessful, she broke through by decade's end with a cover of George Jones's "If My Heart Had Windows". Loveless issued five albums on MCA before moving to Epic Records in 1993, where she released nine more albums. Four of her albums—Honky Tonk Angel, Only What I Feel, When Fallen Angels Fly, and The Trouble with the Truth—are certified platinum in the United States. Loveless has charted 44 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, including five which reached number one: "Timber, I'm Falling in Love", "Chains", "Blame It on Your Heart", "You Can Feel Bad", and "Lonely Too Long".
Pamela Yvonne Tillis is an American country music singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She is the eldest child of the late country music singer and songwriter, Mel Tillis. After recording unsuccessful pop material for Elektra and Warner Records in the early 1980s, Tillis shifted to country music. In 1989, she signed with Arista Nashville, entering top-40 on Hot Country Songs for the first time with "Don't Tell Me What to Do" in 1990. This was the first of five singles from her breakthrough album Put Yourself in My Place.
Toni Wine is an American pop music songwriter, who wrote songs for such artists as The Mindbenders, Tony Orlando and Dawn ("Candida"), and Checkmates, Ltd. in the late 1960s and 1970s. Wine also sang the female vocals for the cartoon music group The Archies, most notably on their #1 hit song "Sugar, Sugar". She shared the lead vocals in the Archies' subsequent single, "Jingle Jangle" with Ron Dante using his falsetto voice. In addition, Wine was a backing vocalist on "It Hurts to Be in Love" and on Willie Nelson's "Always on My Mind."
Mary Frierson, later Mary Cross, better known by her stage name of Wendy Rene, was an American soul singer and songwriter. She recorded for Stax Records in the mid 1960s.
Ilse Annoeska de Lange, better known as Ilse DeLange, is a Dutch country and pop rock singer-songwriter. In 1998, she gained fame with her single 'I'm Not So Tough', which later became multiple platinum in The Netherlands. Other hits were "Miracle", "So Incredible" and "The Great Escape".
Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, mononymously known as Méav, is an Irish singer, songwriter and recording artist specialising in the traditional music of her homeland. She was one of the original soloists in the musical ensemble Celtic Woman, which has sold over six million albums. Her solo albums have reached the Billboard World Music Top 10. She sings in multiple languages: English, Irish, French, Latin, Italian and German.
Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band The Staple Singers, of which she is the last surviving member. During her time in the group, she recorded the hit singles "I'll Take You There" and "Let's Do It Again". In 1969, Staples released her self-titled debut solo album.
Ashley Lauren Monroe is an American country music singer-songwriter.
Michael Lington is a Danish-American contemporary saxophonist, songwriter, producer, recording artist and a purveyor of soul and contemporary jazz.
Carmen Smith is an Australian singer-songwriter who rose to prominence after appearing in the first season of The Voice Australia.
"Don't Rush" is a song by American pop recording artist Kelly Clarkson, from her first greatest hits album, Greatest Hits – Chapter One (2012). The song was released as the second single from the greatest hits album by RCA Records. It is also one of the three newly recorded songs for the compilation. Written by Blu Sanders, Natalie Hemby, and Lindsay Chapman, and produced by Dann Huff, it features country music singer Vince Gill on backing vocals. The song premiered on WSIX-FM radio station on October 29, 2012, and was made available for purchase on iTunes store on the following day. It was officially sent to country radio stations on November 15, 2012. Musically, "Don't Rush" is a country song with influences of country soul and soft rock. It is Clarkson's second country single as a main act.
Joyce Renee Cobb is an American singer specializing in jazz and R&B. She is closely associated with traditional blues and jazz in the style of Memphis Minnie, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan. She has had a wide-ranging career as a solo artist and vocalist, having charted several country, pop, and R&B singles in the 1970s and early 1980s, later recording as a jazz vocalist.
Lulah McEwen Hedgeman (1938–1997) was an American musician and educator in Tennessee who taught at Memphis' Overton High School for Creative and Performing Arts. Hedgeman built a concert choir, a chamber group, and a jazz show choir and took her singers to the level of international competition. Her background included a B.A. in Music at Fisk University and a Master's degree from the University of Memphis.
