Aretha Louise Franklin was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the "Queen of Soul", Rolling Stone twice named her as the greatest singer of all time. With global sales of over 75 million records, Franklin is one of the world's best-selling music artists.
Mahalia Jackson was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to the development and spread of gospel blues in black churches throughout the U.S. During a time when racial segregation was pervasive in American society, she met considerable and unexpected success in a recording career, selling an estimated 22 million records and performing in front of integrated and secular audiences in concert halls around the world.
Washington, D.C., has been home to many prominent musicians and is particularly known for the musical genres of Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, bluegrass, punk rock and its locally-developed descendants hardcore and emo, and a local funk genre called go-go. The first major musical figure from District of Columbia was John Philip Sousa, a military brass band composer. Later figures include jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Charlie Rouse, Buck Hill, Ron Holloway, Davey Yarborough, Michael A. Thomas, Butch Warren, and DeAndrey Howard; soul musicians, including Billy Stewart, The Unifics, The Moments, Ray, Goodman & Brown, Van McCoy, The Presidents, The Choice Four, Vernon Burch, guitarist Charles Pitts, and Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. She was the first great recording star of gospel music, and was among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm and blues and rock and roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll". She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eric Clapton.
Renée Lynn Fleming is an American soprano, known for performances in opera, concerts, recordings, theater, film, and at major public occasions. A recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Fleming has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won five times. In June 2023, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Fleming will be one of the five artists recognized at the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors. Other notable honors won by Fleming have included the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from the French government, Germany's Cross of the Order of Merit, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and honorary membership in England's Royal Academy of Music. Unusual among artists whose careers began in opera, Fleming has achieved name recognition beyond the classical music world. In May, 2023, Fleming was appointed by the World Health Organization as a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health.
Nancy Sue Wilson was an American singer whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid-1950s until her retirement in the early 2010s. She was especially notable for her single "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" and her version of the standard "Guess Who I Saw Today". Wilson recorded more than 70 albums and won three Grammy Awards for her work. During her performing career, Wilson was labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and soul; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer". The title she preferred, however, was "song stylist". She received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".
Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and civil 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 influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. In 2011 Time magazine included her recording of "Take This Hammer" on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that "Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music."
Kelly Cherelle Price is an American R&B and gospel singer. She started her singing career in 1992. Price originally garnered attention by singing backing vocals for Mariah Carey on multiple songs, including her Billboard Hot 100 number one singles: "Fantasy" and "All I Want for Christmas Is You"; before rising to greater prominence after making uncredited guest appearances on the number one single "Mo Money Mo Problems" by The Notorious B.I.G., as well as "Feel So Good" by Mase, which prompted her to release her own music. Her debut album Soul of a Woman (1998), was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Peaches & Herb is an American vocal duo. Herb Fame has remained a constant as "Herb" since the duo was created in 1966; seven different women have filled the role of "Peaches", most notably Francine Edna "Peaches" Hurd Barker, the original "Peaches" who lent her nickname to the duo, and Linda Greene Tavani, the third "Peaches", who appeared on the duo's biggest hits "Shake Your Groove Thing" (1978) and "Reunited" (1979).
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.
Diane Joan Schuur, nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music. Her most successful album is Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra, which remained number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 weeks. She won Grammy Awards for best female jazz vocal performance in both 1986 and 1987 and has had three other Grammy nominations.
Mary Ann Redmond is an American singer known for her soulful and wide-ranging vocal style in popular and jazz music. She is based in the greater metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, but has performed in several locations in the United States and in other countries. Both her live performances and her five CDs to date have earned her acclaim from audiences and recognition from the music industry, although she has never achieved national fame on a par with many of the performers she has worked with, such as Mary Chapin Carpenter. She is primarily a regional artist and has won 24 Washington Area Music Awards (Wammies).
Ronald Edward Holloway is an American tenor saxophonist. He is listed in the Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz where veteran jazz critic Ira Gitler described Holloway as a "Hard bear-down-hard-bopper who can blow authentic R&B and croon a ballad with warm, blue feeling."
Ledisi Anibade Young, better known simply as Ledisi, is an American R&B and jazz recording artist, songwriter, music producer, author and actress. Her name means "to bring forth" or "to come here" in Yoruba.
Queen Esther Marrow is an American soul and gospel singer.
Emily Jordan Bear is an American composer, pianist, songwriter and singer. After beginning to play the piano and compose music as a small child, Bear made her professional piano debut at the Ravinia Festival at the age of five, the youngest performer ever to play there. She gained wider notice from a series of appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show beginning at the age of six. She has since played her own compositions and other works with orchestras and ensembles in North America, Europe and Asia, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, the Montreux Jazz Festival and Jazz Open Stuttgart. She won two Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the youngest person ever to win the award, and also won two Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Awards.
Roseanna Elizabeth Vitro is a jazz singer and teacher from Arkansas.
Peter and Will Anderson are identical twin American jazz saxophonists and clarinetists, composers and arrangers, and leaders of their own trio and quintet.
Magda Piskorczyk is a Polish singer and instrumentalist. She plays acoustic, electric and bass guitars, as well as percussion instruments. She mainly performs music rooted in African traditions. A composer and musical arranger, she was a guest singer at many international festivals, among others in Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, Norway, England, Hungary and France. She is a member of the ZPAV ZPAV Academy of Phonography. Magda Piskorczyk conducts music workshops according to her own copyright program, including the Blues on Bobr. The result of such workshops in Warsaw OKO was released in 2012 as a CD "Magda Piskorczyk Masterclass".
The Red Pill Blues Tour was the eleventh headlining concert tour by American band Maroon 5, in support of their sixth studio album Red Pill Blues (2017). The tour began on May 30, 2018 in Tacoma, Washington and concluded on December 31, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. With over sixty dates, the tour traveled to the Americas, Australia, Asia, and Europe.
