Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, known as Sting, is an English musician, activist and actor. He was the frontman, principal songwriter and bassist for new wave band the Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. He launched a solo career in 1985 and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat in his music.
Band Aid was the collective name of a charity supergroup featuring mainly British and Irish musicians and recording artists. It was founded in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for anti-famine efforts in Ethiopia by releasing the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for the Christmas market that year. On 25 November 1984, the song was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, and was released in the UK on Monday 3 December. The single surpassed the hopes of the producers to become the Christmas number one on that release. Three re-recordings of the song to raise further money for charity also topped the charts, first the Band Aid II version in 1989 and the Band Aid 20 version in 2004 and finally the Band Aid 30 version in 2014. The original was produced by Ure. The 12" version was mixed by Trevor Horn.
Norah Jones is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She has won several awards for her music and, as of 2023, had sold more than 50 million records worldwide. Billboard named her the top jazz artist of the 2000s decade. She has won nine Grammy Awards and was ranked 60th on Billboard magazine's artists of the 2000s decade chart.
Margaret LeAnn Rimes Cibrian is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She originally rose to success as a country music artist at the age of 13 and has since crossed over into pop, contemporary Christian, and other musical genres. Rimes has placed more than 40 singles on international charts since 1996. She has sold more than 48 million records worldwide, with 20.8 million album sales in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan. Billboard ranked her at number 17 in terms of sales success in the 1990–1999 decade.
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of popular British and Irish musical acts. It was recorded in a single day at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, in November 1984.
"Carol of the Bells" is a popular Christmas carol, which is based on the Ukrainian New Year's song "Shchedryk." The music for the carol comes from the song written by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914; the English-language lyrics were written in 1936 by Peter Wilhousky.
Luba is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, and recording artist from Montreal. She was professionally active from 1980 to 1990, 2000 to 2001, and is active again as of 2007. At the beginning of her career, Luba performed with the traditional Ukrainian music group Via Zorya, with whom she released a self-titled album in 1973. In the 1980s, she sang with her own band, Luba, which released the album Chain Reaction in 1980. She went on to have a solo career using the mononym Luba. Two of her albums have been certified Platinum by the Canadian music industry. She has had nine top-40 hits on the Canadian pop charts. Her most successful song is a cover of Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman", which reached number 6 on the Canadian pop chart and number 3 on the Canadian adult contemporary chart, in 1987.
Los Straitjackets is an American instrumental rock band that formed in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, in 1988. Originally comprising guitarists Danny Amis, Eddie Angel and drummer L. J. "Jimmy" Lester under the name The Straitjackets, the band split up soon after forming, but reunited as Los Straitjackets in 1994 with the addition of bassist E. Scott Esbeck. Esbeck left the band in 1998 and was replaced by Pete Curry. The current lineup also features Greg Townson on guitar and Chris Sprague on drums.
Marc Andrew Gunn is an American musician and podcaster.
A benefit concert or charity concert is a type of musical benefit performance featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis.
Bryan Edward Duncan is an American contemporary Christian music artist. He is known for being the lead singer of the group Sweet Comfort Band and his band Bryan Duncan & the Nehosoul Band, but is best known for his very successful solo career where he was a major act on the Myrrh & Epic Record labels.
Darka & Slavko was a popular musical duo of two first-generation Ukrainian Americans based in New York City, Darka Konopada and Slavko Halatyn, who met in the mid-1980's through their involvement with a Ukrainian college group's poetry reading for political prisoners. This launched a ten-year musical collaboration as well as an eight-year marriage.
Lovespirals is an American dream pop and electronic music band from Southern California, featuring husband and wife, multi-instrumentalist/producer Ryan Lum and lyricist/vocalist Anji Bee.
Ledisi Anibade Young, better known simply as Ledisi, is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, author, and actress. Her name means "to bring forth" or "to come here" in Yoruba.
The All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom", commonly known as Svoboda, is an ultranationalist political party in Ukraine. It has been led by Oleh Tyahnybok since 2004.
George Joseph Hrab is an American drummer, guitarist, composer and podcaster known for performing rock, funk and jazz and for exploring atheist, skeptic and science themes in his work. He has released six albums as a solo artist.
The Sich Battalion, officially known as the 4th Sich Company of the Kyiv Regiment, is a Ukrainian special police battalion consisting of volunteers from Kyiv. The unit was formed in June 2014 by volunteers from the far-right party Svoboda at the start of the war in Donbas.
Ruslana Stepanivna Lyzhychko, known mononymously as Ruslana, is a Ukrainian singer, songwriter, dancer, producer, actress, activist, and former politician. She is a World Music Award and Eurovision Song Contest winning recording artist, holding the title of People's Artist of Ukraine. She is also a former MP serving as deputy in the Ukrainian parliament for the Our Ukraine Party. Ruslana was the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in Ukraine in 2004–2005. She is recognized as the most successful Ukrainian female solo artist internationally and was included in the top 10 most influential women of 2013 by the Forbes magazine. The U.S. Secretary of State honored her with the International Women of Courage Award in March, 2014. She has been named an honorary citizen of her hometown Lviv and was nominated to receive the title Hero of Ukraine.
The Christmas Album is the fifth Christmas album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released on October 15, 2002, by Columbia Records and included his first recordings of three traditional carols, three new songs, and a handful of 20th-century offerings.
Slavko Kalezić is a Montenegrin actor, singer and songwriter. He took part in X Factor Adria but failed to make it to the live shows. He represented Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Space". In 2017, he took part in the fourteenth series of The X Factor UK, where he was eliminated from the competition at judges' houses.
