This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2001.
Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. NPR named him one of the 50 Great Voices. He received numerous accolades including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960) and a Special Achievement Golden Globe Award. Posthumously, Cole has received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990), along with the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award (1992) and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000), and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame (2020).
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.
Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer-songwriter from Greensboro, North Carolina. After playing in several small independent bands throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s, Folds came to prominence as the eponymous frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again during their reunion from 2011 to 2013. He has recorded a number of solo albums – the most recent of which, What Matters Most, was released in June 2023. He has also collaborated with musicians such as Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with actor William Shatner and authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. Since May 2017, he has been the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Rickie Lee Jones is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and author. Over the course of a career that spans five decades, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz. A two-time Grammy Award winner, Jones was listed at No. 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999.
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. His music draws from folk rock, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Southern rock, country rock, jam band, rock, heartland rock, and blues rock musical traditions.
John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".
Harry Jon Benjamin is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer and musician. He is known for his voice roles in adult animated series, including Sterling Archer in Archer; Bob Belcher in Bob's Burgers; Carl in Family Guy; Ben in Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist; Kevin in O'Grady; Satan in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil; and Coach McGuirk and Jason Penopolis in Home Movies. Benjamin was named 2014's male comedy performer of the year at Vulture's TV Awards for his work in Bob's Burgers and Archer. He also performs in the 2001 satirical comedy film Wet Hot American Summer; its subsequent 2015 television series, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp; and the final installment of the franchise, the 2017 mini series Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later.
"Night and Day" is a popular song by Cole Porter that was written for the 1932 musical Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of musicians. NPR says "within three months of the show's opening, more than 30 artists had recorded the song."
Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is a Russian–born American singer, songwriter, and pianist.
Shearwater is an American indie rock band from Austin, Texas, led by multi-instrumentalist and lead singer Jonathan Meiburg, a singer-songwriter. The band's music is notable for its imagery based in nature, cerebral yet intimate melodic songs, as well as Meiburg's vocals.
Vijay Iyer is an American composer, pianist, bandleader, producer and writer based in New York City. The New York Times has called him a "social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway". Iyer received a 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, and the Alpert Award in the Arts. He was voted Jazz Artist of the Year in the DownBeat magazine international critics' polls in 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2018. In 2014, he received a lifetime appointment as the Franklin D. and Florence Rosenblatt Professor of the Arts at Harvard University, where he was jointly appointed in the Department of Music and the Department of African and African American Studies.
I Put a Spell on You is a studio album by American jazz singer, songwriter, and pianist Nina Simone. Recorded in 1964 and 1965 in New York City, it was released by Philips Records in 1965. It peaked at number 99 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 9 on the UK Albums Chart. The title track "I Put a Spell on You" peaked at number 23 on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart and number 28 on the UK Singles Chart.
Gregory Allen Kurstin is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter. He has won nine Grammy Awards, including Producer of the Year, Non-Classical in 2017 and 2018, and written and produced four songs that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Kat Edmonson is an American singer and songwriter who calls her music vintage pop.
Benjamin Sainte-Clémentine is a British composer, musician and actor.
Scott Bradlee is an American musician, pianist, and arranger. He is best known for his viral videos on YouTube, including his work under the moniker Postmodern Jukebox (PMJ) — an ever-evolving, revolving collective of performers playing popular music in period styles.
"I Wanna Get Better" is the debut single by American indie pop act Bleachers, released on February 18, 2014 through RCA Records. The song is from their debut studio album Strange Desire, and was written and produced by frontman Jack Antonoff and John Hill. "I Wanna Get Better" topped the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, becoming the band's first number-one single, and also reached the top ten of the Hot Rock Songs chart. Its accompanying music video stars Antonoff as a therapist and was directed by his then girlfriend, actress and filmmaker Lena Dunham.
Eyes Wide Open is the debut studio album by American singer Sabrina Carpenter. It was released by Hollywood Records on April 14, 2015. Carpenter began planning the project in 2014, after she launched her debut EP Can't Blame a Girl for Trying, she wanted to make a full-length LP. All the tracks on that EP were included on the album. The album was recorded from 2013 - 2015 with the majority of the album being recorded in 2014. Musically, Eyes Wide Open is a pop record with folk, pop rock and teen pop influences. Its production consists on guitars, piano, drums and keyboards. In general, the album talks about Carpenter's personal experiences, friendship, love and teenage problems.
Jon Irabagon is a Filipino-American saxophonist, composer, and founder of Irabbagast Records.
