Patricia Lee Smith is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, and author whose 1975 debut album Horses elevated her as an influential member of the New York City-based punk rock movement of the 1970s. Smith has fused rock and poetry in her work. In 1978, her most widely known song, "Because the Night", co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached 13th on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and fifth on the UK Singles Chart.
The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario, in 1967. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, and American Levon Helm. The Band combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, jazz, country, and R&B, influencing musicians such as George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton and Wilco.
Otis Blackwell was an American songwriter whose work influenced rock and roll. His compositions include "Fever", "Great Balls of Fire" and "Breathless", "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up" and "Return to Sender", and "Handy Man".
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues guitarist and singer. He is an exponent of Chicago blues who has influenced generations of guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr. and John Mayer. In the 1960s, Guy played with Muddy Waters as a session guitarist at Chess Records and began a musical partnership with blues harp virtuoso Junior Wells.
Eric "Garth" Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist best known as the keyboardist and occasional saxophonist for rock group the Band, for which he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He was a principal architect of the group's sound, described as "the most brilliant organist in the rock world" by Keyboard magazine. With the deaths of Richard Manuel in 1986, Rick Danko in 1999, Levon Helm in 2012, and Robbie Robertson in 2023, Hudson is the last living original member of the Band.
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has released 40 studio albums, 98 singles, 19 notable extended plays, 54 music videos, 16 live albums, 17 volumes comprising The Bootleg Series, 31 compilation albums, 25 box sets, seven soundtracks as main contributor, seventeen music home videos and two non-music home videos. Dylan has been the subject of eleven documentaries, starred in three theatrical films, appeared in an additional thirty-six films, documentaries and home videos, and is the subject of the semi-biographical tribute film I'm Not There. He has written and published lyrics, artwork and memoirs in 11 books and three of his songs have been made into children's books. He has done numerous collaborations, appearances and tribute albums. The albums Planet Waves and Before the Flood were initially released on Asylum Records; reissues of those two and all others were on Columbia Records.
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award for literature sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and its international literary publication, World Literature Today.
"People Get Ready" is a 1965 single by The Impressions, and the title track from the People Get Ready album. The single is the group's best-known hit, reaching number-three on the Billboard R&B chart and number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The gospel-influenced track was a Curtis Mayfield composition that displayed the growing sense of social and political awareness in his writing.
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.
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter. Generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters ever, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60-year career. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, when his songs "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. Initially modeling his style on Woody Guthrie's folk songs, Robert Johnson's blues, and what he called the "architectural forms" of Hank Williams's country songs, Dylan added increasingly sophisticated lyrical techniques to the folk music of the early 1960s, infusing it "with the intellectualism of classic literature and poetry". His lyrics incorporated political, social, and philosophical influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy on 13 October 2016. He is the 12th Nobel laureate from the United States.
