WStephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late-night television talk show.
WHal Blaine was an American drummer and session musician, estimated to be among the most recorded studio drummers in the history of the music industry, claiming over 35,000 sessions and 6,000 singles. His drumming is featured on 150 US top 10 hits, 40 of which went to number one, as well as many film and television soundtracks.
WRobert Calvin Bland, known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues singer.
WThe Brass Ring was a group of American studio musicians led by saxophonist and arranger Phil Bodner. They were based in New York City and were stylistically similar to The Tijuana Brass, The Brass Buttons, the Baja Marimba Band and other "Now Sound" instrumental pop groups from the 1960s, although the twin-sax sound more closely resembles Billy Vaughn, whose biggest hits were in the 1950s.
WJames William Buffett is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, actor, and businessman. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" and "Come Monday". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".
WSolomon Vincent McDonald Burke was an American preacher and singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s. He has been called "a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul", and was known for his "prodigious output".
WColosseum are an English jazz rock band, mixing blues, rock and jazz-based improvisation. Colin Larkin wrote that "the commercial acceptance of jazz rock in the UK" was mainly due to the band. Between 1975 and 1978 a separate band Colosseum II existed playing progressive rock.
WDanny Cox is an American folk singer and songwriter, best known for his 1974 LP album Feel So Good.
WDennis Gerrard Stephen "Denny" Doherty was a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and actor. He was a founding member of the 1960s musical group the Mamas and the Papas.
WCass Elliot, widely known as Mama Cass, was an American singer, actress and member of the singing group, the Mamas & the Papas. After the group broke up, Elliot released five solo albums. In 1998, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for her work with the Mamas and the Papas.
WThe Four Tops are an American vocal quartet from Detroit who helped to define the city's Motown sound of the 1960s. The group's repertoire has included soul music, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes.
WBarry Gordon is an American actor and political talk show host. He was the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, having served from 1988 to 1995.
WThe Grass Roots are an American rock band that charted frequently between 1965 and 1975. The band was originally the creation of Lou Adler and songwriting duo P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. In their career, they achieved two gold albums, two gold singles and charted singles on the Billboard Hot 100 a total of 21 times. Among their charting singles, they achieved Top 10 three times, Top 20 six times and Top 40 fourteen times. They have sold over 20 million records worldwide.
WHamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds were a 1970s soft rock trio from Los Angeles. The original members were Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo (bass/vocal), and Tommy Reynolds (multi-instrumentalist/vocal), all of whom had previously played in The T-Bones, a 1960s band noted for the instrumental hit "No Matter What Shape ."
WRichard John Harris was an Irish actor and singer. He appeared on stage and in many films, notably as Frank Machin in This Sporting Life, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and as King Arthur in the 1967 film Camelot, as well as the 1981 revival of the stage musical.
WRoy Kent Head was an American singer, best known for his hit record "Treat Her Right".
WThelma Houston is an American singer. Beginning her recording career in the late-1960s, Houston scored a number-one hit record in 1977 with her recording of "Don't Leave Me This Way", which won the Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
WJohn Kay is a German-born Canadian rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist known as the frontman of Steppenwolf.
WKracker were an American rock band active in the 1970s.
WThe Lamp of Childhood was a short-lived American folk rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1966. The band released three singles which failed to chart and disbanded in 1967, but had several notable members.
WThe Mamas & the Papas were an American folk rock vocal group formed in Los Angeles, California which recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968. The group was a defining force in the music scene of the counterculture of the 1960s. The group was composed of Americans John Phillips, Cass Elliot, and Michelle Phillips and Canadian Denny Doherty. Their sound was based on vocal harmonies arranged by John Phillips, the songwriter, musician, and leader of the group, who adapted folk to the new beat style of the early 1960s.
WKenneth Mars was an American actor. He appeared in two Mel Brooks films: as the deranged Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind in The Producers (1967) and Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Friedrich Kemp in Young Frankenstein (1974). He also appeared in Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc? (1972), and Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987), and Shadows and Fog (1990).
WBarry McGuire is an American singer-songwriter. Best known for his 1965 hit single "Eve of Destruction", which gained him one-hit wonder status as he would never make another breakthrough. Later he would pioneer as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music.
WGiovanni Giorgio Moroder is an Italian composer, songwriter, and record producer. Dubbed the "Father of Disco", Moroder is credited with pioneering euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had a large influence on several music genres such as Hi-NRG, Italo disco, new wave, house and techno music.
WFreda Charcilia Payne is an American singer and actress. Payne is best known for her career in music during the mid–1960s through the mid–1980s. Her most notable record is her 1970 hit single, "Band of Gold". Payne was also an actress in musicals and film, as well as the host of a TV talk show. Payne is the older sister of Scherrie Payne, a former singer with the American vocal group The Supremes.
WJohn Edmund Andrew Phillips was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and promoter. He was the leader of the vocal group the Mamas & the Papas. In addition to writing the majority of the group's compositions, he also wrote "San Francisco " in 1967 for former Journeymen bandmate Scott McKenzie, as well as the oft-covered "Me and My Uncle", which was a favorite in the repertoire of the Grateful Dead. Phillips was one of the chief organizers of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival
WEmitt Lynn Rhodes was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording engineer. At 14 years, Rhodes began his career in musical ensembles The Palace Guard as the group's drummer before joining The Merry-Go-Round as a multi-instrumentalist.
WThe Robbs were an American 1960s pop and rock band from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. They are best known for being the house band on Dick Clark's mid-1960s show Where The Action Is. They are also known for placing the most singles on Billboard magazine's "Bubbling Under" chart without ever once crossing over into the Billboard Hot 100.
WCharles Weedon Westover, better known by his stage name Del Shannon, was an American rock and roll country musician, singer and songwriter, best known for his 1961 number 1 Billboard hit "Runaway".
WPhilip Gary "Flip" Sloan, known professionally as P. F. Sloan, was an American singer and songwriter. During the mid-1960s, he wrote, performed, and produced many Billboard Top 20 hits for artists such as Barry McGuire, the Searchers, Jan and Dean, Herman's Hermits, Johnny Rivers, the Grass Roots, the Turtles and the Mamas and the Papas.
WSmith was an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1969. They had a blues-based sound and scored a Top 5 hit in the United States in 1969 with a cover of the Burt Bacharach song "Baby It's You", featuring Gayle McCormick on lead vocals. This disc sold over one million copies between July and October 1969, out-charted popular versions by the Beatles and the Shirelles, and received a gold record awarded by the R.I.A.A.
WMary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer and record producer whose career spanned over five decades. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a significant singer of blue-eyed soul, pop and dramatic ballads, with French chanson, country and jazz also in her repertoire. During her 1960s peak she ranked among the most successful British female performers on both sides of the Atlantic and her image – marked by a peroxide blonde bouffant/beehive hairstyle, heavy makeup and evening gowns, as well as stylised, gestural performances – made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties. A fixture of British television, she presented many episodes of the hip 1963–66 British TV music series Ready Steady Go! and, between 1966 and 69, hosted her own series on both the BBC and ITV. In 1966 Springfield topped a number of popularity polls, including Melody Maker's Best International Vocalist, and was the first UK singer to top the New Musical Express readers' poll for Female Singer. She is a member of both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the UK Music Hall of Fame. International polls have cited Springfield as one of the finest female popular singers of all time.
WSteppenwolf was an American rock band that was prominent from 1968 to 1972. The group was formed in late 1967 in Los Angeles by lead singer John Kay, keyboardist Goldy McJohn, and drummer Jerry Edmonton, all formerly of the Canadian band the Sparrows. Guitarist Michael Monarch and bass guitarist Rushton Moreve were recruited via notices placed in Los Angeles-area record and musical instrument stores.
WThree Dog Night is an American rock band formed in 1967, with founding members consisting of vocalists Danny Hutton, Cory Wells, and Chuck Negron. This lineup was soon augmented by Jimmy Greenspoon (keyboards), Joe Schermie (bass), Michael Allsup (guitar), and Floyd Sneed (drums). The band had 21 Billboard Top 40 hits between 1969 and 1975, with three hitting number one. Three Dog Night recorded many songs written by outside songwriters, and they helped to introduce mainstream audiences to writers such as Paul Williams and Hoyt Axton.
WVan der Graaf Generator are an English progressive rock band, formed in 1967 in Manchester by singer-songwriters Peter Hammill and Chris Judge Smith and the first act signed by Charisma Records. They did not experience much commercial success in the UK, but became popular in Italy during the 1970s. In 2005 the band reformed, and are still musically active with a line-up of Hammill, organist Hugh Banton and drummer Guy Evans.
WJoseph Fidler Walsh is an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he has been a member of three successful rock bands: James Gang, Eagles, and Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. Walsh was also part of the New Zealand band Herbs. In the 1990s, he was a member of the short-lived supergroup The Best.
WRobert Stanley Whitlock is an American singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known as a member of the blues-rock band Derek and the Dominos, with Eric Clapton, in 1970–71. Whitlock's musical career began with Memphis soul acts such as Sam & Dave and Booker T. & the M.G.'s before he joined Delaney & Bonnie and Friends in 1968. His association with Delaney & Bonnie bandmate Clapton led to Whitlock's participation in sessions for George Harrison's 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass, in London, and the formation of Derek and the Dominos that year. On the band's sole studio album, the critically acclaimed Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Whitlock wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's fourteen tracks, including "Tell the Truth", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad?"
WCharles Wright is an American singer, instrumentalist and songwriter. He has been a member of various doo wop groups in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as a solo artist in his own right. He is also the former leader and writer of hits for the group, Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band.