Harry Edward Styles is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. His musical career began in 2010 as a solo contestant on the British music competition series The X Factor. Following his elimination, he was brought back to join the boy band One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy groups of all time before going on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.
John R. Cash was an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, and author. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. His genre-spanning songs and sound embraced country, rock and roll, rockabilly, blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of being inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame.
Edward Christopher Sheeran is an English singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling music artists. He has 84.5 million RIAA-certified units in the US, and two of his albums are in the list of the best-selling albums in UK chart history: × at number 20, and ÷ at number 34. In December 2019, the Official Charts Company named him artist of the decade, with the most combined success in the UK album and singles charts in the 2010s.
Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian, whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career with folk music groups during the late 1960s. Starting in the 1970s, he was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. By 1974, he was one of America's best-selling performers, and AllMusic has described Denver as "among the most beloved entertainers of his era".
Hadestown is the fourth album by Vermont-based Anaïs Mitchell, and was released by Righteous Babe Records in the U.S. on March 9, 2010. The album, a concept album, follows a variation on the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus must embark on a quest to rescue his wife Eurydice from the underworld. It has been advertised as a 'folk opera'. Several of the songs feature singers other than Mitchell, including Justin Vernon, Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, and Tanya, Petra and Rachel Haden.
Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. To date, Yusuf / Cat Stevens has sold over 100 million records and has over 2 billion streams. His musical style consists of folk, pop, rock, and, later in his career, Islamic music. Following two decades in which he only performed music which met strict religious standards, he returned to making secular music in 2006. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.
John Edmund Andrew Phillips was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and promoter, most notably of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, a landmark event of the counterculture era and the Summer of Love. Known as Papa John, Phillips was a member and leader of the vocal group The Mamas & the Papas.
Joanna Caroline Newsom is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and actress. Born and raised in Northern California, Newsom was classically trained on the harp in her youth, and began her musical career as a keyboardist in the San Francisco-based indie band The Pleased.
Nelly Kim Furtado ComIH is a Canadian singer and songwriter. Furtado first gained fame with her debut album, Whoa, Nelly! (2000), which was a critical and commercial success that spawned two top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, "I'm Like a Bird" and "Turn Off the Light". The first of the two singles won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 2003, she released her second album, Folklore, which was preceded by the lead single, "Powerless ".
Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.
Nicholas Rodney Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work has since achieved wider recognition.
Pete Seeger was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead Belly's "Goodnight, Irene", which topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a prominent singer of protest music in support of international disarmament, civil rights, counterculture, and environmental causes.
Harry Forster Chapin was an American singer-songwriter, humanitarian, and producer best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs, who achieved worldwide success in the 1970s and became one of the most popular artists and highest paid performers. He is also one of the best charting musical artists in the United States. Chapin, a Grammy Award winning artist and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee, has sold over 16 million records worldwide and has been described as one of the most beloved performers in music history.
Alex & Sierra were an American duo consisting of Alex Kinsey and Sierra Deaton, who won the third and final season of The X Factor US. The duo were also dating. They were mentored by Simon Cowell and became the first and only group to win the American version of the show. Their debut album It's About Us was released on October 7, 2014, on Columbia Records. Their EP As Seen on TV was released on September 30, 2016.