Curated playlist
American male pop singers
- Michael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was born on the 29th of August 1958 in Gary, Indiana, the eighth of ten children in an African-American working-class household crammed into a two-bedroom home on Jackson Street. His father Joe operated a crane at US…
- Frank SinatraFrancis Albert Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds when he was born on the 12th of December 1915, in a tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. The delivery required forceps, which scarred his left cheek and neck and left lifelong…
- Kanye WestKanye Omari West was born on the 8th of June 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, and by the time he was done reshaping American music, he had become one of the most examined, celebrated, and condemned figures in the history of popular culture. He…
- Prince (musician)Prince Rogers Nelson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis on the 7th of June, 1958, and for the next 57 years he operated at a pitch that most musicians never approach. He sold more than 100 million records worldwide. He played…
- Marvin GayeOn the 1st of April 1984, in a house in the Western Heights area of West Adams in Los Angeles, Marvin Gaye was shot twice by his own father. One bullet pierced his heart. He was pronounced dead at 1:01 p.m., one day before he would have…
- Sam CookeSam Cooke walked into a recording session in the mid-1950s and began singing George Gershwin. Art Rupe, the head of Specialty Records, was furious. That moment of artistic defiance captures everything about Cooke: a man who had charted his…
- TimbalandTimbaland was fourteen years old when a co-worker accidentally shot him at a local Red Lobster restaurant in Norfolk, Virginia, and left him partially paralyzed for nine months. Lying still, unable to use his right hand, he taught himself…
- Jerry Lee LewisJerry Lee Lewis walked into Sun Records in Memphis in November 1956 with nothing but nerve. Label owner Sam Phillips was out of town, so producer Jack Clement hit record anyway, capturing Lewis playing Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" and one of…
- Billy PrestonBilly Preston was the only artist to receive a co-performer credit on a Beatles recording after the band began recording as independent artists. The 1969 single "Get Back" bore the label "The Beatles with Billy Preston" not as a courtesy…
- Tommy RoeTommy Roe was still soldering wires at a General Electric plant in Atlanta when a phone call changed everything. His song "Sheila" had just reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and ABC-Paramount wanted him on tour. He was reluctant…