Curated playlist
English male rock singers
- David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
- John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
- Keith RichardsKeith Richards, guitarist of the Rolling Stones, began his musical life by stretching toward an instrument he could not reach. His maternal grandfather, Augustus Theodore "Gus" Dupree, toured Britain with a jazz big band called Gus Dupree…
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
- Roger WatersThe Dark Side of the Moon, with lyrics written entirely by Roger Waters, spent 736 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, a run that lasted until July 1988. Waters is an English singer-songwriter, musician and political activist,…
- Peter GabrielOn the 19th of June 1971, Peter Gabriel took a running jump off a stage and expected the audience to catch him. They moved aside instead. He landed on the floor and broke his ankle, then performed the next several Genesis shows with a…
- Ozzy OsbourneOn the 5th of July 2025, Ozzy Osbourne sat on a black throne at Villa Park in Birmingham, because Parkinson's disease had left him unable to stand. More than 40,000 people filled the ground. At its peak, the livestream drew 5.8 million…
- Mick JaggerMick Jagger was carrying records by Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters on Platform Two of Dartford railway station on the 17th of October 1961. The man he met there was Keith Richards. The records revealed a shared passion for rhythm and blues,…
- George HarrisonGeorge Harrison mortgaged his home to save Monty Python's Life of Brian. EMI Films had pulled its funding in 1978.
- Sting (musician)Sting, the English musician and actor born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, once disowned his own first name on camera. In the 1985 documentary Bring On the Night, a journalist addressed him as Gordon. He answered, "My children call me Sting,…
- Eric ClaptonEric Clapton got the nickname Slowhand from a broken guitar string. Fans clapped slowly while he replaced it.
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr's first drum was a cotton bobbin used to tap the cabinets by his hospital bed.
- Phil CollinsPhil Collins is the only artist who performed at both Live Aid concerts on the 13th of July 1985. He crossed between London and Philadelphia by helicopters and a Concorde to do it. Born Philip David Charles Collins, he went on to sell an…
- Brian MayBrian May climbed onto the roof of Buckingham Palace on the 3rd of June 2002 and played a guitar solo of "God Save the Queen." It was part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations for Elizabeth II. May, born in 1947, is the lead guitarist of the…
- Robert PlantRobert Plant, the English singer born on the 20th of August 1948, first rehearsed stardom behind the curtains of his family home at Christmas. He was ten years old, and he was trying to be Elvis. Decades later, on the Denton talk show in…
- Harry StylesHarry Styles ran the Berlin Marathon in 2:59:13, a personal best, while entered under the pseudonym Sted Sarandos. The singer, songwriter and actor, born in 1994, also finished the Tokyo marathon in 2025, completing two of the six World…
- Syd BarrettSyd Barrett walked into Abbey Road Studios on the 5th of June 1975, and the men inside did not know him. He had shaved off his hair and even his eyebrows, and he was overweight. He was 29. The musicians were Pink Floyd, the band he had…