Curated playlist

English male singer-songwriters

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…
George MichaelGeorge Michael refused to appear in his own music videos, so five supermodels lip-synced in his place.
Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
Ed SheeranEd Sheeran bought a thirty-pound guitar two days after hearing Eric Clapton. He was eleven years old.
Cat StevensCat Stevens sold more than 100 million records before he walked away from pop music. A 25-year break followed.
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…
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,…
Chris MartinChris Martin, the English singer and pianist born on the 2nd of March 1977, composed a three-minute instrumental called "Electric Thunder" when he was 12 years old. In February 2020, a former fellow pupil found it on a cassette tape.…
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,…
Robbie WilliamsRobbie Williams walked onto a stage at Knebworth on the 1st of August 2003 and faced a crowd of 125,000 people. He then did it again on the 2nd and the 3rd. Three consecutive nights, with that many people each time, made it the biggest…
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…
Zayn MalikZayn Malik was 17 years old and did not want to go to his X Factor audition in Manchester. On the morning of the tryout in 2010, nerves had won, and he wanted to stay in bed. His mother got him up and talked him into going. Years later he…
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…
Nicholas GalitzineNicholas Galitzine, the English actor whose surname is pronounced GAL-it-seen, once ate food worth 4000 calories every single day. The reason was a role that demands an outsized physique: He-Man, hero of the live action film Masters of the…
Jeff LynneJeff Lynne helped finish John Lennon's demo "Free as a Bird" for the Beatles. George Harrison asked him to join in 1994.
Robert Smith (musician)On the 14th of October 2024, Robert Smith of the Cure said he plans to retire in 2029. His reasoning was tidy. He turns 70 that year, and 2029 marks 50 years since the band's first album, Three Imaginary Boys. Smith added a caveat: he has…
MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
Julian LennonJulian Lennon's nursery school painting inspired a Beatles song. It showed his classmate Lucy O'Donnell among stars.
Tony SheridanTony Sheridan is the only non-Beatle to sing lead on a charting Beatles single.
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…