Curated playlist
Singers awarded knighthoods
- Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
- 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,…
- Tom Jones (singer)Tom Jones, the Welsh singer born Thomas John Woodward, was 12 years old when doctors diagnosed him with tuberculosis. He spent two years in bed, able to do little but listen to music and draw. Decades later he said of that time, "I spent…
- Noël CowardNoël Coward, the English playwright, composer, actor and singer, once answered a magazine writer's apology with a perfect line. Around his seventieth birthday, a Time interviewer said he hoped Coward had not been bored by so many…
- BonoBono, the lead singer of U2, took his name from the sign of a hearing aid shop in Dublin. The shop was called Bonavox, and it stood just off O'Connell Street, the city's principal thoroughfare. The word comes from the Latin for good voice.…
- Barry GibbBarry Gibb wrote songs that held the number one spot on the American Billboard Hot 100 for 27 of the 37 weeks between the 24th of December 1977 and the 2nd of September 1978. Many of those records were not sung by him. He is a British and…
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr's first drum was a cotton bobbin used to tap the cabinets by his hospital bed.
- Rod StewartRod Stewart, the British singer with the raspy voice, stood on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on the 31st of December 1994 and sang to 3.5 million people. Nobody paid to get in. That crowd earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of…
- 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…
- Van MorrisonVan Morrison, the Northern Irish singer and songwriter, once had his recording future bought for 20,000 dollars in cash, handed over in an abandoned warehouse on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. The buyer was Warner Bros. Records. The contract…
- Cliff RichardCliff Richard owes his breakthrough song to a bus ride. Guitarist Ian Samwell wrote "Move It" on a number 715 Green Line bus, on his way to a rehearsal at the singer's house. The song became Richard's 1958 hit, and it is often described as…
- Luciano PavarottiLuciano Pavarotti hit nine high Cs at the Metropolitan Opera and took seventeen curtain calls.
- Bob GeldofBob Geldof was a punk-era frontman with a reputation for abrasive manners, and in November 1984 he had one day to turn a roomful of pop stars into a choir. On the 25th of November 1984, a crowd of famous singers gathered at Sarm West…