Song: FEVER

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist. He is the originator of funk music and is a major figure of 20th century popular music and dance.

In a career that spanned six decades, Brown profoundly influenced the development of many different musical genres.[7] Brown moved on a continuum of blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly "Africanized" approach to music making.[8] Brown performed in concerts, first making his rounds across theChitlin' Circuit, and then across the country and later around the world, along with appearing in shows on television and in movies. Although he contributed much to the music world through his hitmaking, Brown holds the record as the artist who charted the most singles on the Billboard Hot 100 without ever hitting number one on that chart.[9][10]

For many years, Brown's touring show was one of the most extravagant productions in American popular music. At the time of Brown's death, his band included three guitarists, two bass guitar players, two drummers, three horns and a percussionist.[11] The bands that he maintained during the late 1960s and 1970s were of comparable size, and the bands also included a three-piece amplified string section that played during ballads.[12] Brown employed between 40 and 50 people for the James Brown Revue, and members of the revue traveled with him in a bus to cities and towns all over the country, performing upwards of 330 shows a year with almost all of the shows as one-nighters.[13][14] In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2000 into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.[15]

Brown died on Christmas Day 2006 from heart failure after becoming ill two days earlier and being hospitalized for hours. James Brown is buried in Beech Island, South Carolina.

Album: INNERVISIONS
Song: LIVING FOR THE CITY

Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950 as Stevland Hardaway Judkins),[1] known by his stage nameStevie Wonder, is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century.[2] Blind since shortly after birth,[3] Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven,[2] and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.

Among Wonder's best known works are singles such as "Superstition", "Sir Duke", "I Wish" and "I Just Called to Say I Love You". Well known albums also include Talking Book, Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life.[2] He has recorded more than thirty U.S. top ten hits and received twenty-two Grammy Awards, the most ever awarded to a male solo artist. Wonder is also noted for his work as an activist for political causes, including his 1980 campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday in the United States.[4] In 2009, Wonder was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.[5] In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists to celebrate the US singles chart's fiftieth anniversary, with Wonder at number five.