PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: instrumentalists
American singer, songwriter, and bandleader
Bruce Springsteen is an American singer, songwriter, and bandleader who became the archetypal rock performer of the 1970s and ’80s. With his poetic lyrics describing the lives of everyday Americans, his...
American musician and actress
Dolly Parton is an American country music singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress who pioneered the interface between country and pop music styles and became one of the most iconic entertainment figures...
American musician
Benny Goodman was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and renowned 20th-century clarinet virtuoso. Dubbed the “King of Swing,” Goodman was also a complex personality whose relentless pursuit of perfection...
Austrian composer
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer of a number of highly original and monumental symphonies. He was also an organist and teacher who composed much sacred and secular choral music. Bruckner was the...
German composer and musician
Carl Maria von Weber was a German composer and opera director during the transition from Classical to Romantic music, noted especially for his operas Der Freischütz (1821; The Freeshooter, or, more colloquially,...
Italian composer
Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer noted particularly for his 555 keyboard sonatas, which substantially expanded the technical and musical possibilities of the harpsichord. Domenico, the son of...
American musician
Duke Ellington was an American pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed...
British musician
Elton John is a British singer, composer, and pianist who became one of the most popular entertainers of the late 20th century with such indelible hit songs as “Rocket Man,” “Crocodile Rock,” and “Candle...
American musician
Miles Davis was an American jazz musician, a great trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on the art from the late 1940s. Davis grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois,...
Canadian musician and filmmaker
Neil Young is a Canadian guitarist, singer, and songwriter best known for his idiosyncratic output and eclectic sweep, from solo folkie to grungy guitar-rocker. Young grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with...
Dutch-born American guitarist
Eddie Van Halen was a Dutch-born American guitarist and cofounder of the heavy metal band Van Halen, for which he served as the primary songwriter. He was known for his virtuosic electric guitar playing...
Italian composer
Luigi Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist who influenced the development of the string quartet as a musical genre and who composed the first music for a quintet for strings, as well as a quintet...
American musician
Louis Armstrong was the leading trumpeter and one of the most influential artists in jazz history. Although Armstrong claimed to be born in 1900, various documents, notably a baptismal record, indicate...
American musician
Charlie Parker was an American alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He was a lyric artist generally considered the greatest jazz saxophonist. Parker was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz...
American trumpeter and music industry executive
Herb Alpert is an American trumpeter and music industry executive known for leading the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and for cofounding A&M Records. Hit albums by Alpert, one of the best-selling...
American musician and actor
Desi Arnaz was a Cuban-born American musician, actor, and business executive who was best known for the classic television series I Love Lucy (1951–57), in which he starred with his real-life wife, Lucille...
American musician
Willie Nelson is an American songwriter and guitarist who became one of the most popular and enduring country music singers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Nelson learned to play guitar from...
American musician
Count Basie was an American jazz musician noted for his spare, economical piano style and for his leadership of influential and widely heralded big bands. Basie studied music with his mother and was later...
American actor and musician
Will Smith is an American actor and musician whose charisma and quick wit helped him transition from rap music to a successful career in acting. Smith’s notable films include the blockbusters Bad Boys...
Indian musician and composer
Ravi Shankar was an Indian musician, sitar virtuoso, and composer, who was influential in stimulating Western appreciation of classical Indian music. He composed several ragas and provided the musical...
British musician
Ginger Baker was an English drummer and percussionist known for his flamboyant playing style that incorporated intricate polyrhythms influenced by jazz, rock, and West African music. Baker was widely considered...
Russian musician
Sergey Rachmaninoff was a composer who was the last great figure of the tradition of Russian Romanticism and a leading piano virtuoso of his time. He is especially known for his piano concerti and the...
Cameroonian musician
Manu Dibango was a Cameroonian saxophonist, pianist, vibraphonist, and composer whose innovative jazz fusions and wide-ranging collaborative work played a significant role in introducing European and North...
American musician
John Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, an iconic figure of 20th-century jazz. Coltrane’s first musical influence was his father, a tailor and part-time musician. John...
American musician
Eubie Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime music, popular and vaudeville tunes, and scores for musical theater—most notably Shuffle Along (1921), his groundbreaking collaboration with...
American musician
R. Kelly is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who was one of the best-selling rhythm-and-blues (R&B) artists of the 1990s and early 21st century, known for his gospel-tinged...
American comedian and musician
Fred Armisen is an American comedian and musician, best known for his many recurring characters and impersonations as a cast member (2002–13) on Saturday Night Live (SNL) and for cocreating and costarring...
American singer and songwriter
Woody Guthrie was an American folk singer and songwriter whose songs, many of which are now classics, chronicled the plight of common people, especially during the Great Depression. Guthrie, the third...
American musician
Dave Grohl is an American musician best known as the founder and lead singer of the alternative rock band Foo Fighters and the former drummer of the influential 1990s grunge rock band Nirvana. Grohl is...
American singer, songwriter, musician, and producer
Prince was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, producer, dancer, and performer on keyboards, drums, and bass who was among the most talented musicians of his generation. Like Stevie Wonder, he was...
American musician
Travis Barker is a high-energy drummer best known as a member of the pop-punk band blink-182 and considered “one of the most famous drummers of the new millennium” by Rolling Stone magazine. Barker also...
American musician
Louis Prima was an American jazz musician, songwriter, and bandleader best known for his exuberant onstage personality, raspy voice, and composition of the swing music classics “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “Jump,...
American musician
Link Wray was an American guitarist and songwriter who is often credited with introducing the power chord (a simplified chord, commonly played on the electric guitar, based on the root and fifth notes...
American musician
Dave Brubeck was a popular American jazz pianist who brought elements of classical music into jazz and whose style epitomized that of the “West Coast movement.” Brubeck was taught piano by his mother from...
American musician
Gene Krupa was an American jazz drummer who was perhaps the most popular percussionist of the swing era. After the death of his father, Krupa went to work at age 11 as an errand boy for a music company....
French composer and conductor
Pierre Boulez was the most significant French composer of his generation, as well as a noted conductor and music theorist who championed the work of 20th-century composers. Boulez, the son of a steel manufacturer,...
American composer and musician
Glenn Miller was an American big band leader, arranger, composer, and trombonist, considered the premier musical symbol of the World War II generation. Miller began studies at the University of Colorado...
Senegalese singer
Youssou N’Dour is a Senegalese singer known for his extraordinary vocal range and for introducing international audiences to mbalax—a Senegalese popular music style that blends Wolof traditional instrumental...
British musician
Pete Best is a British drummer, best known as an early drummer for the Beatles. Best was dismissed from the band before it achieved widespread fame, and he went on to record and perform music with other...
American musician
Billy Joel is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter in the pop ballad tradition whose numerous hit songs in the 1970s and ’80s made him an enduring favorite on the concert circuit. Although he stopped...
American musician
Stevie Ray Vaughan was an American blues guitarist and vocalist best known for his boisterous, sometimes frenetic, guitar-playing style that heralded a revival of blues-rock music during the mid-1980s....
American musician, composer, arranger, and singer
Jon Batiste is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and singer who is perhaps best known for his time as bandleader and musical director (2015–22) for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert....
British musician
Eric Clapton is a British rock musician who was a highly influential guitarist in the late 1960s and early ’70s and later became a major singer-songwriter. Clapton was born to a teenage mother and a Canadian...
American musician
Lionel Hampton was an American jazz musician and bandleader, known for the rhythmic vitality of his playing and his showmanship as a performer. Best known for his work on the vibraphone, Hampton was also...
British musician
Roger Waters is a British musician and songwriter, best known as the former songwriter and bassist of the rock band Pink Floyd. Waters was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd and set the conceptual...
American musician
Ricky Skaggs is an American mandolin and fiddle virtuoso, singer, and music producer who played a leading role in the New Traditionalist movement of the 1980s by adapting bluegrass music’s instrumentation...
American musician
Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and composer who fused American traditions of blues, jazz, rock, and soul with techniques of British avant-garde rock to redefine the electric guitar...
American musician
George Strait is an American country music singer, guitarist, and “new traditionalist” known for reviving interest in the western swing and honky-tonk music of the 1930s and ’40s through his straightforward...
French musician
Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre was a French composer, harpsichordist, and organist, who was the first woman to compose an opera in France. Elisabeth Jacquet was born into a family of artisans that...
British singer, songwriter, and musician
Billy Bragg is a British singer, songwriter, guitarist, and author who became a critic’s darling and a champion of populist activism in the mid-1980s as he fused the personal and the political in songs...