Neil Young

His work is characterized by deeply personal lyrics, distinctive guitar work, and an instantly recognizable nasal tenor (and frequently alto) singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments—including piano and harmonica—his style of hammer-on acoustic guitar and often idiosyncratic soloing on electric guitar are the linchpins of a sometimes ragged, sometimes polished, yet consistently evocative sound. Although Young has experimented widely with differing music styles, including swing, jazz, rockabilly, blues, and electronica throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into either of two distinct styles: folk-esque acoustic rock (as heard in songs such as "Heart of Gold" (sample ), "Harvest Moon" and "Old Man") and electric-charged hard rock (in songs like "Cinnamon Girl", "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)"). In more recent years, Young has started to adopt elements from newer styles of music, such as industrial, alternative country and grunge, the latter of which was profoundly influenced by his own style of playing, often bringing him the title of "the godfather of grunge".

His latest album, Living With War, is one of the most-talked about he has ever recorded, creating heated political debate and a return to form with perhaps his most critically-acclaimed album since the early 1990s.

Click here to read more about the life of Neil Young.

Click here to see two videos featuring music by Neil Young. Impeach the President is set to the music of Young's 1974 song "Vampire Blues", while "The Flags of Freedom" is a rare look at one of Young's private recording sessions (Quicktime format).

Kris Kristofferson

Songwriter, singer, actor, Rhodes scholar, army captain, helicopter pilot, and sex symbol!

Follow the ups and downs of Kris Kristofferson's career, and listen again to his famous songs.

Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris's ex-wife and daughters offer private views of this counter-culture hero.

Click here to read more about the life of Kris Kristofferson or here to listen to a clip from his latest, "This Old Road" (Quicktime).

Fred Foster

Using his life savings, in March of 1958, he started the Monument Record Company (so named after the Washington Monument in DC) where he remained active until 1983. Foster is credited with the development of Rock and Roll legend Roy Orbison's career, producing his major hits, including "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Only the Lonely," "Running Scared," "In Dreams," and "Crying," "It's Over," "Mean Woman Blues," "Candy Man," and "Blue Bayou."

Foster played a significant role in Dolly Parton's early career, signing her to Monument in 1964, shortly after her arrival in Nashville, when no other record companies were interested. While at Monument he worked with Ray Stevens, Kris Kristofferson, Tony Joe White, Larry Gatlin, Charlie McCoy, Al Hirt, Boots Randolph, Jerry Byrd, Billy Joe Shaver, Grandpa Jones, and movie great, Robert Mitchum.

Among the songs for which he is noted, Fred Foster co-wrote (with Kris Kristofferson) "Me and Bobby McGee" which was a very big hit, both for Kristofferson, as well as for Janis Joplin.

Fred Foster also started a soul/R&B label called 'Sound Stage 7' in the 1960s. Its roster of artists included Arthur Alexander, Joe Simon, Alvin Cash, Allen Toussaint (recording under another name), Ivory Joe Hunter and the O'Jays. Tracks by artists on this label, often produced by Foster with arrangements by Bill Justis (famous in rock history for his hit "Raunchy"), were generally only available as singles.

Most recently Foster produced Willie Nelson's 2006 Grammy-nominated "You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker" and Nelson's two-disc collaboration with Merle Haggard and Ray Price, "Last of the Breed" (released in 2007).

Joe Edwards

Joe is considered a Nashville treasure, having played fiddle in the Grand Ole Opry Staff Band for 32 years. He has also regularly appeared on TNN's Grand Ole Opry Live Show. Although best known as a fiddle virtuoso, his main instrument is actually guitar! His talent with instruments includes drums, bass, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, enabling him to record ten hours of music in which he played all the instruments. He now performs to his own tracks. Joe has performed as a solo artist in Fifteen Countries and is asked back year after year. Fingers snap and toes tap as he swings with an amazing variety of thumb-pickin' Country, with Jazz thrown in to boot. And boy-oh-boy can he get the crowd hopping!

Mike Curb is one of the Nashville music industry's greatest legends. The former lieutenant governor of California (born December 24, 1944 in Savannah, Georgia) is an American musician, record company executive, race car owner (in both NASCAR and IRL), and politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979 until 1983.

As a freshman at San Fernando Valley State College, (now California State University, Northridge), working in the practice rooms of the Department of Music building, Curb wrote the breakthrough song that helped launch his career — "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda (Go Little Honda)" — and founded his first record company, a predecessor to Curb Records. He left college in 1963 as his success in the music business began building.

Returning to the music industry, he established Curb Records. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1994 where his company records for artists such as Wynonna Judd, LeAnn Rimes, Hank Williams, Jr., Tim McGraw, Kimberley Locke, Sawyer Brown, Nemesis and others. Curb also, in cooperation with Warner Music Group, is an equity partner in church music publishers Word Label Group.

tommie rose is shown standing at the far left.

Albert Collins

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Collins toured the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. He was becoming a popular blues musician and was an influence for Coco Montoya, Robert Cray, Gary Moore, Debbie Davies, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jonny Lang, Susan Tedeschi, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, John Mayer and Frank Zappa.

His genius was acknowledged by the music world in 1983, when he won the W. C. Handy Award for his album Don't Lose Your Cool, which won the award for best blues album of the year. In 1985, he shared a Grammy for the album Showdown!, which he recorded with Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland. In 1987, John Zorn enlisted him to play lead guitar in a suite he'd composed especially for him, entitled "Two-Lane Highway," on Zorn's album Spillane.

After falling ill at a show in Switzerland in late July, 1993, he was diagnosed in mid August with lung cancer which had metastasized to his liver, with an expected survival time of four months. Parts of his last album, Live '92/'93,were recorded at shows that September; he died shortly afterwards, in November.

Albert Collins, the blues legend, is shown here in this brief film. This is a Quicktime movie (plug-in needed).

Vassar Clements

I was flabbergasted the first time I heard Vassar Clements play the fiddle. I was a sophomore in high school and rushed out to get a copy of the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken after reading a review of it. As soon as I heard the first few notes, I was hooked. Never before had I heard fiddle playing of such incredible, expressive power: dark, brooding, bluesy, and wonderfully inventive.

Clements, who died August 16 after a battle with cancer, evolved an astonishing technique on the fiddle—a technique, however, that was never displayed for its own sake, but was always at the service of his musical goals. A former member of the pioneering Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys and the influential Earl Scruggs Revue, Clements lent his fiddle to more than 1,000 recordings. Among them are the landmark 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Capitol Records), which turned a whole generation on to the joys of country music, and 1973’s progressive bluegrass masterwork Old and In the Way (with Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, mandolinist David Grisman, and others). During a career that spanned half a century, Clements performed with Stéphane Grappelli, Paul McCartney, Mark O’Connor, and many others. At his peak, he was one of those rare musicians who truly transcended all idiomatic boundaries.

To my mind, the single most important factor in Clements’ technique was his tone: it was always deep, rich, and dark. His method of tone production was closely related to his whole concept of bowing, the main principle of which is the economy of motion. He used a slow bow speed, a good deal of bow weight, and a point of contact quite close to the bridge. (Photo and text by Matt Glaser courtesy of Strings Magazine)

"Dallas"

• Mainstreet Restaurant, dinner club

• Faces, rock and roll club

• 1978 Fourth of July outdoor concert in memory of Vietnam veterans

• Two local concerts at Richardson Independent School District, organized by Sour Grapes Productions

• The Randy Tar, listening and dinner club

• Richardson High School Homecoming Dance, October 1976

• 2 concerts at Pierce High School, approximately 2,300 at each show

• Zoo World, 1978, one-hour concert

• The Adolphus Hotel, private sorority dance concert presentation, February 1979