Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

Nick Drake was the quintessential fragile genius. His late-1960s and early-'70s albums combine pastoral, very British romanticism with a jazzy folk lilt that owes a debt to Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin. His hypnotic whisper of a voice and his virtuosic…

Though Jeff Buckley was adamant about not being compared to his father Tim, his voice and free-floating, improvisatory folk/rock/jazz style bore inescapable echoes of genetic heritage. The Michael Jordan of singers, he had a voice that could soar or …

Tom Waits started out in the early 1970s as a piano-based barroom balladeer with a penchant for beat poetry and West Coast jazz. By the late '80s he had mutated into a brilliantly adventurous artist whose style suggested an amalgam of Howlin' Wolf, K…

Lucinda Williams started out recording acoustic covers of classic folk and blues songs, but her own idiosyncratic songwriting soon came to the fore. Her mixture of rock, country, blues, and folk endeared her to a wide audience. Williams's self-titled…

Singer/songwriter Ben Harper, who hails from Pomona, CA, debuted in 1994 with WELCOME TO THE CRUEL WORLD. Harper's idiosyncratic mix of blues, folk, rock, funk, and reggae made an instant splash. His distinctive use of the dobro-like Weissenborn guit…

Taking their cue from various country-music mavericks, jazz legends, and the Velvet Underground, the Cowboy Junkies were one of the pillars of the 1980s alternative rock scene. The Canadian quartet perfected an atmospheric, almost soporific brand of …

Bruce Springsteen came out of New Jersey in the early 1970s sounding like a cross between Bob Dylan and early Tom Waits, backed by the rambunctious E Street Band. After toughening up his sound, Springsteen created his 1975 masterpiece, BORN TO RUN, w…

Kentucky combo My Morning Jacket stands halfway between indie-rock and alt-country, combining twangy, rural sounds with a thick guitar-and-drums onslaught occasionally leavened by soaring neo-shoegazer textures. Singer Jim James's Neil Young-like voi…

The success of acts such as the White Stripes and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion helped open the door for other minimalist, bluesy rockers, such as the Akron, Ohio, USA-based duo, the Black Keys. Unlike the other aforementioned bands, the Black Keys…

Elliott Smith started out as the leader of Portland-based alt-rock band Heatmiser, who made three mid-1990s albums achieving good reviews but disappointing sales. Eventually Smith reinvented himself as a solo singer-songwriter, and his first couple o…

With a voice like candy and winsome good looks, the Nebraska native Matthew Sweet was initially packaged as a cute, blue-eyed pop singer. But after an ambitious debut record that featured a bevy of rock luminaries, Sweet broke through with 1991's GIR…

This Athens band's initial mix of Velvet Underground strum, Byrds-like Rickenbacker jangle, and charismatically oblique singing, became the sound of the 1980s as legions of bands followed suit. But even as imitators codified R.E.M.'s approach into th…

Like the Band, Neil Young eschewed his Canadian roots to create a sound rooted in American folk and country, which he mixed with visionary, poetic rock in Buffalo Springfield and on his solo albums. He played the crucial fourth wheel role in Crosby, …

The Afghan Whigs played a brand of smart no-frills rock perfectly suited to benefit from an interest in the underground generated by the grunge bonanza. Led by tortured soul Greg Dulli, the Whigs infused their tough guitar-based sound with elements o…

In 2000, Coldplay emerged seemingly out of nowhere to become a worldwide smash with their debut album PARACHUTES and hit single "Yellow." They're generally lumped in with the Britpop crowd, but, like Travis, they favor a more thoughtful, melodic pop …

Originally part of the early 1960s British blues/R&B scene, the Rolling Stones rapidly ascended the heights of fame with a perfect combination of hit singles and media-grabbing scandals. By the '70s, Keith Richards had become a bona fide guitar hero,…

U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

Singer-songwriter Ryan Adams started out as the leader of Whiskeytown, one of the most highly regarded alt-country bands of the late 1990s. By 2000, he was a solo artist, delivering a mostly acoustic set of Dylanesque tunes on HEARTBREAKER. By the ti…

Beck Hansen, the quintessential California slacker, came up among the lo-fi ranks, pushing a blend of country blues, Dylan-inspired wordplay, punk, and hip-hop. His straight-out-of-the-gate 1994 smash, "Loser," made him a star seemingly overnight. Su…