Over the course of four decades, Eric Clapton has carried the British blues legacy into the mainstream of pop music. From his mid-1960s days with the Yardbirds and John Mayall, through his years as guitar god with Cream and Blind Faith, and eventuall…

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…

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 …

From their first Syd Barrett-led psych-pop record to their concept albums and elaborately presented live shows of the 1970s, these space-rock pioneers reached unprecedented heights of commercial and aesthetic success. Their '73 opus, DARK SIDE OF THE…

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,…

Debuting in 1978, the Boston-based Cars managed to acheive both massive commercial success and New Wave credibilty with their mix of power pop, Roxy Music-influenced art-rock, and melodic synth hooks. Despite his fame, leader Ric Ocasek proved to be …

From the youthful arrogance of their early 1960s recordings to their ambitious rock operas and the more introspective FM rock staples of their mid-1970s albums, the Who raged like a rock-&-roll inferno. Pete Townshend's guitar fireworks and Keith Moo…

Throughout the 1970s, the Eagles couldn't lose. Each record was bigger than the last; each single seemed to play all summer long. At the forefront of the country-rock movement, the Eagles also typified so-called soft-rock and album rock. Their master…

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…

Van Halen rode the crest of 1970s riff-rock into 1980s abandon. Always able to produce a smile and a killer hook, their songs captured a West Coast attitude that combined Eddie Van Halen's guitar gymnastics and the high-energy antics of vocalist Davi…

Making endless shifts in personnel and style, Fleetwood Mac went from being one of the most original British blues bands of the 1960s--under the leadership of Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood--to becoming purveyors of a smooth, masterful L.A. pop aesth…

Their innovative rock/reggae fusion, superb songwriting, and crossover appeal put the Police light-years ahead of many of their 1980s new-wave colleagues in terms of artistic resonance. Emerging just after the punk explosion of the late '70s, the tri…

Queen embodied 1970s glam rock--mixing heavy riffs and intricate vocal harmonies with a gender-bending image. Freddie Mercury's operatic voice and Brian May's guitar were multi-tracked ad infinitum to create pomp-rock in the grandest sense. In the '8…

While the 1980s Los Angeles rock scene will forever be associated with pretty-boy glam metal, it also spawned Guns N' Roses, one of the most in-your-face, streetwise, and controversial bands of the era. Axl Rose & company's roots lay in The Stones, A…

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…

Masterminded by songwriter/guitarist Tom Scholz, Boston became one of the biggest bands of the 1970s with their immaculately produced brand of classic rock. By combining the epic scale of prog-rock with the immediate impact of killer pop hooks, Bosto…

Blues-rock has rarely gotten more down and dirty than with Texas's famous long-bearded trio ZZ Top. Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill are responsible for some of the greatest party anthems of all time. They produced a number of 1970s rock cl…

The mercurial David Bowie is the original pop chameleon. He's been everything from inoffensive pop singer to glam icon to white soul man to art-rocker and more in the course of his long, prolific career. Although Bowie's first hit was 1969's "Space O…

Creedence Clearwater Revival seemed like something of an anomaly in the psychedelic 1960s. Far removed from the mind-expanding, flower-power explorations of their California contemporaries, they were a gritty, hard-hitting band respectful of their bl…

From his beginnings as a sensitive singer and pianist through his ascent to superstardom, Elton John has enjoyed one of the longest and most successful careers in rock & roll. With his outrageous costumes and campy theatricality, the man formerly kno…