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…

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,…

While most rock fans remember Mott The Hoople as a thriving early-'70s glam band, they were also one of the first British bands to serve as a mouthpiece for the working class (predating both The Sex Pistols and The Clash by several years). Led by sin…

Like most mid-1960s British rockers, the Kinks started out as an R&B group before they helped invent hard rock and ventured into sardonic, Beatles-inspired pop and refreshingly unpretentious rock opera with an English music-hall tinge. Ray Davies' bi…

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…

Elvis Costello arrived at the tail end of punk with short, incendiary tunes about revenge and guilt, and a visual image to match, looking like a pissed-off Buddy Holly. But the pose belied his musical range and lyrical sophistication, and he came to …

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…

The Jam were at the forefront of two musical movements at once in late-'70s England--punk and the mod revival. While the young trio posessed just as much brashness and raw energy as the Sex Pistols or the Clash, they also had the pop smarts and soul …

Formed in the late 1970s, the Pretenders' original lineup--fronted by voice-for-the-ages Chrissie Hynde--made melodic, intelligent guitar rock that straddled the gap between punk's rawness and the ear candy of new wave pop, with a touch of '60s influ…

James Osterberg began his musical career in 1964, playing in various Detroit bands but most famously in the Iguanas, where he acquired the nickname Iggy Pop. Inspired by the dirty sound of Chicago blues, a Doors live performance, and garage-band aest…

Over the decades, and in various quests to land his audience, the presentation of Hiatt's resilient songs changed to fit the times. Begining in the mid-'70s, he went from singer-songwriter to Elvis Costello-ish rocker to progressive-country/adult alt…

Cheap Trick's first few albums are often cited as an influence on both '80s pop-metal and the pop-punk phenomenon of the '90s. Robin Zander's rock-star looks and powerful voice played perfectly off guitar hero Rick Neilsen's oddball image and onstage…

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…

In the late '70s, Joe Jackson was part of England's holy trinity of angry young men, which also included Elvis Costello and Graham Parker. However, Jackson quickly branched out from new wave. Proving to be an incredibly eclectic artist, he's subseque…

Lou Reed is among the most literate wordsmiths in rock & roll history. His first decade of post-Velvet Underground work included some undeniable high points (BERLIN, the David Bowie-produced TRANSFORMER) but he was plagued by inconsistency. Reed came…

The pre-eminent white soul duo of the 1970s and '80s, Daryl Hall and John Oates ruled pop radio for years with their hook-ridden hits. The pair eventually moved beyond their initial inspirations--primarily Motown groups like the Temptations and Phil…

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…

With inspiration from British glam and US proto-punks like the Stooges, the New York Dolls were the originators of the NYC trash aesthetic that inspired subsequent generations of punk bands. Churning out garage riffs that tipped their hat to 1960s R&…

One of the best and most popular confessional songwriters of the '70s, Carly Simon combined pop sensibilities with a folk background for a series of smash hits. During her tumultuous marriage to James Taylor, the pair scored big with a duet cover of …

Tribe was one of the most popular bands in Boston in the late 80s and early 90s but was never able to translate its local drawing power and multiple local awards into national success The band was fronted by singer Janet LaValley whose soaring voice …