Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead

Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician, songwriter, and artist best known for being the lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead. Garcia was viewed by the media as the leader or "spokesman" of the group.
Performing with the Grateful Dead for its entire three decade career (which spanned from 1965 to 1995), Garcia participated in a variety of side projects, including Legion of Mary, and the Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and several solo albums. Read more here.

Janis Joplin, The Queen of Blues

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an influential singer, songwriter, and music arranger. She rose to fame in the 1960's as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and eventually a solo career before her death from a drug overdose. She was one of the most popular and influential singers of the sixties and is considered to be one of the greatest female rockers of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin #46 on their list of the 50 Greatest Artists of All TimeJanis Joplin was born to Seth Ward Joplin and Dorothy Bonita East. Her father was an engineer at Texaco. Her mother was the registrar at a business college. Janis had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, including Jim Langdon and Grant Lyons, the latter of whom played her the blues for the first time. She began singing in the local choir and listening to musicians such as Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Odetta, and Big Mama Thornton. While at Thomas Jefferson High School, she was mostly shunned. Among her high school classmates was another individual destined for stardom: future college and NFL coach Jimmy Johnson. In a 1992 Sports Illustrated profile of his career, Johnson claimed that he gave Janis the high school nickname of "beat weeds." Primarily a painter, in high school she first began singing blues and folk music with friends. More reading is here.

Van Morrison

George Ivan Morrison OBE (generally known as Van Morrison) (born August 31, 1945) is a Grammy Award-winning Northern Irish singer, songwriter, author, poet and multi-instrumentalist, who has been a professional musician during the last five decades. He plays a variety of instruments, including the guitar, harmonica, keyboards, drums, and saxophone. Featuring his characteristic growl — a unique mix of throaty folk, blues, Irish, scat, and Celtic influences — Morrison is widely considered one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll.Critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison." More Reading here

Vincent Crane of Atomic Rooster

I can't refuse that he was an important man in music, he was a legend who brought progressive music alive and I could say that he was the father of this music.Vincent Crane (born Vincent Rodney Cheesman, 21 May 1943, in Reading, Berkshire, died 14 February 1989, in Reading, Berkshire) was a self-taught pianist, who studied theory and composition at Trinity College of Music. He graduated in 1964.He was at first heavily influenced by Graham Bond, and in 1967 teamed up with Arthur Brown and formed The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Their self-titled album (1967) had the track "Fire" on it, which became a massive hit single in both the UK and the U.S.
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown dissolved on tour in the U.S., with Crane and drummer Carl Palmer (of ELP) leaving the band to form Atomic Rooster in 1969.
Crane was plagued by a manic mental disorder, forcing him to be treated inside and outside hospitals numerous times. Crane is deservingly associated with the Hammond Organ which was central to the Crazy World of.. album, and Atomic Rooster's music. Further reading is Here

Marc Bolan of T-Rex

Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld; 30 September 1947 - 16 September 1977), was an English singer, songwriter and guitarist whose hit singles, fashion sensibilities and stage presence with T. Rex in the early 1970s helped cultivate the glam rock era and made him one of the most recognisable stars in British music of the time.
The son of a Jewish van driver and caretaker, Bolan grew up in post-war Hackney in East London and later lived in Wimbledon, southwest London. He fell in love with the rock and roll of Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry at an early age and became a Mod, hanging around coffee bars such as the 2 I's in Soho. He appeared in an episode of the television show Orlando as a Mod extra.
At the age of nine, Bolan was given his first guitar and began a skiffle band shortly after. At 14, he was expelled from school. His rebellious streak came out in the wild hair and the often sexual lyrics of the early 1970s star. Continue Reading Here

Incredible Genius: Syd Barrett

He was the Great Man who was lost in time...
Good bye Syd... You had thought about beautiful things in you songs before anybody had thought about them.
Full Name: Roger Keith BarrettBorn:January 6, 1946 - Cambridge, EnglandDied:July 7, 2006 - Cambridge, EnglandQuote:"I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway."Influenced By: Jimi Hendrix, Amm (improvisational jazz group)Influence On:Pete Townshend (Who), Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin)
Significant Facts:Co-founder of Pink FloydAppeared on first two Pink Floyd albums, recorded two solo albums after leaving the bandLife and Times: Syd Barrett was the youngest of five children of a well known Cambridge physician and his wife, both of whom who encouraged his interest in music. The sudden death of his father when Barrett was 11 is believed to have been at least partly responsible for triggering the mental problems that plagued him as an adult.
In 1965, he brought a flair for musical innovation -- and the name Pink Floyd -- to a group whose stock-in-trade had been playing covers of Rhythm & Blues songs. Under Barrett's influence, Pink Floyd began to experiment with a jazz-based psychedilic sound. He used "low tech" techniques like sliding a cigarette lighter up and down his guitar's fret board to give Pink Floyd a distinctive sound different from any other bands.Rise and Fall: As the band's success grew with its first two albums -- 1967's The Piper At the Gates of Dawn (written primarily by Barrett) and 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets -- so did Barrett's erratic behavior. He would wander aimlessly around the stage during live performances, or play just one chord throughout an entire concert. Heavy use of drugs, especially LSD, made his mental instability even worse.Barrett left Pink Floyd in 1968, just three years after co-founding it. Over the next few years, he released two solo albums and performed on stage occasionally. In 1974 he left the music business altogether and lived the rest of his life in near seclusion in his boyhood home in Cambridge, spending his time painting, gardening and avoiding the public eye. He dropped the nickname he had adopted as a teenager, and returned to using the name he was given at birth, Roger.Crazy Diamond: Pink Floyd's 1975 album Wish You Were Here was written and released as a tribute to Barrett. It was their first album to reach the top of both the UK and US album charts. A movie about his life, produced by Ridley Scott, was in the works at one time, but was shelved because of various legal issues. Barrett died in July 2006 at the age of 60 of complications caused by diabetes.
The Madcap Laughs : Barrett's first solo album after being fired from Pink Floyd was produced by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. It reflects, both lyrically and musically, Barrett's deep rooted mental anguish at that point in his life. More about him, go here

The Genius of the Century

How do you think about the title above? I really agree about it. Just imagine how that man wrote hundreds of songs which can be adopted into any kinds of music. For my salutation, I put him in this blog as one of the greatests influenced the birth of Rock. This is what I quote about him:

Full Name: Originally John Winston Lennon, later John Ono Lennon
Born: October 9, 1940
Died: December 8, 1980

About John Lennon:
Had two distinct careers, as singer-songwriter-guitarist for The Beatles, then as a solo musician, author, and political activist
Had a major influence on the evolution of rock music as a force for social and political change
Performed with, recorded with, and married Yoko Ono, whom he met at an exhibit of her art n London in 1966
Shot and killed by a deranged fan outside his New York City apartment as he and Yoko returned from a recording session in December, 1980
John Lennon Before and After The Beatles: His mother taught him to play banjo as a child. He formed the group that would eventually become The Beatles, then called The Quarry Men, in the late 50s. After The Beatles split in 1970, he continued writing and performing as a solo artist until 1975, when he retired. He had just released a comeback album shortly before his death in 1980.

John Lennon Quote:

"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all."

More bout John Lennon and his Beatles are here