singer
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Billie Holiday *IV 7 1915 — The Life You Give
Billie Holiday, born Elinore Harris, on April 7, 1915, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is the jazz singer considered to have been one of the greatest from the 1930s to the ’50s. Eleanora (her preferred spelling) Harris was the daughter of Clarence Holiday, a professional musician who for a time played guitar with the Fletcher Henderson band.…
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Aretha Franklin *March 25 1942 — The Life You Give
Aretha Franklin, born Aretha Louise Franklin, on March 25 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A., is the singer who defined the golden age of soul music of the 1960s. Franklin’s mother, Barbara, was a gospel singer and pianist. Her father, C.L. Franklin, presided over the New Bethel Baptist Church of Detroit, Michigan, and was a minister…
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Dolora Zajick *III 24 1952 — The Life You Give
Dolora Zajick (ZAH-chik) is among the world’s leading dramatic mezzo-sopranos, unsurpassed in Verdi’s mezzo roles. Birgit Nilsson in 1991 stated that “Zajick’s voice is the only one existing today without any competition in the world.” She comes from a large family of Czech descent. As a pre-medical student at the University of Nevada, she took…
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Rosalind Elias *III 13 1931 — The Life You Give
Mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias had a long, leading career in opera on the international scene. She was most often heard at the Metropolitan Opera, where she spent more than 40 years as part of its company. There, and elsewhere, she performed in many American and world premieres. Elias was born on March 13, 1931, in Lowell,…
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Simon Estes *III 2 1938 — The Life You Give
One of just a few African-American male singers who has had a top-rank international operatic career, bass-baritone Simon Estes grew up in Iowa in a house without heat or indoor plumbing. He sang in church as a youth, but when he enrolled at the University of Iowa in the late ’50s he had never heard…
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Renata Scotto *II 24 1934 –The Life You Give
Renata Scotto’s long and successful operatic career was marked by a rare combination of dramatic intensity and vocal flexibility, which allowed her to traverse a wide variety of styles. She believed strongly in the theatrical elements of performing and always focused her energies on the meaning of a text. She also felt much of the…
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Renée Lynn Fleming *II 14 1959 / The Life You Give
Renée Fleming, born February 14, 1959, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., is a soprano noted for the beauty and richness of her voice and for the thought and sensitivity she brings to the texts. Fleming’s repertoire is extraordinarily broad, spanning three centuries and ranging from Handel and Mozart through 19th-century bel canto to the works of…
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Leontyne Price *II 10 1927 — The Life You Give
Metropolitan Opera audiences began an extraordinary love affair with American soprano Leontyne Price immediately upon her debut on January 27, 1961. She was by then an internationally heralded singer and an experienced, refined musician and artist. But more than anything, it was the sheer beauty of her voice that excited her listeners. What they heard…
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Renata Tebaldi *II 1 1922 — The Life You Give
Renata Tebaldi, born February 1, 1922, in Pesaro, Italy, was an operatic soprano, a star at both Milan’s La Scala and New York City’s Metropolitan Opera. Tebaldi received her early musical training from her mother, a singer, and studied at the Parma Conservatory. At age 18 she sang for Carmen Melis, of the Arrigo Boito…
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Anita Baker *I 26 1958 — The Life You Give
Anita Baker, born January 26, 1958, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A., is the singer whose three-octave range and powerful, emotional delivery brought her international acclaim in the 1980s and ’90s. She was one of the most popular artists in urban contemporary music, a genre that her sophisticated, tradition-oriented soul and rhythm-and-blues singing helped to define. Baker’s talent…
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Sam Cooke *I 22 1931 — The Life You Give
Sam Cooke, born Samuel Cook, on January 22 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, U.S.A., was singer, songwriter, producer, and entrepreneur who was a major figure in the history of popular music and, along with Ray Charles, one of the most influential Black vocalists of the post-World War II period. If Charles represented raw soul, Cooke symbolized…
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Plácido Domingo *I 21 1941 — La Vida Que Das / The Life You Give
Plácido Domingo, nacido José Plácido Domingo Embil el 21 de enero de 1941, en Madrid, España, es cantante de ópera español, y uno de los más destacados tenores del panorama operístico del siglo XX. A los pocos años de nacer se trasladó con su familia a Latinoamérica, donde sus padres, cantantes de zarzuela, tenían que…
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Big Mama Thornton *XII 11 1926 — The Life You Give
Big Mama Thornton, born Willie Mae Thornton on December 11, 1926, in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S.A., is the singer and songwriter who performed in the tradition of classic blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. Her work inspired imitation by Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin, who recorded popular cover versions of Thornton’s “Hound Dog”…
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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf *XII 9 1915 — The Life You Give
Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, born December 9 1915, in Jarotschin, near Posen, Germany, [now Poznań, Poland] is the soprano who performed in the major opera houses of the Western world, and is remembered especially for her mastery of German songs known as lieder. Schwarzkopf studied at the Berlin High School for Music from 1934, winning various…
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Jim Morrison *XII 8 1943 — The Life You Give
Jim Morrison, born James Douglas Morrison, December 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Florida, U.S.A., is the singer and songwriter who was the charismatic front man of the psychedelic rock group the Doors. Morrison’s father was a naval officer (ultimately an admiral), and the family moved frequently, though it settled down in the Washington, D.C., suburb of…
Sila Blume 