Pete Burns – Dead or Alive

Pete Burns was a British singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer of Dead or Alive. He became popular in 1985 with the release of the single You Spin Me Round (Like a Record). He also was a television personality. He appeared on further television reality shows including Celebrity Big Brother 4, in which he finished in fifth place.
Peter Burns was born in August 5, 1959 in Port-Sanlayte (English county of Merseyside). His father was an Englishman, and his mother was a Jew from German Heidelberg.
His biography is more like a tangled series – his personal life combined with the singer’s career, plastic surgery and scandals.
At first Pete attracted the attention of the public only thanks to his outrageous appearance, but then he released the single You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), which received the status of gold, being sold in an amount of more than 500 000 copies and took the top places in the charts worldwide (# 1 UK Singles Chart).
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Ice Cube – O’Shea Jackson

Ice Cube is an American rapper, actor, screenwriter, film director and composer. He is one of the pioneers of gangsta rap. He is a former member and songwriter of rap group NWA.
O’Shea Jackson was born on June 15, 1969 in Los Angeles. His mother was an employee at the hospital, and his father worked as a gardener.
At the age of 16 he began to show interest in hip-hop and to write a rhyme.
In 1987, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre released the single My Posse. After that, Ice Cube showed Eazy-E lyrics of Boyz-N-The-Hood. Eazy-E recorded a song for the album of N.W.A. and the Posse. By that time, Ice Cube became a full member of NWA together with Dr. Dre and MC Ren. He wrote the lyrics for the album Straight Outta Compton, released in 1988.
However, in 1990 Ice Cube left NWA. In January of the same year, he recorded his debut solo album in Los Angeles together with the Bomb Squad. Album AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted was released in May 1990 and was an instant hit.
In 1991, he released the album Death Certificate. The critics accused him of racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism.
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Frank Zappa – American musician

Frank Zappa was an American composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, songwriter, musician, as well as sound and film director. He released more than 60 studio albums with his group The Mothers of Invention as well as solo albums. Zappa’s several albums had commercial success, particularly in Europe. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and his career in 1997 received Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Frank Vincent Zappa was born on December 21, 1940 in Baltimore (Maryland).
In his teens he fell in love with rhythm and blues, as well as the works of avant-garde artist Edgar Varèse. While studying in high school he began to compose symphonies and played drums in rhythm and blues band. At the same time his parents bought him a phonograph that helped to assemble a large collection of recordings, which he kept until his death.
In 1956, the Zappa family moved to Lancaster. At the age of 15 Frank called Varèse, however he was in Europe at that time. The boy talked to the composer’s wife and later Varèse wrote a letter to Zappa, in which he spoke about his work on the play Déserts and invited Frank to visit his concert in New York. The meeting never took place (Varèse died in 1965), but Zappa kept his letter until the end of his life.
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Cliff Burton – Metallica member

Cliff Burton was an American musician, bassist of metal band Metallica, a virtuoso. Unusual style of play, a variety of musical tastes and unexpected tragic death made him a cult musician. In 2011 he was recognized as one of the best bass players of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine.
Clifford Lee Burton was born on February 10, 1962 in California. At the age of 6 he began playing the piano. In 1976, when he was 14, his older brother died, and Cliff, being very upset, began to play the bass guitar. In 1980 he had a special course in Music College in Napa Valley, in northern California. There Jim Martin, leader and guitarist of the band Faith No More, was one of his fellow classmates.
Burton’s first performance as part of Metallica was on March 5, 1983 in the club The Stone in San Francisco.
Cliff Burton was killed in a bus accident on September 27, 1986. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Metallica on April 4, 2009.
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Boz Burrell – British bassist and singer

Boz Burrell was a British bassist and singer, known as a member of the bands King Crimson and Bad Company.
Boz Burrell (real name Raymond Burrell) was born on August 1, 1946 in Lincoln, England.
Boz began his musical career as a singer and worked with various groups in Norfolk. After leaving college, he began his professional career in Lombard and the Tea Time Four. Later keyboardist Ian McLagan joined the project and they changed the name to The Boz People. Since that time Burrell was nicknamed Boz. The band toured a lot, and also accompanied the singer Kenny Lynch, released 4 singles, but they didn’t become successful and quietly disbanded.
Then Burrell participated in several projects. In 1968 he managed to release two singles under the name Boz: I Shall Be Released / Down In The Flood (cover versions of similar songs by Bob Dylan) and Light My Fire / Back Against the Wall (the first track – a cover version of The Doors’ song). It is noteworthy that future creators of Deep Purple – Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice took part in the recording.
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John Denver – American singer

John Denver was an American singer, who is the most commercially successful solo artist in the history of folk music. During his career, he recorded more than 300 songs, most of which he wrote himself (example – Take Me Home Country Roads). In the late 1960s, Denver played in Chad Mitchell’s trio but in 1969 he began his solo career. The album of greatest hits released in 1974 became platinum ten times. The song written special for his wife, Annie’s Song, reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
After the triumph of the mid-1970s Denver recorded fewer songs. He occasionally played in films, served as poet laureate of Colorado, but most of the time he spent on environmental protection. After the Chernobyl disaster in Kiev, he wrote a song about Piskaryovsky cemetery.
Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (real name) was born on December 31, 1943 in Roswell, New Mexico. He was the son of a US air force officer.
When he was 11 years old his grandmother presented him with a guitar.
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Jerry Rafferty – British singer-songwriter

Jerry Rafferty was a British singer-songwriter of Scots-Irish origin, one of the founders of Stealers Wheel. Their song Stuck in the Middle with You (1973, UK/US Top Ten – later used to memorable effect in the Quentin Tarantino movie, Reservoir Dogs) became a great hit.
Gerald “Jerry” Rafferty was born on April 16, 1947 in Paisley, Scotland. Rafferty had two brothers, Jim and Joe. He was encouraged to listen to and learn Irish folk songs by his mother. His father was a deaf alcoholic who died when the singer was a teenager.
The boy was inspired by The Beatles and Bob Dylan and began composing with co-writer Joe Egan at school. The pair formed the short lived Fifth Column who released the 1966 single ‘Benjamin Day’. In 1969 Rafferty joined the folk-pop group The Humblebums.
In 1970 Rafferty married Carla Ventilla. They had daughter, Martha Mary. They divorced in 1990.
In 1971 they disbanded and he recorded his first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back? In 1972 Rafferty and Joe Egan formed the group Stealers Wheel.
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