The Pleiades also known as Seven Sistersand Messier 45 (M45), is an asterism of an open star cluster containing young B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light-years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the nearest Messier object to Earth, being the most obvious star cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It contains the reflection nebulae NGC 1432, an HII region, and NGC 1435, known as the Merope Nebula. Around 2330 BC the Pleiades marked the vernal point. Due to the brightness of its stars, the Pleiades is viewable from most areas on Earth, even in locations with significant light pollution.

Born January 15th 1945 – October 2nd 2016 was Joan Marie Johnson Faust. She was a Vocalist who came to prominence as an original member of the American pop music group, The Dixie Cups. She was Born in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Dixie Cups are an American pop music girl group of the 1960s. They are best known for a string of hits including their 1964 million-selling record “Chapel of Love”, “People Say”, and “Iko Iko”.The group hit the top of the charts in 1964 with “Chapel of Love,” a song that Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich had originally written for The Ronettes. The trio consisted of sisters Barbara Ann and Rosa Lee Hawkins; plus their cousin Joan Marie Johnson, from New Orleans. They first sang together in grade school. Originally, they were to be called Little Miss and the Muffets, but were named the Dixie Cups just prior to their first release. In 1963, the trio decided to pursue a professional career in music and began singing locally as the Meltones. Within a year Joe Jones, a successful singer in his own right with the Top Five 1960 single “You Talk Too Much,” became their manager. After working with them for five months, Jones took them to New York, where record producers/songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller signed them to their new Red Bird Records. The Dixie Cups debut single was the release, “Chapel of Love,” which became their biggest hit reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in June 1964. “Chapel of Love” sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. In 1987, the song “Chapel of Love” appeared on the Full Metal Jacket soundtrack and in the 1991 film, Father of the Bride. The hit single by The Dixie Cups was ranked #279 on Rolling Stone’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The group also had several other hits including, “People Say” (#12, 1964), “You Should Have Seen the Way He Looked at Me” (#39, 1964), “Little Bell” (#51, 1965), and “Iko Iko” (#20, 1965). “Iko Iko”, a New Orleans traditional song, was recorded in 1964 but later was released as a single early in 1965. Barbara Hawkins had heard her grandmother sing the song, first recorded in 1953 as “Jock-a-Mo” by James “Sugar Boy” Crawford. Barbara Hawkins: “We were just clowning around with it during a session using drumsticks on ashtrays. We didn’t realize that Jerry and Mike had the tapes running”. Leiber and Stoller overdubbed a bassline and percussion, and released it. It was The Dixie Cups’ fifth and last hit. In 1965, the Dixie Cups moved to the ABC-Paramount record label before a recording hiatus in 1966 temporarily halted their careers. In 1974 the Hawkins sisters moved from New York to New Orleans, where they both began successful modeling careers. Hawkins also worked as make-up artists. The Dixie Cups continued to tour as a trio with another New Orleans singer, Beverly Brown, replacing Joan Johnson who became a Jehovah’s Witness and left her music career. Brown, who had recorded two solo discs in the early 1960s, stayed as the third member until the early 80s when she became ill and was replaced by Dale Mickle. The Dixie Cups continue to perform and make personal appearances. The current line-up consists of the same Hawkins sisters along with Athelgra Neville, sister of the singing Neville Brothers. On August 29th 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept through Louisiana, flooding and flattening most of New Orleans and displacing Barbara and Rosa Hawkins, who subsequently relocated to Florida. She relocated to Texas. Two years later in April 2007, The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame honored The Dixie Cups for their contributions to Louisiana music by inducting them into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. She died in New Orleans of congestive heart failure on October 3rd 2016 at the age of 72.

Ida Lewis “Queen Ida” Guillory (born January 15, 1929) is a Louisiana Creole accordionist. She was the first female accordion player to lead a zydeco band. Queen Ida’s music is an eclectic mix of R&B, Caribbean, and Cajun, though the presence of her accordion always keeps it traditional.

Roosevelt Holts (born January 15, 1905, near Tylertown, Mississippi; died February 27, 1994, in Franklinton, Louisiana) was an American blues singer and guitarist.

Earl Zebedee Hooker (January 15, 1930 – April 21, 1970 Quitman County, MS) was a Chicago blues guitarist known for his slide guitar playing. Considered a “musician’s musician”, he performed with blues artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, and John Lee Hooker and fronted his own bands. An early player of the electric guitar, Hooker was influenced by the modern urban styles of T-Bone Walker and Robert Nighthawk. He recorded several singles and albums as a bandleader and with other well-known artists. His “Blue Guitar”, a slide guitar instrumental single, was popular in the Chicago area and was later overdubbed with vocals by Muddy Waters as “You Shook Me“.

In the late 1960s, Hooker began performing on the college and concert circuit and had several recording contracts. Just as his career was on an upswing, he died in 1970, at age 40, after a lifelong struggle with tuberculosis. His guitar playing has been acknowledged by many of his peers, including B. B. King, who commented, “to me he is the best of modern guitarists. Period. With the slide he was the best. It was nobody else like him, he was just one of a kind”.

Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973 Chicago)  was an American jazz drummer, bandleader, and composer. Krupa is widely regarded as one of the most influential drummers in the history of popular music. His drum solo on Benny Goodman‘s 1937 recording of “Sing, Sing, Sing” elevated the role of the drummer from that of an accompanist to that of an important solo voice in the band.

In collaboration with the Slingerland drum and Zildjian cymbal manufacturers, he became a major force in defining the standard band-drummer’s kit. Modern Drummer magazine regards Krupa as “the founding father of modern drumset playing”.

Upon his death, The New York Times labeled Krupa a “revolutionary” known for “frenzied, flashy” drumming, with his work having generated a significant musical legacy that started “in jazz and has continued on through the rock era”. In 1973, Krupa died in Yonkers at the age 64 from heart failure, though he also had leukemia and emphysema. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Calumet City, Illinois.