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Veronica “Randy” Crawford (born February 18, 1952 Macon, GA) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the Billboard Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, she has appeared on the Hot 100 singles chart twice. The first time was in 1979 as a guest vocalist on The Crusaders‘ top-40 hit “Street Life“. She also dueted with Rick Springfield on the song “Taxi Dancing”, which hit number 59 as the B-side of Springfield’s hit “Bop Til You Drop”. She has had five top-20 hits in the UK, including her 1980 number-two hit, “One Day I’ll Fly Away“, as well as six UK top-10 albums. Despite her American nationality, she won Best British Female Solo Artist in recognition of her popularity in the UK at the 1982 Brit Awards. In the late 2000s, she received her first two Grammy Award nominations.

Sidney Thomas “Tommy” Boyce (September 29, 1939 – November 23, 1994) and Bobby Hart (born Robert Luke Harshman; February 18, 1939) were a American duo of singer-songwriters. In addition to three top-40 hits as artists, the duo is well known for its songwriting for The Monkees.

Hart’s father was a church minister and he himself served in the Army after leaving high school. Upon discharge, he travelled to Los Angeles seeking a career as a singer. Boyce was separately pursuing a career as a songwriter. After being rejected numerous times, Boyce took his father’s suggestion to write a song called “Be My Guest” for rock and roll star Fats Domino. He waited six hours at Domino’s hotel room to present him with the demo, and got Domino to promise to listen to the song. The song hit No. 8 in the US and No. 11 in the UK, becoming Domino’s biggest hit there in several years, and sold over a million copies.Boyce also found success as the co-writer, with Curtis Lee, of Lee’s 1961 hits “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” and “Under the Moon of Love“.

Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers were a Canadian soul band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The group recorded for the Gordy Records division of Motown Records in 1968, where they had a top 30 hit single, “Does Your Mama Know About Me”. As a producer and solo artist, Bobby Taylor contributed to several other soul recordings, both inside and outside of Motown. Taylor is most notable for discovering and mentoring The Jackson 5. Tommy Chong was a member of Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers before he became famous as a comedian.

Bobby Taylor, born Robert Edward Taylor on February 18, 1934, in Washington, D.C., was raised in Washington. As a young man, he moved to New York City and sang in doo-wop groups with singers who later joined successful acts such as Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and Little Anthony and the Imperials. In 1958 he began his music career as a member of The Four Pharaohs, who released a few locally-selling recordings in the Columbus, Ohio area.

(born. February 17, 1937, Chicago). He is best known as baritone, background vocals, with The Dells from -1952–2012. The Dells were an American R&B vocal group. Formed in high school in 1952 by founding members Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Johnny Funches, Chuck Barksdale, and Mickey and Lucius McGill, under the name the El-Rays, they released their first recording in 1954, and two years later, had their first R&B hit with “Oh What a Night”. After disbanding due to a near-fatal car crash in 1958, the band reformed in 1960 with Funches being replaced by Johnny Carter. This lineup remained together until Carter’s 2009 death. The Dells were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2004. The vocal group performed until illness forced longtime lead singer Marvin Junior and bass vocalist Chuck Barksdale into retirement, ending the group’s 60-year run.

The Dells grew up in Harvey, Illinois and began singing together while attending Thornton Township High School. Forming in 1952 under the name the El-Rays, the group initially consisted of Marvin Junior, Mickey McGill, Lucius McGill, Verne Allison, Chuck Barksdale, and Johnny Funches. Lucius soon left the group and the remaining quintet signed with Checker Records, releasing their first single, “Darling I Know,” which flopped.

There are two parts to a Fandangos de Huelva, including the estribillo, a rhythmic chordal refrain played on the guitar with or without singing, and the coplas. These two parts alternate, similar to the chorus and verse in a folk song: The compás for the Fandangos de Huelva is a six count pattern with accents on the third and fifth beats.

Each copla (verse) of the Fandangos de Huelva contains six sets of twelve counts, and dancers usually perform several verses of the song, or trade off performing a verse with another dancer. In a performance, the guitarist plays two or four sets of estribillos before each copla. The singer may also sing the estribillo before the first copla. When performed in the traditional, regional style, steps are characterized by beautiful leg gestures, flicks of the feet, jota steps and jumps, escuela bolera steps and patterns, a small amount of taconeo/zapateado, castanets, and a distinctive arched line in the back of the dancer – torcido – which produces a spiraling effect. The dance is also often performed aflamencada, in a flamenco style that includes footwork, flamenco marking steps and cues, and llamadas and remates that are similar to those found in Bulerías.

​The typical scenario for a traditional Fandangos de Huelva dance (performed by soloists or in groups) is as follows:

1. Entrance/entrada

   • Danced to a musical (with or without cante) estribillo

2. 1st copla

   • Each verse contains six sets of twelve count phrases, performed with or without castanets, and includes traditional regional or flamenco steps and phrases

3. Estribillo transition

   • Two to four sets of twelve count phrases are performed to the estribillo music, acting as transitions between the coplas (verses). These transitions allow dancers to enter or exit the stage.

4. Arrimaté

   • A traditional cierre (closing/ending) for cante and baile por Fandangos de Huelva

Otis Blackwell (February 16, 1931 – May 6, 2002) was an American songwriter whose work influenced rock and roll. His compositions include “Fever” (recorded by Little Willie John), “Great Balls of Fire” and “Breathless” (recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis), “Don’t Be Cruel“, “All Shook Up” and “Return to Sender” (with Winfield Scott; recorded by Elvis Presley), and “Handy Man” (recorded by Jimmy Jones).

Blackwell was born in Brooklyn, New York. He learned to play the piano as a child and grew up listening to both R&B and country music. His first success was winning a local talent contest (“Amateur Night”) at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1952. This led to a recording contract with RCA and then with Jay-Dee. His first release was his own composition “Daddy Rolling Stone“, which became a favorite in Jamaica, where it was recorded by Derek Martin. The song later became part of the Who‘s mod repertoire.

Carlos Paredes ComSE (Portuguese pronunciation: 16 February 1925 – 23 July 2004) was a virtuoso Portuguese guitar player and composer. He is regarded as one of the greatest players of Portuguese guitar of all-time.

Born in Coimbra, Portugal, in a family with a long tradition of guitar playing, he was taught to play the Portuguese guitar by his father, Artur Paredes. He composed numerous soundtracks for cinema and theatre, such as the soundtrack for the Portuguese film Os Verdes Anos (1963), which contains his famous piece “Canção Verde Anos”. He released several recordings as a solo artist and performed in numerous countries worldwide.

William Ballard Doggett (February 16, 1916 – November 13, 1996) was an American pianist and organist. He began his career playing swing music before transitioning into rhythm and blues. Best known for his instrumental compositions “Honky Tonk” and “Hippy Dippy”, Doggett was a pioneer of rock and roll. He worked with the Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Jordan.

Doggett was born in Philadelphia. During the 1930s and early 1940s he worked for Lucky Millinder, Frank Fairfax and arranger Jimmy Mundy. In 1942 he was hired as the Ink Spots‘ pianist and arranger.

In 1951, Doggett organized his own trio and began recording for King Records. His best known recording is “Honky Tonk“, a rhythm and blues hit of 1956, which sold four million copies (reaching No. 1 R&B and No. 2 Pop), and which he co-wrote with Billy Butler.

Giuseppe “Joe” Venuti (September 16, 1903 – August 14, 1978) was an American jazz musician and pioneer jazz violinist.

Considered the father of jazz violin, he pioneered the use of string instruments in jazz along with the guitarist Eddie Lang, a friend since childhood. Through the 1920s and early 1930s, Venuti and Lang made many recordings as leader and as featured soloists. He and Lang became so well known for their ‘hot’ violin and guitar solos that on many commercial dance recordings they were hired to do 12- or 24-bar duos towards the end of otherwise stock dance arrangements. In 1926, Venuti and Lang started recording for the OKeh label as a duet (after a solitary duet issued on Columbia), followed by “Blue Four” combinations, which are considered milestone jazz recordings. Venuti also recorded commercial dance records for OKeh under the name “New Yorkers”.

He worked with Benny Goodman, Adrian Rollini, the Dorsey Brothers, Bing Crosby, Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, Frank Signorelli, the Boswell Sisters, and most of the other important white jazz and semi-jazz figures of the late 1920s and early 1930s. However, following Lang’s death in 1933, Venuti’s career began to wane, though he continued performing through the 1930s, recording a series of commercial dance records (usually containing a Venuti violin solo) for the dime store labels, as well as OKeh and Columbia, plus the occasional jazz small group sessions. He was also a strong early influence on western swing players like Cecil Brower. Many of the 1920s OKeh sides continued to sell and remained in print through 1935 when ARCdiscontinued the OKeh label and reissued selected sides on the 35-cent Vocalion label (the OKeh label was revived by CBS in 1940).

Alistair Ian Campbell (born 15 February 1959) is an English singer and songwriter who was lead singer of the British reggae band UB40. As part of UB40, Campbell sold over 70 million records worldwide and toured the globe for 30 years. In 2008, Campbell left UB40 due to a dispute with band management and embarked on a solo career. In 2012, Campbell was announced as one of the three judges on the panel of the TV show New Zealand’s Got Talent. In August 2014, Campbell announced he had reunited with former UB40 bandmates Astro and Mickey to record a new album, Silhouette, released on 6 October 2014.

Alistair Ian Campbell was born in Birmingham, England. He is the brother of former bandmate Robin Campbell and former UB40 frontman Duncan Campbell, and is a son of the late Scottish folk singer Ian Campbell.