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Lurlean Hunter (December 1, 1919 – March 11, 1983) was an American contralto singer.

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Hunter was taken to Chicago when she was two months old. She attended Englewood High School in Chicago

Hunter’s first paid singing performance came when she appeared with Red Saunders and his orchestra at Club DeLisa on Chicago’s South Side. She was signed by Discovery Records in 1950. In 1951, Hunter was a featured performer with George Shearing and his quintet at Birdland in New York City.

Johnny Shuggie Otis (born Johnny Alexander Veliotes, Jr.; November 30, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and multi-instrumentalist.

Otis’s composition “Strawberry Letter 23” (as recorded by The Brothers Johnson) topped the Billboard R&B chart and reached #5 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977. He also achieved commercial success with his 1974 single “Inspiration Information” (from the album of the same title), reaching #56 on the R&B chart.

Born in Los Angeles, California, Otis is the son of rhythm and blues pioneer, musician, bandleader, and impresario Johnny Otis, who was of Greek descent, and his wife Phyllis Walker, who was of African American and Filipino descent.

Johnny Mbizo Dyani (30 November 1945 – 24 October 1986) was a South African jazz double bassist, vocalist and pianist, who, in addition to being a key member of The Blue Notes, played with such international musicians as Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Finnish guitar player Jukka Syrenius, Pierre Dørge, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, fellow South African Dollar Brand(Abdullah Ibrahim), and Leo Smith, among many other prominent players.

Walter Brown “Brownie” McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.

McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brother Granville “Sticks”(or “Stick”) McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the famous song “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-o-Dee,” was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie’s uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board.

Robert Lee McCollum (November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967) was an American blues musician who played and recorded under the pseudonyms Robert Lee McCoy and Robert Nighthawk. He was the father of the blues musician Sam Carr. Nighthawk was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983.

McCollum was born in Helena, Arkansas on November 30, 1909. He left home at an early age and became a busking musician. After a period traveling through southern Mississippi, he settled for a time in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played with local orchestras and musicians, such as the Memphis Jug Band. A particular influence during this period was Houston Stackhouse, from whom he learned to play slide guitar and with whom he performed on the radio in Jackson, Mississippi.

Because the Gum Nebula is the closest supernova remnant, it is actually hard to see. Spanning 40 degrees across the sky, the nebula appears so large and faint that it is easily lost in the din of a bright and complex background. The Gum Nebula is highlighted nicely in red emission toward the right of the featured wide-angle, single-image photograph taken in late May. Also visible in the frame are the Atacama Desert in Chile in the foreground, the Carina Nebula in the plane of our Milky Way galaxy running diagonally down from the upper left, and the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) galaxy. The Gum Nebula is so close that we are much nearer the front edge than the back edge, each measuring 450 and 1500 light years respectively. The complicated nebula lies in the direction of the constellations of Puppis and Vela. Oddly, much remains unknown about the Gum Nebula, including the timing and even number of supernova explosions that formed it.

John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, musician and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among its members some of the most famous blues and blues rock musicians.

Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1933, Mayall grew up in Cheadle Hulme. He was the son of Murray Mayall, a guitarist and jazz enthusiast. From an early age was drawn to the sounds of American blues players such as Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Pinetop Smith and Eddie Lang, and taught himself to play the piano, guitars, and harmonica.

Mayall was sent to Korea as part of his national service, and during a period of leave bought his first electric guitar in Japan. Back in England, he enrolled at Manchester College of Art and started playing with a semi-professional band, the Powerhouse Four. After graduation, he obtained a job as an art designer but continued to play with local musicians. In 1963, he opted for a full-time musical career and moved to London. His previous craft would be put to good use in the designing of covers for many of his coming albums.

John Lamb (born November 29, 1933) is an American jazz double bassist who was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Born in Vero Beach, Florida, Lamb as a child loved playing music, specializing in the tuba. He left high school to join the United States Air Force as a musician for their military band. He was stationed in Texas and then Montana, where the long winters left him ample time to practice. When the band’s usual string bass player was unavailable for a gig in 1951, the bandmaster asked Lamb if he could play the bass; Lamb immediately said yes, and before long became the band’s new string bassist. He credited his tuba experience for giving him the “feel” to pick up string bass quickly without any prior experience.

Lamb joined Duke Ellington’s orchestra in 1964, and toured with them for three years. Lamb was more of a fan of Miles Davis and Red Garland when he was with Ellington, later saying, “I was very young and very cocky. I thought I knew more than Duke at that time…I have more time today to reflect on the things that were accomplished back then, and the places we traveled to and all the wonderful people that we met. So one has to be careful what one does in his young years, because if they’re fortunate to live long, it all comes back.” In 1966 Lamb performed with Ellington and Sam Woodyard for artist Joan Miró at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Lamb later moved to St. Petersburg, Florida and taught music in public schools as well as St. Petersburg College. Alphonso Johnson was one of Lamb’s students. Lamb was awarded the Jazz Club of Sarasota’s “Satchmo Award” for service to jazz.

William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include “Take the ‘A’ Train“, “Chelsea Bridge“, “A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing”, and “Lush Life“.

Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States. His family soon moved to the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, his mother’s family came from Hillsborough, North Carolina, and she sent him there to protect him from his father’s drunken sprees. Strayhorn spent many months of his childhood at his grandparents’ house in Hillsborough. In an interview, Strayhorn said that his grandmother was his primary influence during the first ten years of his life. He became interested in music while living with her, playing hymns on her piano, and playing records on her Victrola record player.