Ray Charles Robinson Sr. 
(September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004)

Singer, songwriter, pianist, and composer Ray Charles is regarded
as one of the most iconic and influential singers ever, and he was
often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among
friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother
Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to
glaucoma.

Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by
combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles
into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records

Mickey Leroy Gilley (March 9, 1936 – May 7, 2022)

(CBS) – Country star Mickey Gilley, whose namesake Texas
honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film "Urban Cowboy" and a
nationwide wave of Western-themed nightspots, has died.

Gilley died Saturday in Branson, Missouri, where he helped
run the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. He had been
performing as recently as last month, but was in failing health
over the past week. His death was announced by Jeff Wagner,
mayor of Pasadena, Texas.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Paul McCartney announced his first
live shows since 2019 Friday, including stops from Tennessee to California.

McCartney said…“I said at the end of the last tour that I’d see you
next time. I said I was going to get back to you. Well, I got back!"

Waylon Arnold Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002)

Jennings was a country music singer, songwriter, and musician.
best known as one of the founding pioneers of the Outlaw
Movement in country music.

Jennings started to play guitar at age of eight and first performed
at age 12 on KVOW radio, after which he formed his first band, The
Texas Longhorns. Jennings left high school at age 16, determined
to become a musician and worked as a performer and DJ on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI, KLLL, in Coolidge, Arizona, and Phoenix.

In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session,
and hired him to play bass. Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-
fated flight in 1959 that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. “The Big
Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens. Jennings died in his sleep
from complications of diabetes at the age of 64, at his home in Chandler,
 Arizona.

Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly, taken in a Photo Booth
(1959).

Waylon  Jennings and Buddy Holly during the Winter Dance
Party Tour in 1959.

Les Paul (1915-2009) and Mary Ford (1924-1977)  were a popular
1950s husband-and-wife musical duo who performed and recorded during 1945–1963. The couple were introduced to each other by
Gene Autry in 1945 and were married on December 31, 1949.

Paul and Ford are famous for creating a makeshift recording studio
in their garage. In that studio, they used multitrack recording to
record many of their big hits.

Ford and Paul were music superstars during the first half of the
1950s, putting out 28 hits for Capitol Records between 1950 and
1957, including "Tiger Rag", "Vaya con Dios" (11 weeks at No. 1), "Mockin’ Bird Hill" (top 10), "How High the Moon" (nine weeks at
No. 1), "Bye Bye Blues" and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise".