Berry, Chuck (18 October 1926–18 March 2017), singer, songwriter, guitarist, and one of the founders of rock and roll music, was born Charles Edward Anderson Berry in St. Louis, Missouri, to Henry Berry, a contractor and a deacon in the Antioch Baptist Church, St. Louis, and Martha (Bell) Berry, a teacher. Berry, his parents, and his five siblings lived in The Ville, a black middle-class neighborhood in segregated St. Louis, where he attended Simmons Elementary School and Sumner High School, dropping out of Sumner in his junior year, ...
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Berry, Chuck (18 October 1926–18 March 2017), singer, songwriter, guitarist, and one of the founders of rock and roll music
Bruce Pegg
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Chapin, Harry Forster (1942-1981), popular singer and writer of topical songs
Barbara L. Tischler
Chapin, Harry Forster (07 December 1942–16 July 1981), popular singer and writer of topical songs, was born in New York City, the son of James Forbes Chapin, a big-band percussionist, and Elspeth Burke. As a high school student, Chapin sang in the Brooklyn Heights Boys Choir and, later, played guitar, banjo, and trumpet in a band that included his father and brothers Stephen Chapin and Tom Chapin. He attended the U.S. Air Force Academy briefly and studied at Cornell University from 1960 to 1964. Chapin was best known for his popular ballads, films, and cultural and humanitarian work for the cause of eradicating world hunger. He married Sandra Campbell Gaston in 1968; they had five children....
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Cooke, Sam (1931-1964), singer-songwriter
Graham Russell Hodges
Cooke, Sam (22 January 1931–11 December 1964), singer-songwriter, was born Samuel Cook in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the son of Charles Cook, a minister in the Church of Christ (Holiness), and Annie May Carl. After Sam’s father lost his position as houseboy for a wealthy cotton farmer as a result of the Great Depression, the family migrated to Chicago, where Reverend Cook became assistant pastor of Christ Temple (Holiness) and a laborer in the stockyards. The family lived in Bronzeville, Chicago’s severely overcrowded and impoverished black section. Young Sam was educated at nearby schools and gained musical experience by sneaking into taverns to hear pop tunes but mostly by hearing and singing gospel music at church. There he started a gospel group, the Singing Children; later he joined the Teenage Highway QC’s and became more widely known throughout the nation. He graduated from Wendell Phillips High School in 1948. About that time he spent ninety days in jail on a morals charge that stemmed from a paternity suit....
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Cooke, Sam (1931-1964)
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Sam Cooke. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-107994).
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Diddley, Bo (30 December 1928-2 June 2008), guitarist, singer, songwriter and music producer
Margena A. Christian
Diddley, Bo (30 December 1928-2 June 2008), guitarist, singer, songwriter and music producer, was born in McComb, Mississippi. He believed Eugene Bates to be his biological father. His mother, Ethel Wilson, gave birth to him at sixteen years old. He used the surname Bates until his mother’s first cousin, Gussie McDaniel, adopted him at age five and raised him. When her husband died, she moved the family in ...
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Miller, Roger (1936-1992), musician
Colin Escott
Miller, Roger (02 January 1936–25 October 1992), musician, was born Roger Dean Miller in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Jean Miller and Landine Burdine, farmers. Miller was thirteen months old when his father died, and rather than commit her children to an orphanage, his mother sent her three sons to live with her late husband’s brothers. From the age of three, Roger Miller was raised by Elmer D. Miller and Armelia Miller in Erick, Oklahoma....
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Waller, Fats (1904-1943), jazz and popular pianist, singer, and songwriter
Barry Kernfeld
Waller, Fats (21 May 1904–15 December 1943), jazz and popular pianist, singer, and songwriter, was born Thomas Wright Waller in New York City, the son of Edward Martin Waller, a Baptist preacher, and Adeline Lockett. From age six Waller was devoted to the piano but initially failed to practice properly or learn to read music well, because he could memorize lessons immediately. In his youth he also played reed organ in church. He studied piano, string bass, and violin at P.S. 89, which he attended to about age fourteen or fifteen. Although his girth had earned him a nickname by this time, the names Thomas and Fats appeared interchangeably (and sometimes together, as Thomas “Fats” Waller) in his professional work until at least 1931. Later in his career, and posthumously, the nickname prevailed....
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Zevon, Warren William (24 January 1947–7 September 2003), rock musician, singer, and songwriter
Corey J. Murray
Zevon, Warren William (24 January 1947–7 September 2003), rock musician, singer, and songwriter, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of William Zevon (Zivotofsky), a Russian Jewish immigrant, and Beverly Simmons. When Warren was a child his parents moved to California, first to Fresno, where his mother’s family lived, and later to San Pedro, where his father owned a carpeting business. The Zevons had a rocky marriage, ultimately divorcing in ...
