Bob Dylan

USA for Africa was the name under which forty-seven predominantly U.S. artists, led by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, recorded the hit single... "We Are the World" in 1985. The song was a US and UK Number One for the collective in April of that year. This super group was inspired by Bob Geldof's Band Aid. The considerable profits from the enterprise went to the USA for Africa Foundation, which used them for the relief of famine and disease in Africa and specifically to 1984–1985 famine in Ethiopia; critics, however, claim that this money went directly to the governments of the affected countries rather than the people. USA for Africa also held a benefit event, Hands Across America, in which approximately seven million people held hands in a human chain for fifteen minutes along a path across the continental United States. Participants paid ten dollars to stand in line and the money raised was used to fight hunger and homelessness in Africa. The combined revenues raised from the sales of "We Are the World" and Hands Across America was almost $100 million. 1. We Are the World 2.
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Asylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. Founded specifically to provide a record contract for Jackson Browne, the label signed Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell... and Bob Dylan for two albums. It was taken over by Warner Communications in 1972, and merged with Elektra Records to become Elektra/Asylum Records. After various incarnations, today it is geared primarily towards hip-hop, along with rock and Alternative Metal. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and is currently distributed through Warner Bros. Records. Asylum was founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency, and operated a folk/rock label. They founded their own management company, and when Geffen was unable to get a recording contract for Jackson Browne, one of his clients at the time, Geffen and Roberts founded Asylum specifically to sign Browne. Asylum's early releases were distributed by Atlantic Records.
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Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group. The label now operates as a division of The Island Def Jam Music Group in the United States and as a standalone label in the... United Kingdom . Since 2007, there is also a frontline local artist and repertoire label in Australia known as Island Records Australia, run by Universal Music Australia. Island Records was also the founding company behind the highly influential Anime licensor Manga Entertainment, which has changed hands numerous times during the 90's and early 2000's. Island Records was founded in Jamaica in 1959 by Chris Blackwell and Graeme Goodall, and partially financed by Stanley Borden from RKO, taking its name from the 1955 Alec Waugh novel, subsequent film and Harry Belafonte hit song "Island in the Sun". The company relocated to the UK in May 1962. Until Blackwell sold the label to PolyGram in 1989, Island was the largest indie record label in history.
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Sony BMG Music Entertainment was a recorded music company, which was a 50–50 joint venture between the Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann AG. The venture’s successor, the again-active Sony Music Entertainment, is 100% owned by the Sony Corporation of America. Sony BMG Music... Entertainment began as the result of a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann Music Group completed on March 4, 2004. It is one of the Big Four music companies, and includes ownership and distribution of recording labels such as Arista Records, Columbia Records, Epic Records, J Records, Jive Records, RCA Victor Records, RCA Records, Legacy Recordings, Sonic Wave America, and others. The merger affected all Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group companies worldwide except for Japan, where it was felt that it would reduce competition in that country’s music industry significantly. Financial analysts covering the merger anticipated that up to 2,000 jobs would be cut as a result, saving Sony BMG approximately $350 million annually.
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Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has... its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources. Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
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Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy... and folk music. Country music often consists of ballads and dance tunes with generally simple forms and harmonies accompanied by mostly string instruments such as banjoes, electric and acoustic guitars, fiddles such as violins, and harmonicas. The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s in preference to the earlier term hillbilly music. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres. In 2009 Country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, and second most popular in the morning commute. Immigrants to the Maritime Provinces and Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of the Old World along with them for nearly 300 years.
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Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the... United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles.
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally... used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. From the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the 1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as "Contemporary R&B". Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term "rhythm and blues" in 1948 as a musical marketing term in the United States. It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed offensive in the postwar world.
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