Musician-Composer
Justin Holland (1819-1887)
Justin Holland, guitarist, pianist, flutist, composer, and civil-rights activist, was born on July 26, 1819, to Exum Holland, a free...
Revella Hughes (1895-1987)
Revella Hughes was a soprano singer, composer, musician, recording artist, and the first female choral director for a Broadway production....
Mance Lipscomb (1895-1976)
Mance Lipscomb was a blues singer, guitarist, and songster, born Beau De Glen Lipscomb on April 9, 1895, to an...
Nora Holt (1885–1974)
Nora Holt was an important figure in the history of Black music in Chicago in the 1930s and was a...
Andy Razaf (1895-1973)
Andy Razaf was a philosopher–poet, composer, and prolific musical lyricist of over five hundred songs, comprising some of the greatest...
Ulysses S. Kay (1917-1995)
Image Ownership: G.D. Hackett/Pictorial Parade (Fair Use) Ulysses Simpson Kay, Jr., was one of the leading black composers in the...
Saint Yared (505-571)
Composer, scholar, and pioneer of musical notation, Saint Yared was born in Axum, Ethiopia on April 25, 505 AD. Little...
James Reese Europe (1881-1919)
James Reese Europe, one of the first African Americans to record music in the United States, was born on February...
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson (1925-2007)
Oscar Peterson was born on August 15, 1925 in Montreal, Quebec. He grew up in Place St-Henri, a bustling Montreal...
