Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan "This Machine Kills Fascists" displayed on his guitar. His best known song is "This Land Is Your Land", which is regularly sung in American and Canadian schools. Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.

Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. He is the grandfather of musician Sarah Lee Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington's disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.

In 1997, Woody Guthrie was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet and painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of both the civil rights movements and of the opposition to the Vietnam War.

After a lifetime of writing, recording, and performing, Dylan's latest record—his 33rd studio album—Together Through Life was released on April 28, 2009. The album reached the number one spot on both the Billboard 200 chart of top selling albums, and the UK album charts in its first week of release.

Dylan's early lyrics incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has explored many traditions of American song, from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing.

Dylan performs with the guitar, piano and harmonica. Backed by a changing line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the "Never Ending Tour". Although his accomplishments as performer and recording artist have been central to his career, his songwriting is generally regarded as his greatest contribution.

Throughout his career, Dylan has won many awards. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a "Cultural Pathway" was named in Dylan's honor in his birthplace, Duluth. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded him a Special Citation for what they called his "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

Peter "Pete" Seeger (born May 3, 1919) is an American folk singer and a key figure in the mid-20th century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early '50s as a member of The Weavers, most notably the 1950 recording of Leadbelly's "Goodnight, Irene" that topped the charts for 13 weeks in 1950. In the 1960s, he re-emerged on the public scene as a pioneer of protest music in support of international disarmament and civil rights and, more recently, as a tireless activist for environmental causes.

As a song writer, he is best known as the author or co-author of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?", "If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)" (composed with Lee Hays of The Weavers), and "Turn, Turn, Turn!", which have been recorded by many artists both in and outside the folk revival movement and are still sung throughout the world. "Flowers" was a hit recording for The Kingston Trio (1962), Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German and French (1962), and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for Peter, Paul & Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963), while The Byrds popularized "Turn, Turn, Turn!" in the mid-1960s, as did Judy Collins in 1964. Seeger was one of the folksingers most responsible for popularizing the spiritual "We Shall Overcome" (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists) that became the acknowledged anthem of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement, soon after folk singer and activist Guy Carawan introduced it at the founding meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960.

The Weavers were an influential American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs and American ballads, selling millions of records at the height of their popularity. They inspired the commercial "folk boom" that followed them in the 1950s and 1960s, including such acts as The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary.

The Weavers group was formed in November 1948 by Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman and Pete Seeger. (In 1940 and 1941, Hays had sung with Seeger's Almanac Singers.) The name came from an 1892 drama of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann. After a period of being unable to find much paid work, they finally landed a steady engagement at the Village Vanguard jazz club. This led to their discovery by arranger-bandleader Gordon Jenkins and their signing with Decca Records. The group had a big hit in 1949 with Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene, backed with the 1941 Israeli song Tzena, Tzena, Tzena. In keeping with the commercial taste of the time, these and other early Weavers releases had violins and orchestration added behind the group's own guitars and folk instruments.

The Weavers' records and concerts helped popularize many of the songs now considered standards in the folk repertoire, including "On Top of Old Smoky" (with guest vocalist Terry Gilkyson), "Follow the Drinking Gourd," "Kisses Sweeter than Wine," "The Wreck of the John B (aka "Sloop John B")," "Rock Island Line," "The Midnight Special," "Pay Me My Money Down," and "Darling Corey." The Weavers encouraged sing-alongs in their concerts, and Seeger would sometimes shout out the lyrics in advance of each line.

Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9, 1941 in Staten Island, New York) is a folk singer and songwriter known for her highly individual vocal style. Many of her songs are topical and deal with social issues.

She is perhaps best known for her hit "Diamonds & Rust" and her covers of Phil Ochs' "There But For Fortune" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (a top-five single on the U.S. charts in 1971), and to a lesser extent,"We Shall Overcome," "Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word" and "Farewell Angelina," "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "Joe Hill" (songs she performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival). She remains known for her long relationship with Bob Dylan and her lifelong passion for activism, notably in the areas of nonviolence, civil, human rights and, more recently, the environment.

Baez has performed publicly for over 50 years, released over 30 albums and recorded songs in at least eight languages. She is considered a folk singer although her music has strayed from folk considerably after the 1960s, encompassing everything from rock and pop to country and gospel. Although a songwriter herself, especially in the mid-1970s, Baez is most often regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, covering songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and myriad other artists. In more recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of diverse songwriters such as Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant and Ryan Adams. She has a three-octave vocal range and a distinctively rapid vibrato.

Odetta Holmes, (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she was influential musically and ideologically to many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin.

Odetta influenced generations of performers, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen. Harry Belafonte "cited her as a key influence" on his musical career. Bob Dylan, who said, "The first thing that turned me on to folk singing was Odetta. I heard a record of hers [Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues] in a record store, back when you could listen to records right there in the store. Right then and there, I went out and traded my electric guitar and amplifier for an acoustical guitar, a flat-top Gibson. ... [That album was] just something vital and personal. I learned all the songs on that record. It was her first and the songs were:- Mule Skinner, Waterboy", Jack of Diamonds, (I've Been) 'Buked and (I've Been) Scorned." In 1965, Odetta recorded an album of Dylan covers, Odetta Sings Dylan.Joan Baez said "Odetta was a goddess. Her passion moved me. I learned everything she sang." Janis Joplin - "Janis spent much of her adolescence listening to Odetta, who was also the first person Janis imitated when she started singing". Thomas Winslow and his daughter Thomasina Winslow, the Blues musicians, heralded her influence to their music. Poet Maya Angelou once said "If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time." John Waters's original screenplay for Hairspray mentions her as an influence on beatniks. Carly Simon cites Odetta as a major influence, and talks about "going weak in the knees" when she had the opportunity to meet her in Greenwich Village

Peter, Paul, and Mary (often called PP&M) are a musical group from the United States who were one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. The trio is composed of Peter Yarrow, Noel "Paul" Stookey, and Mary Travers.

The group was created and managed by Albert Grossman, who sought to create a folk "supergroup" by bringing together "a tall blonde (Mary Travers), a funny guy (Paul Stookey), and a good looking guy (Peter Yarrow)". He launched the group in 1961, booking them into the The Bitter End, a coffee house and popular folk venue in New York City's Greenwich Village. They recorded their first album, Peter, Paul, and Mary, the following year. It included "500 Miles", "Lemon Tree", and the Pete Seeger hit tunes "If I Had a Hammer" (subtitled "(The Hammer Song)") and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?". The album was listed on the Billboard Magazine Top Ten list for ten months and in the Top One Hundred for over three years.

The group made its television debut in either 1961 or 1962 on a talk show hosted by Mike Wallace and Joyce Davidson, though neither audio nor video footage has yet been found. By 1963, Peter, Paul, and Mary had recorded three albums. All three were in the Top ten the week of President Kennedy's assassination.

That year, the group also released "Puff the Magic Dragon", which Yarrow and fellow Cornell student Leonard Lipton had written in 1959, and performed "If I Had a Hammer" at the 1963 March on Washington, best remembered for Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. One of their biggest hit singles was the Bob Dylan song "Blowin' in the Wind. They also sang other Bob Dylan songs, such as: "The Times They Are a-Changin'"; "Don't Think Twice, it's Alright"; and "When the Ship Comes In".

"Leaving On A Jet Plane" became their only #1 hit (as well as their final Top 40 hit) in December 1969, and was written by John Denver (who already had some success with The Mitchell Trio [replacing Chad Mitchell]), and first appeared on their Album 1700 in 1967. "Day Is Done", a #21 hit in June 1969, was the last Hot 100 hit that the trio recorded.

The trio broke up in 1970 to pursue solo careers, but found little of the success which they had experienced as a group--although Stookey's "The Wedding Song (There is Love)" (written for Yarrow's marriage to Marybeth McCarthy, the niece of senator Eugene McCarthy) was a hit and has become a wedding standard since its 1971 release.

In 1978, they reunited for a concert to protest nuclear energy, and have recorded albums together and toured since. They currently play around 45 shows a year.

The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999.

The trio became political activists for their commitment to peace in Central America and for supporting musically and personally the peace and social justice movement in America. Their inveterate support for Israel distinguishes them from other major folk singing groups. They were awarded the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience on September 1, 1990.

Joni Mitchell, CC (born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian musician, songwriter, and painter.

Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Western Canada and then busking on the streets of Toronto. In the mid-1960s she left for New York City and its rich folk music scene, recording her debut album in 1968 and achieving fame first as a songwriter ("Urge for Going", "Chelsea Morning", "Both Sides Now", "Woodstock") and then as a singer in her own right. Finally settling in Southern California, Mitchell played a key part in the folk rock movement then sweeping the musical landscape. Blue, her starkly personal 1971 album, is regarded as one of the strongest and most influential records of the tim Mitchell also had pop hits such as "Big Yellow Taxi", "Free Man in Paris", and "Help Me", the last two from 1974's best-selling Court and Spark.

Mitchell's soprano vocals, distinctive harmonic guitar style, and piano arrangements all grew more complex through the 1970s as she was deeply influenced by jazz, melding it with pop, folk and rock on experimental albums like 1976's Hejira. She worked closely with jazz greats including Wayne Shorter, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and on a 1979 record released after his death, Charles Mingus. From the 1980s on, Mitchell reduced her recording and touring schedule but turned again toward pop, making greater use of synthesizers and direct political protest in her lyrics, which often tackled social and environmental themes alongside romantic and emotional ones.

Mitchell's work is highly respected both by critics and fellow musicians. Rolling Stone magazine called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever," while Allmusic said, "When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century." By the end of the century, Mitchell had a profound influence on artists in genres ranging from R&B to alternative rock to jazz. Mitchell is also a visual artist. She made the artwork for each of her albums, and in 2000 described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance." A blunt critic of the music industry, Mitchell had stopped recording over the last several years, focusing more attention on painting, but in 2007 she released Shine, her first album of new songs in nine years.

The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to early 1960s.

The Kingston Trio was one of the most commercially successful folk music groups with four albums at the same time among the Top 10 selling albums, a record unmatched for nearly 40 years. They are best known for the hit single "Tom Dooley" and their early albums. The original Trio consisted of Dave Guard, Bob Shane and Nick Reynolds. John Stewart replaced Guard in 1961 and although the group disbanded in the late 1960s, it was reformed shortly thereafter and continues to perform.

Through the years, the most requested song for the Kingston Trio was "Scotch and Soda", which was always performed as a solo number by Shane. The trio discovered this song through Tom Seaver's parents, who had first heard it when on their honeymoon. One member of the trio was dating Seaver's older sister at that time, and heard the song on a visit to the Seaver home. Although it is credited to Dave Guard, the trio never did discover the real songwriter's name, though they searched for years.

Simon & Garfunkel is an American singer-songwriter duo consisting of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. They formed the group "Tom and Jerry" in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit "Hey, Schoolgirl." As Simon and Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, backed by the hit single "The Sound of Silence." Their music was featured in the landmark film The Graduate, propelling them further into the public consciousness.

They are well known for their close vocal harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. Their last album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was delayed several times due to artistic disagreements. They were among the most popular recording artists of the 1960s; among their biggest hits, in addition to "The Sound of Silence," were "I Am a Rock," "Homeward Bound," "A Hazy Shade of Winter," "Mrs. Robinson," "Bridge over Troubled Water," "The Boxer," "Cecilia," and "Scarborough Fair." They have received several Grammys and are inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2007). In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Simon and Garfunkel #40 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

They have reunited on several occasions since their 1970 breakup, most famously for 1981's The Concert in Central Park, which attracted about 500,000 people.

• Top Ten Classic Rock Bands of all Time
• Top Ten Alternative Artists of All Time
• Top Ten Blues Artists of All Time
• Top Ten Rock Bands of all Time
• Top Ten Reggae Artists of All Time