Jimi Hendrix was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Hendrix is considered one of the greatest and most influential guitarists in rock music history. After initial success in Europe, he achieved fame in the USA following his 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Later, Hendrix headlined the iconic 1969 Woodstock Festival. Hendrix helped develop the technique of guitar feedback with overdriven amplifiers. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Albert King, and Elmore James, rhythm and blues and soul guitarists Curtis Mayfield, Steve Cropper, as well as by some modern jazz. Carlos Santana has suggested that Hendrix's music may have been influenced by his Native American heritage. As a record producer, Hendrix also broke new ground in using the recording studio as an extension of his musical ideas; he was one of the first to experiment with stereophonic and phasing effects during recording. Hendrix won many of the most prestigious rock music awards in his lifetime and has been posthumously awarded many more, including being inducted into the USA's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. An English Heritage "Blue plaque" was erected in his name on his former residence at Brook Street, London in September 1997 and his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6627 Hollywood Blvd.) was dedicated in 1994. In 2006, his debut USA album, Are You Experienced, was inducted into the United States National Recording Registry and Rolling Stone named Hendrix number 1 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003.

John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Born in Hamlet, North Carolina, Coltrane grew up in High Point, North Carolina and moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June 1943. He was inducted into the Navy in 1945 and returned to civilian life in 1946. Coltrane worked a variety of jobs through the late forties until (still an alto saxophonist) he joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1949. He stayed with Gillespie through the band's breakup in May 1950 and (now on tenor saxophone) worked with Gillespie's small group until April 1951, when he returned to Philadelphia to go to school. In early 1952, Coltrane joined Earl Bostic's band. In 1953, after a stint with Eddie Vinson, he joined Johnny Hodges' small group (during Hodges' short sabbatical from Duke Ellington's orchestra), staying until mid 1954. Throughout his career Coltrane's music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension that would color his legacy. His conception of expression in jazz became increasingly mystical, gnostic and cathartic.[citation needed] Coltrane received a posthumous Special Citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2007 for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Davis was at the forefront of almost every major development in jazz from World War II to the 1990s. He played on various early bebop records and recorded one of the first cool jazz records. He was partially responsible for the development of modal jazz, and jazz fusion arose from his work with other musicians in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Davis belongs to the great tradition of jazz trumpeters that started with Buddy Bolden and ran through Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie, although unlike those musicians he was never considered to have the highest level of technical ability. His greatest achievement as a musician, however, was to move beyond being regarded as a distinctive and influential stylist on his own instrument and to shape whole styles and ways of making music through the work of his bands, in which many of the most important jazz musicians of the second half of the Twentieth Century made their names. Davis was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006. He has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, and Down Beat's Jazz Hall of Fame.