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Born in Ankara, Turkey, Joe Strummer was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of the English punk rock band The Clash. His family spent much time moving from place to place and he spent his childhood in places like Cairo, Mexico City and Bonn. He developed a love of rock music listening to records by Little Richard and The Beach Boys as well as Woody Guthrie.

In 1973, Strummer joined with some friends to form a band called The Vultures. After the band fell apart in 1974, he formed another one called the 101’ers and opened for then-unknown band the Sex Pistols on April 3, 1976. Some time after this show, Strummer was approached by Mick Jones and ended up forming a new band with bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and guitarist Keith Levene. Simonon named them The Clash and they made their debut on July 4, 1976 opening for the Sex Pistols.

The Clash are considered to be one of the most overtly political, explosive and exciting bands in rock and roll history. Their album London’s Calling was voted best album of the 1980s by Rolling Stone magazine. During their tour in support of the Combat Rock album, the band members began to argue a lot and with tensions high, they began to fall apart. After firing Mick Jones and releasing the album Cut the Crap in 1985, which was panned by fans and critics alike, Strummer disbanded The Clash. He went on to work in film, composing the score to Walker and appearing in Straight to Hell among other films. He began producing solo records in 1989. Strummer died on December 22, 2002, the victim of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.

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American Bandstand was a television show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, hosted by Dick Clark, who also served as producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40-type music introduced by Clark and at least one popular musical act that, over the decades, ran the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run DMC. They would usually appear in-person to lip-sync one of their latest singles.

The program premiered locally as a live show, Bandstand, on Philadelphia TV station WFIL-TV on October 7, 1952 and was hosted by Bob Horn, with Lee Stewart as co-host until 1955. The series originally featured Horn hosting two collections of filmed musical performances but this was soon changed to the familiar format of having kids dance to hit records. On July 9, 1956, Horn was fired after a drunk driving arrest and was replaced by Dick Clark.

In late spring of 1957, Clark decided to pitch the show to ABC and after some badgering, the program was picked up nationally, becoming American Bandstand on August 5, 1957. The show was broadcast “live” weekday afternoons and in early 1963 all five shows for the upcoming week were videotaped the preceding Saturday. Clark would often interview teens about their opinions of the songs being played, most memorably through the “Rate-a-Record” segments. American Bandstand’s popularity helped Clark become an American media mogul and inspired other similar long-running music programs, such as Soul Train and Top of the Pops.

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Born in San Francisco, California, Jerry Garcia was a musician, songwriter, artist and lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead. Despite disavowing the role, he was viewed by many as the leader or “spokesman” of the group.

Garcia was one of the original founders of the Grateful Dead and performed with the band for its entire three-decade career which spanned from 1965 to 1995. He also founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and Legion of Mary. Garcia also released several solo albums and contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician.

He was well known by many for his distinctive guitar playing and was ranked 13^th in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time.” Garcia was well-noted for his “soulful extended guitar improvisations,” which would frequently feature interplay between himself and his fellow band members. Later in life, he was sometimes ill because of his unstable weight, and in 1986, experienced a diabetic shock that nearly cost him his life. Garcia also struggled with heroin addiction and was residing in a drug rehabilitation facility when he died of a heart attack on August 9, 1995.

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Live Aid was a multi-venue rock music concert held on July 13, 1985. The event was organized by musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Billed as the “global jukebox,” the main sites for the event were Wembley Stadium, London (attended by 82,000 people) and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia (attended by about 99,000 people). It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated 1.5 billion viewers, across 100 countries, watched the live broadcast.

The concert was conceived as a follow-up to another Geldof/Ure project, the successful charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” performed by a collection of British and Irish music acts billed as “Band Aid.” The concert grew in scope as more acts were added on both sides of the Atlantic. As a charity fundraiser, the concert far exceeded its goals: they hoped to raise one million pounds and the final figure was 150 million pounds. No previous concert had ever brought together so many famous performers from the past and present. In 2005, a follow-up concert called Live 8 was held simultaneously in several countries.

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