Miles Davis, The Mahavishnu Orchestra... this American drummer was the first to fuse jazz with rock and, with his debut solo album, the first to take this freshly forged genre into the charts. His percussion powered one of Massive Attack's smash hits too...
William E Cobham Jr was born in Colón on the Caribbean coast of Panama in 1944. His mother was a singer and his father worked as a hospital statistician, but he also played piano at weekends. As such, Billy grew up listening to jazz, classical and Latin music.
In 1986, the singer-songwriter bowed out of pop duo Wham! with a sell-out farewell concert at Wembley Stadium. A year later he was back with his first solo album, having swapped the flash suits and swimming trunks for stubble, leather and shades...
In Spring 1986, Wham! announced they were splitting, with a farewell album and single, and a final concert at Wembley Stadium in June. In doing so they pulled the plug on a group that had enjoyed a string of international hit singles and albums over the previous four years, and who had become one of the biggest pop outfits in the world.
Produced by Rick Rubin, this fifth studio album for Warner Bros marked a change of style for the American group, with less heavy metal and a more melodic bias. And it propelled the Peppers to superstardom, with over 90,000 copies sold in the UK alone
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were formed by a quartet of friends in 1983 at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles: singer Anthony Kiedis, bass player Flea (aka Michael Balzary), drummer Jack Irons and guitarist Hillel Slovak. However, Irons and Slovak were also in a band called What Is This? and when they got a deal the pair quit.