Noor Jehan: actress, singer and music composer

Noor Jehan (or Noorjehan) was the screen/ stage name of Allah Wasai (1926-2000), a celebrated film director, film actress, singer and music composer in British India and Pakistan. In a career spanning seven decades, Noor Jehan became renowned as one of the greatest and most influential singers of her time.

Born in a Punjabi family of musicians, Noorjehan holds the envious record of singing 10,000 songs in various languages of India and Pakistan including Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Sindhi languages, in genres Qawwali, Indian music and Pakistani music. She dominated the earliest Pakistani films with her talented performances, and she became the first female Pakistani film director.

In 1957, Jehan was honored with the President's Award for her acting and singing contributions. Noor Jehan died on December 23, 2000 at the age of 74 at Karachi in Pakistan.

Leona Lewis: British pop and R&B singer

PD Photo: British pop and R&B singer-songwriter Leona Lewis signs her last autograph before being whisked away for photos at the Flushed Away London premiere, photo dated 23 November 2006 by Steven Braganza. Flushed Away is a 2006 computer animated British film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, a partnership between Aardman Animations of Wallace and Gromit fame, and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion.

Taylor Swift performing in Philadelphia in 2009

PD Photo: Country music singer Taylor Swift performing on stage in Philadelphia on 1 August 2009, during her Fearless tour.

Barbra Streisand, the timeless American star

Photo: Barbra Streisand (1962), source: Library of Congress, New York, World Telegram & Sun Collection, Author: Al Ravenna, World Telegram staff photographer (Public Domain photo: No copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift.)

Barbra Streisand, born Barbara Joan Streisand on April 24, 1942, is an American singer, actress, director and songwriter, who has won two Academy Awards, nine Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, an American Film Institute award, a Special Tony Award and a Peabody Award. She has been credited with more than 71.5 million music albums sold in USA and 140 million albums sold worldwide. Along with Frank Sinatra, Cher, Jamie Foxx and Shirley Jones, she shares the distinction of being awarded an acting Oscar and also recording a number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Streisand holds the record for the most top ten albums for any female recording artist with a total of 31 to her credit since 1963. With her 2009 album, “Love Is the Answer”, she became the only artist to achieve number-one albums in five consecutive decades. According to the RIAA, she has released 51 Gold albums, 30 Platinum albums, and 13 Multi-Platinum albums in USA.

Iraqi singer Dalli Hadad performing on stage

Photo: Dalli Hadad performing on stage in Jordan

Iraqi singer Dalli Hadad, known for her singling of genres Iraqi music, Arabic pop music, Arabic music and pop music, became famous when she sang the official Iraqi football anthem on winning the 2007 AFC Asian Cup. The 28-year-old Hadad’s first name is also spelled as Dally, Daly and Dali.

In 2002, Dalli Hadad began performing as a singer with an Iraqi folk music band in Baghdad at Festival Babel, and since then she has been performing in Jordan and Syria for the large Iraqi communities present in these countries. Because of moving to Jordan, where she is currently settled (in the Jordanian capital Amman), she had to leave her old band. However, it helped her progress in her career with a change in musical direction. Her debut album ‘Mashtaka Athamk’ and her singles ‘Salam Allah’ and ‘Yemshy Habebe Dala’ (the first song on the album) were well-received.

Josephine Baker dancing The Charleston

Photo: Josephine Baker dancing The Charleston at the Folies Bergère, Paris in 1926.
The Charleston, a dance named for the city of Charleston, South Carolina, was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States by composer/pianist James P. Johnson. It originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one of the most popular hits of the decade.

Josephine Baker performs the Danse Banane

Josephine Baker draped in her banana costume

Josephine Baker draped in her most famous banana costume for the Danse Banane from the Folies Bergère production Un Vent de Folie in Paris in 1927.