From the list of people who are (mostly) still alive but have still made an important impact on their fields of endeavour I'd like to humbly propose the following four musicians and one videogame designer. I'm just going to nick the information and photos from Wikipedia if it's okay. I feel they're not just very good at what they do or did but that their work is sufficiently groundbreaking as to significantly influence everyone who came after them (perhaps Wonder not so much, so I guess his inclusion here is a mark of my overwhelming personal preference for his music over that of his contemporaries).
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American musician. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by various honorific nicknames, some of which include "the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business", "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986.
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters ever, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his 60 year career. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'" (1964) became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.
Stevland Hardaway Morris (né Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as
Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder.
Wonder's single "Fingertips" was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963, at the age of 13, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. Wonder's critical success was at its peak in the 1970s. His "classic period" began in 1972 with the releases of Music of My Mind and Talking Book, the latter featuring "Superstition", which is one of the most distinctive and famous examples of the sound of the Hohner Clavinet keyboard. His works Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974) and Songs in the Key of Life (1976) all won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, making him the tied-record holder for the most Album of the Year wins, with three. He is also the only artist to have won the award with three consecutive album releases. Wonder began his "commercial period" in the 1980s; he achieved his biggest hits and highest level of fame, had increased album sales, charity participation, high-profile collaborations (including Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson), political impact, and television appearances. Wonder has continued to remain active in music and political causes.
David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as
David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.
Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, Hepburn: Miyamoto Shigeru, born November 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in the history of video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin.
Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing then-president Hiroshi Yamauchi with his toys. He helped create art for the arcade game Sheriff, and was later tasked with designing a new arcade game, leading to the 1981 game Donkey Kong.
Miyamoto's platform game Super Mario Bros. (1985) and the action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda (1986) helped the Nintendo Entertainment System dominate the console game market. His games have been flagships of every Nintendo video game console, from the arcade machines of the late 1970s to the present day. He managed Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development software division, which developed many Nintendo games, and he played an important role in the creation of other influential games such as Pokémon Red and Blue and Metroid Prime. Following the death of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in July 2015, Miyamoto became acting president alongside Genyo Takeda until he was formally appointed "Creative Fellow" a few months later.
