Jerry Lee Lewis was, like Elvis Presley, brought up singing the Christian gospel music of integrated southern  Pentecostal churches.

Buddy Holly was an innovator. He was one of rock'n'roll's first triple threats: he wrote the songs, he played  the lead guitar and he sand. He was also stylist; within a few bars, even a few notes

Elvis Presley was the first real rock'n'roll star. A white southerner who singing blues laced with country  and country tinged with gospel, Presley brought together music from both sides of the color line.

Roy Orbison was born in 1936 and began his singing career in 1956. In the mid 1980s he was a member of the  Traveling Wilburys, along with George Harrison.

Bill Haley & Comets became synonymos with the emergent rock'n'roll of the mid-1950s.

Carl Perkins was the Tennessee sharecropper's son whose first guitar was made from a cigar box and a  broomhandle and whose famous "Blue Suede Shoes" was written on a potato sack.