She was a concert promoter, a nightclub impresario and the producer of an award-winning 1992 film about the Nicholas Brothers dance duo.

His band’s output ranged from the 1966 psychedelic hit “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” to what he called a “Catholic Mass done...

With Paul Williams, he wrote enduring 1970s soft-rock classics like “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays.”

Shaped by early hip-hop culture, his documentaries put race in the foreground, whether the topic was hip-hop fashion, the Capitol riots or Louis Armstrong.

A Japanese-born multimedia artist whose associates included John Cage and Yoko Ono, he pushed digital music past its breaking point.

An Irish expatriate, he created Sin-é, a bare-bones cafe that became an unlikely magnet for stars like Sinead O’Connor, Bono of U2 and Iggy Pop.

A product of the San Francisco rock crucible of the 1960s, he fashioned his own brand of the blues, blending gospel, soul, rock and other...

Hailed as a visionary (if a difficult one), he drew inspiration for his multivolume work “The First Kingdom” from no less a model than Homer.

Obesity was a source of trauma for her, but also of her comedy, which she showcased, along with gospel singing, on the long-running down-home variety...

Leading the Welsh band known for 1980s anthems like “Sixty Eight Guns,” he later became a strong voice in the fight against cancer, which he...