Male organists

Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. (né Gay; April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He helped shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of successes, which earned him the nicknames "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul".

David Walter Foster OC, OBC (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian musician, composer, arranger, record producer and music executive who chaired Verve Records from 2012 to 2016. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His music career spans more than five decades, mainly beginning in the early 1970s as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark.

Ray Charles Robinson (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential musicians in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians, he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma.

Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. He recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He was the father of singer-songwriter Natalie Cole (1950–2015).

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer and 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.

Stevland Hardaway Morris (born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter and musician, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that includes rhythm and blues, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, his use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of R&B. He also helped drive the genre into the album era, crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent socially conscious statements with complex compositions.

William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man", he has been making music since the 1960s, releasing popular albums throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Gregory LeNoir Allman (December 8, 1947 – May 27, 2017) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He was known for performing in the Allman Brothers Band. Allman grew up with an interest in rhythm and blues music, and the Allman Brothers Band fused it with rock music, jazz, and country at times. He wrote several of the band's biggest songs, including "Whipping Post", "Melissa", and "Midnight Rider". Allman also had a successful solo career, releasing seven studio albums. He was born and spent much of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, before relocating to Daytona Beach, Florida and then Richmond Hill, Georgia.

Isaac Lee Hayes Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, and actor. He was one of the creative forces behind the Southern soul music label Stax Records, serving as both an in-house songwriter and as a session musician and record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes and Porter were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of songs for themselves, the duo Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and others. In 2002, Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges; April 2, 1942 – November 13, 2016) was an American musician and songwriter who was involved with numerous bestselling pop music records during his 60-year career. His genres included pop, country, rock, folk, gospel, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, folk rock, blues rock, surf, standards, and Tulsa Sound.