Besides listening to, seeing, and performing music, I'm into yoga, cooking, traveling, and I am "interested" in trying to find time to read, which I don't succeed at much!
Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, Deepak Chopra, Aretha Franklin. Are we talkin about dead people, cuz that opens up a lot of options!
This is gonna be tough. I'll just pick and choose from my collection SOME of the musicians important to me. Allman Bros, Babatunde Olatunji, Bach, The Band, the Beatles, Billie Holiday, Bjork, Blues Traveler, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bonnie Raitt, Brahms, The Caravans, Carole King, Charlie Parker, Chopin, Dean Brown, Derek Trucks, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Django Reinhardt, Dr. John, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Costello, Fela Kuti, Fleetwood Mac, Aretha Franklin, The Golden Gate Quartet, the Grateful Dead, Harry Belafonte, Harry Connick Jr, I.K. Dairo, Tina Turner, The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, James Booker, James Brown, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Cliff, John Butler Trio, Jon Cleary, Joni Mitchell, Keller Williams, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Led Zeppelin, Los Lobos, Edie Brickell, Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Vibrafinger, The Meters, Mike West, Miles Davis, Oumou Sangari, Miriam Makeba, Mozart, The Neville Brothers, Nick Drake, Otis Redding, Paul Simon, Tchaikovsky, Pink Floyd, Professor Longhair, Peter Tosh, Ray Charles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Rolling Stones, Sam and Dave, Sarah Vaughan, Simon and Garfunkel, Solomon Burke, The Staple Singers, Steve Miller, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Ray Vaughan, String Cheese Incident, Sublime, Susan Tedeschi, Taj Mahal, Tom Waits, Tracy Chapman, Traffic, Trey Anastasio, Van Morrison, War, Warren Haynes, Ween , The Who
Some are due to simple nastalgia, but Sleeping Beauty, Color Purple, Sybil, Wizard of Oz, Usual Suspects, Almost anything with Johnny Depp or Meryl Streep. I'll think of more when I can stay awake!
Not big on it. If I do watch it, it's usually for a good movie or the news. If other things sneak in there, they're not worth talking about! But I do love most HBO series! And the Simpsons!
One of my favorite books is Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. But, these days, having only snippets of free time, if any, and scattered interests, I tend to start a million books and not finish them. Then I alternate between them to try to get them read. Right now in am in the middle of "The Celestine Prophecy", "Healing Society, a Perscription for Global Enlightenment", "Atlas of World History", Al Fraken's "The Truth-with Jokes", "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America- A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction", "The Third Millenium", and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Crimes Against Nature.
Martin Luther King Jr., Walt Disney (for his huge vision and his anything-is-possible execution, not necessarily for the political or social views he held in his lifetime), Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, and my current hero Susan Tedeschi!