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"Two years later, Kansas had become one of the most successful and respected rock bands in the country. I enjoyed a real sense of artistic fulfillment; my marriage was going well; I had achieved financial prosperity; and I thought I had discovered the real meaning of life as an Urantian." From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_%28band%29 "Kansas is an American progressive rock band who became a popular arena rock group in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind." Kansas has remained a classic rock radio staple and a popular touring act in North America and Europe."
Jaco Pastorius (1951-1987)From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaco_pastorius "John Francis Anthony "Jaco" Pastorius III (December 1, 1951 - September 21, 1987) was a Finnish-American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged for his virtuosity of the fretless bass, as well as his command of varied musical styles. His playing style was noteworthy for containing "dazzling solos in the higher register" and "fluid machine-gun-like passages that demanded attention," often featuring his instrument in lead rather than rhythm section. His unique innovations also included the use of harmonics and the "singing" quality of his melodies. In 2006, Pastorius was voted "The Greatest Bass Player Who Has Ever Lived" by reader submissions in Bass Guitar Magazine. Apart from his career in the influential jazz fusion band Weather Report, he had two Grammy Award nominations for his self-titled debut album.He was inducted into Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only four bassists to be so honored beside Charles Mingus, Milt Hinton, and Ray Brown and the only electric bassist to garner the distinction."
Bass Player, online edition September 2007 Jaco's Finest Hour: A Song Is Born "Among Jaco's bass anthems, when it comes to the triple-threat combination of composition, bass line, and solo, none stands quite as tall as "Havona." Pastorius originally wrote the tune in late 1973, while under the spiritual influence of The Urantia Book. A chapter in the book describes "Havona" as the master galaxy (which contains Earth)-and as a perfect universe consisting of a billion spheres of unimagined beauty. A raw version featuring Herbie Hancock, Lenny White, and Don Alias was recorded for Jaco's 1976 landmark solo debut, but it was not included. "The preeminent "Havona" version came a year later, for Weather Report's 1977 epic, Heavy Weather. Strikingly fresh and uninhibited, the track dances and soars on an ear-grabbing bass line, partnered with a sizzling drum groove. Meanwhile, angular changes provide fodder for the consensus baddest bass guitar solo ever put to tape. As drummer Alex Acuņa told Joe Zawinul biographer Brian Glasser, "I think my favorite [track on Heavy Weather] is 'Havona.' That, for me, is how I always want to play, that kind of a conversation. When I hear that tune, I still get the chills. Everything was improvised in that moment-it's almost no overdubs." Perhaps Peter Erskine, who succeeded Acuņa in Weather Report, sums it up best. "As the final track on Heavy Weather, it's one of those tunes on one of those albums that, when you've finished listening to it, you want to listen to the entire recording from the beginning all over again. It is a perfect track and is one of my all-time favorite Jaco performances. Oddly, it was one of the few tunes that the band did not rehearse or try to play live when I was in the group, but I'm grateful for its existence. 'Havona' is definitive Jaco: incredible rhythm, new and fresh harmony, virtuosity-flawless execution and intonation, including his Stravinsky quote!-and a sense that the song is coming from the past and the future at the same time."
Elvis Presley (musician, actor)From: David W. Cloud, "1950s Rock -- Creating a Revolution", distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, copyright 2001 Elvis did not believe the Bible in any traditional sense... Elvis constructed "a personalised religion out of what he'd read of Hinduism, Judaism, numerology, theosophy, mind control, positive thinking and Christianity" (Hungry for Heaven, p. 143). The night he died, he was reading the book Sex and Psychic Energy (Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p. 140). Elvis loved material by guru Paramahansa Yogananda, the Hindu founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship... In considering a marriage to Ginger Alden (which never came to pass) prior to his death, Elvis wanted the ceremony to be held in a pyramid-shaped arena "in order to focus the spiritual energies upon him and Ginger" (Goldman, Elvis: The Last 24 Hours, p. 125). Elvis traveled with a portable bookcase containing over 200 volumes of his favorite books. The books most commonly associated with him were books promoting pagan religion, such as The Prophet by Kahilil Gibran; Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda; The Mystical Christ by Manley Palmer; The Life and Teachings of the Master of the Far East by Baird Spalding; The Inner Life by Leadbetter; The First and Last Freedom by Krishnamurti; The Urantia Book; The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception; the Book of Numbers by Cheiro; and Esoteric Healing by Alice Bailey. Elvis was a great fan of occultist Madame Blavatsky. He was so taken with Blavatsky's book The Voice of Silence, which contains the supposed translation of ancient occultic Tibetan incantations, that he "sometimes read from it onstage and was inspired by it to name his own gospel group, Voice" (Goldman, Elvis, p. 436). Another of Elvis's favorite books was The Impersonal Life, which supposedly contains words recorded directly from God by Joseph Benner. Biographer Albert Goldman says Elvis gave away hundreds of copies of this book over the last 13 years of his life. http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Elvis_Presley.html
Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007)Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer. He is regarded as one of the important composeres of the 20th century, referred by to one critic (Hewett 2007) as "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music." He is famous for his ground-breaking work in electronic music and "controlled chance" in serial composition. From his article In Every Sense This Composer Was On A Different Wavelength, Matthew Guerrieri writes (http://www.slate.com/id/2180463/): "Stockhausen borrowed from The Urantia Book in his last completed major work, the seven-opera cycle Licht, which occupied him from 1977 until 2002 (and remains only five-sevenths performed). The book was one of a long line of spiritual systems-Catholicism, Sufism, the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo-that Stockhausen embraced. But they were adjuncts to his true creed: Stockhausen was first and foremost a priest of sound, a clearinghouse for the coming and going of vibrations."
Sun Ra (1914-1993)(From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ra) Sun Ra . was an innovative jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy", musical compositions and performances. He abandoned his birth name and took on the name and persona of Sun Ra (Ra being the ancient Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming that he was of the "Angel Race" and not from Earth, but from Saturn, Sun Ra developed a complicated persona of "cosmic" philosophies and lyrical poetry that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism as he preached "awareness" and peace above all. He led The Arkestra (a deliberate mis-spelling of "orchestra"), an ensemble with an ever-changing lineup and name (it was also called "The Solar Myth Arkestra," the "Blue Universe Arkestra," "The Jet Set Omniverse Arkestra," and many other permutations; Sun Ra asserted that the ever-changing name of his ensemble reflected the ever-changing nature of his music.) A prolific recording artist and frequent live performer, Sun Ra's music ranged from keyboard solos to big bands of 30-odd musicians; his music touched on virtually the entire history of jazz, from ragtime to swing music, from bebop to free jazz; he was also a pioneer of electronic music, space music[2] and free improvisation, and was one of the first musicians, regardless of genre, to make extensive use of electronic keyboards. In 1972, San Francisco public TV station KQED producer John Coney, producer Jim Newman, and screen writer Joshua Smith worked with Sun Ra to produce a 30 minute part fiction, part documentary film, entitled "Space is the Place", featuring Sun Ra's Arkestra and filmed in Golden Gate Park. It is said that in preparation of making this film, Sun Ra studied The Urantia Book.
Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-1990)
“She eventually let him move in with her and her roommate, Mary Beth Greenwood, a budding photographer who was dating the jazz-rock guitarist Eric Johnson. In the afternoon, the three of them hung out in Zilker Park, went swimming at Barton Springs or Lake Travis, cruised the streets, talked about things spiritual and material. Stevie often brought along the book of Urantia and read Lindi passages from the strange publication that mixed science fiction and pop psychology.” Ted Lanier, owner of Whole Life Books in Austin, TX, gives this first-hand experience: “I first saw SRV in the late 70' early 80's, long before he became so popular, at a place called the Pearl Street Co-op. It was, and perhaps still is, a co-operative housing unit for University of Texas students. It probably housed less than fifty people and only about 10 people were in the audience for SRV. All I remember is “boy he sure could play fast.” “At the time, his older brother, Jimmy, was in a group called the Fabulous Thunderbirds and was more well known and popular."
“One morning in "86 or "87, SRV walked into the store. He looked like he just stepped out of the shower. He asked if we had The Urantia Book. I showed it to him and also the Concordex To The Urantia Book. We have comfortable chairs and he made himself at home. Since we have famous people in Austin all the time, myself and our staff all agree to just leave them basically alone but make ourselves available for help and questions, just as we would anyone else. He ended up buying The Urantia Book, the Concordex, a thesaurus, and a dictionary. He was really serious about getting into it. He came in the store from time to time up to the time of his death.” From www.legacyrecordings.com/Stevie-Ray-Vaughan.aspx: “With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s. Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush, and Muddy Waters and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre. Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late '60s. For the next seven years, Stevie Ray was the leading light in American blues, consistently selling out concerts while his albums regularly went gold. His tragic death in 1990 only emphasized his influence in blues and American rock & roll.” From Wikipedia: 
Grammy Awards:
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