Ben E. King

If you're forever going to be remembered for one song, better make it a good one. It's been fifty years since former Drifters vocalist Ben E. King scored his first US #1 with the uplifting ditty that would come to define his career, and you can be sure that he'll be inviting audiences at Billboard Live to assume an upright position beside him when he performs there this weekend. But not only that: the veteran soul singer has just released a Japan-only album, intended to lift the nation's spirits, which includes new versions of some of his old hits and a Japanese-language cover of that old chestnut, 'Ue wo Muite Arukou' (known to Western audiences as 'Sukiyaki').