On May 14, 1952, David Byrne was born. Byrne is a singer-songwriter who led the band Talking Heads in the 1970s and 1980s. His later solo career has featured collaborations with a wide range of artists.

Byrne was born in Scotland. His family moved to Canada when he was two, and to the United States when he was eight. Byrne had an early interest in music, playing his favorite records over and over as a pre-schooler. By the time he entered high school, he was already playing guitar, accordion, and violin.

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, Byrne moved to New York and in 1975, formed Talking Heads with fellow RISD alumni Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth; Jerry Harrison would join the group in 1977, shortly before the release of the band's first album.

Talking Heads: 77 featured the band's first song to make the pop charts. "Psycho Killer" wasn't an enormous hit, but it became a staple of rock radio, and is better known today than its #92 chart peak would suggest. That's true for a lot of Talking Heads songs; the band was only occasionally a mainstream pop success, but their music was highly influential and their best songs have grown in stature over the years.

Talking Heads recorded More Songs About Buildings and Food in 1978; it was the first of three album they'd record with producer Brian Eno, with whom Byrne has continued to work occasionally throughout his career.

Talking Heads worked together for another decade, producing songs that became rock standards – "Once in a Lifetime," "Burning Down the House" (the band's only top ten hit), "And She Was," "Road to Nowhere." Their 1983 tour was the basis of the classic concert film Stop Making Sense (DVD | soundtrack). The band released its final album, Naked, in 1988; they re-united for a final single in 1991, and in 2002 to perform at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Byrne's work apart from Talking Heads has often been collaborative. His 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts was another project with Brian Eno; in the same year, he wrote music for the Twyla Tharp ballet The Catherine Wheel. He worked with avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson, writing music for The Knee Plays; and contributed lyrics to some of the songs from Philip Glass's minimalism-goes-pop album Songs from Liquid Days.

Film and theatre work have played an important role in Byrne's career. He's written several film scores; in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Cong Su, he won the Academy Award for Best Score for The Last Emperor. His 2010 concept album Here Lies Love, a rock musical about Imelda Marcos co-written with Fatboy Slim, was staged off-Broadway in 2014.

More of Byrne's music, both as a solo artist and with Talking Heads, is available for streaming at Hoopla.