Frederick Joseph Ricketts grew up in East End London. His early musical training was on the piano and organ. Orphaned at 14, he heard street musicians and bands and decided joining an army band would be best for his future.
In 1895 Ricketts was enlisted as a Band Boy in the Royal Irish Regiment. A good cornet player, he was put into the regimental band. In his free time, he learned all the other band instruments and in 1903, was recommended for entry into the Student Bandmaster Course at the Royal Military School of Music. He graduated in 1906 and stayed on as chapel organist and assistant to the Director of Music. Ricketts became Bandmaster to the Band of the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1908. The colonel asked him to write a new march for the Argylls, and Ricketts wrote "The Thin Red Line", not published until 1925.
Ricketts wanted to compose music but being engaged in commercial activities was not accepted for officers of Ricketts's rank, so he composed and published under the pen name Kenneth J. Alford.
In 1927 Ricketts was commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Marines Band Service. In 1930, he was posted to the Band of the Plymouth Division, Royal Marines, the principal band of the Royal Marines. Under his direction, the band became world-famous and before and during World War II made a series of 78 RPM recordings of Alford marches, since reissued in LP and CD formats. Ricketts retired from the Royal Marines in 1944 because of ill health and died the following year. While best known for his marches often compared to those of John Philip Sousa, he wrote many other pieces. His championing of the saxophone played a part in getting the instrument accepted in military bands. He is also credited with the first arrangements for bagpipes with military band.

A. Maddick & Co. was a partnership between Alfred Maddick and Albert Levy that operated out of London. They were British and foreign advertising contractors with the concessions for advertisement in England, Scotland, Ireland, the Colonies, and America. The partnership was dissolved in 1873.

Russell Alexander Alger Jr., son of Michigan's Governor Russell Alger was born in Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, USA, on February 23, 1873.

He got interested in the automobile industry after the Packard Motor Car Company moved to Detroit from Warren, Ohio in 1902. He became its Vice President and key investor. Near the turn of the century, he became treasurer of Alger, Smith & Co., the family lumber business. Intrigued by the possibilities of flying, he followed the Wright brothers to France to watch their exhibition and upon their return, invested money in the first commercial airplane. He also built in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, a palatial Italian Renaissance style estate, "The Moorings," which was donated in 1949 to Detroit Institute of Arts and became the Grosse Pointe War Memorial, honoring veterans of World War II.

He died in New York on January 26, 1930.

Zara Ali is a composer and multimedia artist. Her music is characterized by carefully woven microtonal harmonies, close attention to tone colour, and translation of structural concepts (geometry, kinetics, temporality) into physical sound. Her music has been performed in Europe, North America, and Asia, with notable recent concert performances at the Royaumont, Archipel, Yellow Barn, and Seoul International Computer Music festivals. She received her B.A. from Columbia University in 2018 and her master’s in music composition at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Germany. She won the 2023 Gaudeamus Award at Columbia University.

Allan Bros. & Co. was the Liverpool agent for the Allan Line, Montreal Ocean Steam Ship Company.