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Today in Music History: Donna Summer went No. 1 with "Hot Stuff"

Remebering Donna Summer Today in Music History.
Remebering Donna Summer Today in Music History.Mark Mainz / AP

June 02, 2016

History Highlight:

Today in 1979, Donna Summer started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "Hot Stuff", her second U.S. No. 1. The song was her first single release from her Bad Girls album, and was a bit of a departure from the disco sound that Summer had been associated with until this point."Hot Stuff" won her the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in the inaugural year the award was given out.

Also, Today In:

1962 - Ray Charles started a five-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. and U.K. singles charts with the Don Gibson-penned country ballad, "I Can't Stop Loving You."

1964 - During their first U.S. tour, the Rolling Stones made their U.S. TV debut on The Les Crane Show, which was aired at midnight and had viewers phoning in to ask the band questions.

1973 - Paul McCartney had two No. 1 positions on the U.S. charts when Red Rose Speedway went to the top of the album chart and "My Love" started a four-week run as the No. 1 single.

1981 - Prince made his live British debut at The Lyceum Ballroom in London (he wouldn't play the U.K. again for five years).

2002 - The wedding ring that Paul McCartney had given his fiance Heather Mills was thrown out of the window of the hotel where the couple was staying in Miami. The hotel staff used metal detectors to find the $25,000 ring the next day. Despite the quarrel, Paul and Heather went ahead with the wedding.

2005 - Franz Ferdinand frontman, Alex Kapranos, was detained by Russian police after being suspected of being a spy. Kapranos was attempting to board a plane in Moscow when the altercation took place. Traveling under his actual surname, Huntley, Alex was accused of being an MI6 agent who was previously suspected of stealing information about Russian weaponry. Unluckily for Alex, the surname Huntley was also used by an actual former MI6 agent, Richard Tomlinson, who did steal secrets in the early 1990s. The singer was freed after he pointed out that the Huntley they were so concerned about was 42 years old, 13 years Kapranos's senior.

2008 - American blues guitarist and singer Bo Diddley (Ellas Otha Bates) died of heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida aged 79.

Birthdays:

Charlie Watts, drummer for The Rolling Stones, is 75.

Singer Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet is 56.

Rapper B-Real (Cypress Hill) is 46.

Keane pianist Tim Rice-Oxley is 40.

Fabrizio Moretti, drummer for The Strokes, is 36.

Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.