History Highlight:

Today in 1967, Iggy and the Stooges made their live debut when they played at a Halloween party in Michigan. During this early period, the Stooges were originally billed as the "Psychedelic Stooges" and had a very different sound from what they eventually developed - it was much more avant-garde and experimental, with Pop incorporating such household objects as a vacuum cleaner and a blender into intense walls of feedback that one observer described as sounding like "an airplane was landing in the room."

Today In:

1952 - Pianist Johnnie Johnson hired 26-year-old Chuck Berry as a guitarist in his band. While playing evening gigs in the St. Louis area, Berry kept his day job as a hairdresser for the next three years.

1963 - Gerry and the Pacemakers were at No .1 on the U.K. singles chart with "You'll Never Walk Alone," the group's third and final No. 1.

1963 - The Beatles returned to London from Sweden and were greeted by hundreds of screaming fans and a mob of photographers and journalists. Ed Sullivan was at Heathrow as The Beatles arrived, and was struck by the sight of Beatlemania in full swing. He decided to look into getting this group to appear on his television program.

1964 - The Supremes started a four-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "Baby Love", the group's second of five consecutive U.S. No. 1's.

1969 - David Bowie appeared at a Halloween night at the General Gordon, Gravesend, England. The gig lasted about 15 minutes, after Bowie sang "Space Oddity" to everyone's delight and then dragged a stool on stage, along with a huge book. He then sat and read poems and was booed off stage.

1970 - Led Zeppelin started a four week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Led Zeppelin III - the band's second U.S. chart topper.

1974 - Led Zeppelin held the U.K. launch for their new record label Swan Song in Kent, England. Drinks were served by nuns in suspenders, a naked woman lay in a coffin covered in jelly and naked male wrestlers cavorted in recesses of the caves. Label mates Bad Company, The Pretty Things and Maggie Bell also attended.

1989 - The very first MTV Unplugged show was recorded in New York, featuring U.K. band Squeeze.

1990 - During a gig in Seattle, Billy Idol dumped 600 dead fish in Faith No More's dressing room. They responded by walking on stage, naked during Idol's set.

1996 - Slash announced he was no longer in Guns N' Roses. The guitarist said that Axl Rose and he had only been civil to each other on two occasions since 1994.

2005 - The white suit worn by John Lennon on the cover of the Beatles' Abbey Road album sold for $118,000 at an auction in Las Vegas. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the items went to Amnesty International.

2013 - Marvin Gaye's family took legal action against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams for copyright infringement over "Blurred Lines". Three of Gaye's children accused them of copying elements of the song "Got to Give it Up". The Gaye family cited excerpts of magazine interviews given by Thicke to support their claim he had admitted to drawing on "Got to Give it Up" when producing "Blurred Lines".

Birthdays:

Tom Paxton is 80.

Bernard Edwards, producer and member of Chic, was born today in 1952.

Ad-Rock, aka Adam Horovitz of The Beastie Boys, is 51.

Johnny Marr, of The Smiths and his solo career, is 54.

U2 drummer Larry Mullen is 56.

Frank Anthony Iero of My Chemical Romance 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.