History Highlight:

Today in 1986, Jon Batiste was born, making him 38. Batiste grew up in the New Orleans area and is part of an extended family with a deep musical lineage, so music was a huge part of Jon Batiste’s life from the moment he was born. Today, Batiste is a renowned musician, songwriter, bandleader, composer and producer. His recorded music has earned 20 Grammy Award nominations; he’s won five of those, including for Album for the Year for his 2021 release, We Are. Among Batiste’s many other awards is an Academy Award for his original score for the 2020 Disney/Pixar film Soul. A hard-working and prolific artist, Batiste’s most recent album is 2023’s World Music Radio, and his next, Beethoven Blues, releases this Friday, Nov. 15.

Also, Today In:

1954 - Bill Haley scored his first U.S. Top ten single with "Shake Rattle And Roll."

1968 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono release the album Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with a cover photo of the pair naked. Many record stores stock it in a brown paper wrapper.

1970 - Bob Dylan published his first novel, the long-awaited stream-of-consciousness Tarantula, which was poorly received.

1972 - The Allman Brothers Band bass player Berry Oakley was killed when his motorcycle hit a bus at the same intersection in Macon, Ga., where former band member Duane Allman had died a year earlier. Oakley was 24 years old.

1973 - Thirty radio stations across the United States broadcast what was purported to be a Mott The Hoople live concert. In actuality, it consisted of studio tracks with pre-recorded applause dubbed in.

1975 - Earth, Wind & Fire released the double live album, Gratitude. It features “Sing a Song” and “Can’t Hide Love.”

1978 - Donna Summer started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with her version of Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park," which was also a hit for actor Richard Harris (aka the first Dumbledore in the Harry Potter film series) in 1968.

1982 - Prince kicked off his 87-date "1999" North American tour at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, Tenn. It was, up till then, his longest tour of the United States. In addition to Prince and his band, his latest all-girl group, Vanity 6, made their first live act tour along with the returning The Time. Tension between Prince and The Time escalated and eventually led to Prince dropping them from the tour completely.

1995 - The Smashing Pumpkins double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness went to No. 1 on the U.S. chart. It was the bands' third studio album and with its lead single, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", it debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. To date it remains the band's only album to top the Billboard 200, but it earned the band seven Grammy Award nominations in 1997, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year ("1979"), as well as nine MTV Music Video Awards nominations.

2004 - Coldplay fan Sarah Sainsbury wrote to the band asking for their autographs so she could sell them to raise funds at her school charity. Coldplay sent her a triple-platinum disc worth more than $6,500.

2011 - The four original band members of Black Sabbath announced that they were reuniting and recording a new album that would be followed by a world tour in 2012.

2015 - Phil Taylor, better known as "Philthy Animal" Taylor, died at age 61. He was the drummer in the Motorhead line-up of Lemmy, Taylor, and Fast Eddie Clarke who recorded ten studio albums and the live album No Sleep 'til Hammersmith.

Birthdays:

Influential blues artist Mose Allison was born today in 1927.

Jazz and blues singer Ernestine Anderson was born today in 1928.

LaVern Baker (“Tweedle Dee,” “Jim Dandy”) was born today in 1929.

Jack Keller — songwriter who wrote the Bewitched theme, “Just Between You and Me,” and songs for the Monkees — was born today in 1936.

Dennis Coffey (“Scorpio”) is 84.

Chris Dreja of the Yardbirds is 79.

Vince Martell of Vanilla Fudge is 79.

Robert John “Mutt” Lange — collaborator with Shania Twain, AC/DC, Def Leppard, the Cars, Lady Gaga, and many more — is 76.

Jim Peterik, founder of Survivor, is 74.

Marshall Crenshaw (“Someday, Someway,” the Gin Blossoms’ “‘Til I Hear it From You”) is 71.

Andy Partridge, leader, primary vocalist and songwriter for XTC, is 71.

Dave Alvin of the Blasters is 69.

Ian Craig Marsh of the Human League is 68.

Mike Mesaros, bassist and singer with the Smithereens, is 67.

Peaches is 58.

Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things drummer Gary Powell is 55.

Jason White, touring guitarist for Green Day, is 51.

Jon B. is 50.

Static Major is 50.

Jesse F. Keeler of Death from Above and MSTRKRFT is 48.

Jon Batiste is 38.

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