Birthday highlight:

Today in 1988, Adele Laurie Blue Adkins was born in London, England. Her debut album, 19, won her a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and subsequent releases made her the best-selling artist of the 2010s in the US. Her fourth and most recent album, 30, arrived in late 2021. 

Also, today in:

1942 - Tammy Wynette was born Virginia Wynette Pugh in Tremont, Miss. Known as the First Lady of Country Music, Wynette charted 23 No. 1 songs, including "Stand By Your Man," and sold more than 30 million records worldwide. Many of her hits dealt with classic themes of loneliness, divorce, and the difficulties of relationships. Along with Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette is credited with having defined the role of women in country music during the 1970s. Wynette passed away at home in 1998. 

1956 - Elvis Presley scored his first U.S. No. 1 single and album when "Heartbreak Hotel" went to the top of the charts. "Heartbreak Hotel" became his first million-seller, and was the best-selling single of 1956.

1962 - The soundtrack to West Side Story went to No. 1 on the U.S. album chart. It went on to spend a total of 54 weeks at the No. 1 position.

1963 - On a recommendation from George Harrison, Decca Records’ A&R man Dick Rowe (who had turned down the Beatles) went to see the Rolling Stones play in London. The band signed to the label within a week.

1967 - Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)" first appeared on the U.S. singles chart and soon became an anthem of the Flower Power movement and hippies everywhere.

1969 - The Beatles single "Get Back" had its U.S. release. In 1980, John Lennon claimed, "There's some underlying thing about Yoko in there," suggesting that Paul McCartney looked at Yoko Ono in the studio every time he sang, "Get back to where you once belonged."

1972 - Paul Simon, Chicago and Carole King all performed at a benefit concert for U.S. presidential candidate George McGovern.

1979 - Peaches and Herb started a four-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "Reunited.”

1984 - Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders married Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. The couple divorced in 1990.

1986 - Cleveland, Ohio, was selected as the site for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

1996 - Rage Against The Machine went to No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Evil Empire. The album won the 1996 Grammy award for Best Metal Performance.

2000 - Rod Stewart had a one-hour throat operation at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to remove a growth on his thyroid. The growth turned out to be benign.

2005 - Justin Timberlake underwent an operation at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to remove nodules from his throat.

2014 - Solange Knowles lunged at Jay-Z in an elevator while headed to a gala at the Standard hotel in New York. The footage, which leaked on TMZ, showed the confrontation before a security guard restrained Solange. Beyonce later mentioned the incident in her song "Flawless" when she sings, "of course sometimes s--t go down when it’s a billion dollars on an elevator."

2015 - Bassist Craig Gruber died of prostate cancer in Florida at age 63. He is best-known as the original bassist in Rainbow and also played in Elf with vocalist Ronnie James Dio and worked with guitarist Gary Moore.

2016 - The Rolling Stones told Donald Trump to stop playing their songs during his presidential campaign. The band issued a statement saying that he did not have permission to use the band's music. Their 1969 hit "You Can't Always Get What You Want" had been a popular song at his rallies.

2020 - Jamaican singer Millie Small died at the age of 72 after suffering a stroke. The star was most famous for her hit single “My Boy Lollipop,” which reached No. 2 in both the U.S. and the U.K. in 1964. It remains one of the biggest-selling ska songs of all time, with more than seven million sales.

2020 - R&B singer Sweet Pea Atkinson died from a heart attack in Los Angeles at age 74. He was best-known as one of the vocalists for the band Was (Not Was). Their highest charting hit, “Walk the Dinosaur,” which was released in 1987, became a world-wide top-40 hit and peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Birthdays:

Blind Willie McTell was born today in 1898.

Tammy Wynette was born today in 1942.

Michael Palin of Monty Python is 81.

Kurt Loder of MTV News is 79.

Original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward is 76.

Maggie MacNeal of Mouth & MacNeal (“How Do You Do”) is 74.

Rex Goh of Air Supply is 73.

Roddy Radiation of The Specials is 69.

Ian McCulloch, singer-songwriter and frontman for Echo and the Bunnymen, is 65.

Steve Stevens, guitarist and songwriter best-known as Billy Idol's guitarist and songwriting collaborator, and for his lead guitar work on the Grammy-winning theme to Top Gun — "Top Gun Anthem" — is 65.

Kevin Paul Mooney, bassist of Adam and the Ants, is 62.

James LaBrie of Dream Theater is 61.

Shawn Drover of Megadeth is 58.

Craig David is 43.

Adele is 36.

Chris Brown is 35.

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