History Highlight:

On this day in 2019, seventeen-year-old Billie Eilish released her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. Eilish largely wrote the album with her brother Finneas O'Connell, who produced it at his small bedroom studio in Highland Park, Los Angeles. Upon release, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? received universal acclaim. Many reviewers praised its subject matter, songwriting, cohesiveness, and Eilish's vocal styling. At the 2020 Grammy Awards, it won Album of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, while "Bad Guy" won Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In 2020, the album was ranked at 397 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Also, Today In:

1966 - Mick Jagger was injured during a Rolling Stones gig in France after a fan threw a chair at the stage. Jagger required eight stitches.

1967 - The Beatles recorded "With a Little Help from My Friends" at Abbey Road Studios in London.

1973 - Shortly after having a hit with Shel Silverstein's "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show were on the cover of Rolling Stone in caricature.

1975 - Led Zeppelin had all six of their albums in the Billboard 200 album chart. Among those six (Led Zeppelin [1969], Led Zeppelin II [1969], Led Zeppelin III [1970], Led Zeppelin IV [1971], Houses of the Holy [1973], and Physical Graffiti [1975]), Physical Graffiti was at No. 1. Each of their nine studio albums placed in the top 10 of the Billboard album chart, and various sources estimate the group's record sales at 200 to 300 million units worldwide.

1975 - Labelle's "Lady Marmalade" hits #1 in America.

1978 - Tina Turner officially divorced her husband Ike. She received no money in the settlement, but revived her career with a startling comeback in the early '80s.

1979 - Supertramp released their sixth album, Breakfast in America, which went on to become their most successful album, selling four million copies in the U.S. and reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart for six weeks.

1980 - Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon spent its 303rd consecutive week on the Billboard 200 album chart, breaking the record set by Carole King's Tapestry for longest stay on the Billboard 200.

1980 - Brian Johnson of the band Geordie gets a new, slightly more high-profile gig: replacing the deceased Bon Scott in AC/DC. Johnson's first album with the band is Back In Black, which becomes the second-best selling album worldwide behind Thriller.

1982 - Iron Maiden released their third studio album, The Number of the Beast, their first album with Bruce Dickinson singing for them.

1985 - Madonna's first film, "Desperately Seeking Susan," premiered in the U.S.

1994 - The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released. It features the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, and Rage Against the Machine.

1999 - "The David Bowie Internet Radio Network" broadcast its first show for Rolling Stone Radio. The show played Bowie's favorite songs, with Bowie introducing each track.

2001 - Brian Wilson was honored in a three-hour tribute at New York's Radio City Music Hall. Guest performances included Billy Joel, Paul Simon, The Go-Gos and the trio of Carly Simon, David Crosby and Jimmy Webb. Also singing Beach Boys songs were Ann and Nancy Wilson, Elton John and Aimee Mann.

2004 - Phoenix released their second album, Alphabetical. It features “Everything Is Everything.”

2005 - Neil Young was treated for a brain aneurysm at a hospital in New York.

2005 - Weezer release "Beverly Hills," the lead single from their Make Believe album.

2006 - Tom Jones was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

2007 - U2 singer Bono accepted an honorary knighthood at a ceremony in Dublin. He was not entitled to be called "Sir," because he is not a British citizen. The singer's new title is Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE).

2011 - A website that illegally sold Beatles songs online for 25 cents each agreed to pay record companies almost $1 million to settle a legal case. BlueBeat.com, based in the U.S., streamed and sold music by The Beatles, Coldplay and others until it was sued in 2009. In the few days before it was forced to shut down, it had distributed more than 67,000 Beatles tracks.

2015 - Seventy-two-year-old Norman Greenbaum, who wrote and sang the 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky," was critically injured when the car he was riding in turned into the path of an oncoming motorcycle. The 20-year-old motorcyclist was killed, and his passenger was severely injured. After a lengthy recovery, Greenbaum returned to the stage in Santa Rosa, California on November 15, 2015.

2016 - Andy Newman from Thunderclap Newman (who had the 1969 No. 1 hit “Something in the Air”) died at age 73.

2017 - George Michael's funeral took place, three months after his sudden death at the age of 53. His family said a “small, private ceremony” was attended by family and close friends.

2020 - Grammy-winning country music star Joe Diffie died age 61 from complications of COVID-19. Diffie charted 35 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, five of which peaked at No. 1. He also co-wrote singles for Holly Dunn, Tim McGraw, and Jo Dee Messina, and recorded with Mary Chapin Carpenter, George Jones, and Marty Stuart.

2020 - American vocalist, guitarist, songwriter Alan Merrill died at age 69 after contracting coronavirus. He was the co-writer of, and lead singer on, the first released version of the song “I Love Rock 'n' Roll,” which was recorded by the Arrows in 1975. The song became a breakthrough hit for Joan Jett in 1982 and has since been covered by artists ranging from Britney Spears to Weird Al Yankovic.

Birthdays:

Star of film and stage and singer Pearl Bailey (“Takes Two to Tango,” “Fifteen Years (And I’m Still Serving Time”) was born today in 1918.

Ray “Sting Ray” Davis, founding member of the Parliaments, was born today in 1940.

Chad Allan, guitarist for The Guess Who, was born today in 1943.

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, better-known as Vangelis, was born today in 1943.

Eric Idle (Monty Python, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life") is 81.

Bobby Kimball of Toto is 77.

Michael Brecker was born on this day in 1949.

David Greenfield, keyboardist for the Stranglers, was born on this day in 1949.

Patty Donahue of The Waitresses was born on this day in 1956.

Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell is 65.

John Popper of Blues Traveler is 57.

PJ Morton of Maroon 5 is 43.

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