Birthday Highlight:

Joni Mitchell (born Roberta Anderson) is 71 today. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in and then busking in the streets in Canada. In 1965 she moved to the United States was signed to Reprise Records, with popular songs like "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock", she helped define an era and a generation.
Mitchell has deeply influenced fellow musicians in a diverse range of genres, and her work is highly respected by critics. Allmusic said, "When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century," and Rolling Stone called her "one of the greatest songwriters ever."

Today In:

1968 - After Jim Morrison exhorted the audience to stand up at a concert, The Doors were banned in Phoenix because the local authorities were nervous. He had recently mooned an audience at another concert.

1969 - The Rolling Stones opened their first U.S. concert tour in three years. By this time they were notorious bad boys after tales of drug busts, censorship battles and wild life on the road, so the tour had became a full-blown media circus.

1974 - Ted Nugent won the National Squirrel Shooting Archery Contest by hitting a squirrel at 150 yards with a bow and arrow.

1975 - A new world record was set for continuous guitar string plucking by a guy named Steve Anderson, who played for 114 hours 17 minutes.

1977 - the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever was released. The film has been citied as the first example of "cross-media marketing", with the tie-in soundtrack's single being used to help promote the film before its release and the film popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release.