History Highlight:

Today in 1970, The Grateful Dead performed their first concert outside of North America, appearing at the U.K.'s Hollywood Rock Music Festival. Their set went on for four hours. A DVD and CD set of footage from the event was issued in 2010, featuring archive material from the Grateful Dead's set, and one number each from Free, Family, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Radha Krishna Temple along with a biographical booklet of the event.

Also, Today In:

1964 - "I Get Around" by The Beach Boys was released. Thanks to the flip side, "Don't Worry, Baby," it went on to be their first No. 1 record.

1964 - Ella Fitzgerald became the first artist to have a hit with a Beatles cover when "Can't Buy Me Love" entered the UK chart.

1966 - A great Beatles single came out: "Paperback Writer" with "Rain" on the B-side. The latter was an early psychedelic effort, primarily the work of Lennon, featuring the band's first experiments with backwards tracking. There are different accounts of who first stumbled upon this effect (John Lennon or producer George Martin), but the most entertaining account comes from Lennon, claiming he accidentally loaded the tape backwards while "stoned out of (his) mind." A total of three promotional clips were filmed for "Rain," featuring collage-like cutting of the footage in a way that would become commonplace for countless music videos by the mid-80s; looking back, George Harrison remarked "so I suppose we invented MTV" with the clips.

1969 - The Who released their fourth album Tommy which was the first album to be billed as a rock opera. The album went on to reach number four on the album chart and sell two million copies in the U.S.

1974 - George Harrison announced the formation of his record label Dark Horse Records. The label's first signing was Ravi Shankar.

1979 - The Who's film biography "The Kids Are Alright" premiered in New York City. This film contained footage of the last concert they performed with Keith Moon.

1987 - The Doobie Brothers reunited for a Vietnam veterans benefit concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

2000 - On KROQ radio in Los Angeles, Billy Corgan revealed in an interview that the Smashing Pumpkins would be calling it quits following the fulfillment of prior contractual agreements.

2000 - Noel Gallagher walked out on his band Oasis during a European tour.

2006 - The king of Sweden presented the surviving members of Led Zeppelin with the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm recognising them as "great pioneers" of rock music.

Birthdays:

Robert Moog, inventor of the synthesizer, was born today in 1934.

Danny Klein, bassist for The J. Geils Band, is 72.

Radiohead drummer Philip Selway is 51.

Maxwell is 45.

Jewel 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.