History Highlight:

Today in 1978, the great Muddy Waters played at a White House picnic at the request of President Carter. Muddy Waters' influence was tremendous not just on blues and rhythm and blues but on rock & roll, hard rock, folk music, jazz, and country music. He passed away in 1983 at the age of 70.

Also, Today In:

1964 - Bob Dylan and Joan Baez shared the stage for the first time, singing "With God On Our Side" at the Newport Folk Festival.

1964 - The crowd of over 3,000 at Rolling Stones gig in Manchester, England, proved too hard to control, accidentally breaking the ribs of one policeman and causing another two to faint in the crush.

1967 - At the National Blues and Jazz Festival in the U.K., Jerry Lee Lewis had his set cut short after the overenthusiastic crowd caused a near-riot.

1980 - AC/DC reached the top of the U.K. Album Chart with Back in Black which spent two weeks on top of the chart. The album peaked at number four on the Billboard 200 Album Chart in the U.S. and went on to sell 45 million copies worldwide.

1986 - Queen played their last live concert with Freddie Mercury at the Knebworth Park Festival in England. An audience of 120,000 heard them close out with "We Will Rock You"/"We Are The Champions" and "God Save The Queen." Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications related to AIDS, is considered one of the greatest performers in the history of rock.

1995 - The original members of Kiss played together for the first time since 1980 when Peter Criss and Ace Frehley joined the band to record their MTV Unplugged special, which was later released as the album Kiss Unplugged. It was one of the only times the original members played without makeup on.

1995 - Grateful Dead guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack caused by hardening of the arteries at a rehabilitation clinic in San Francisco. He was 53 years old. Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for their entire thirty-year career (1965-1995), but he also released several solo albums, and contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician. Interesting fact about Garcia - he was well known for his distinctive guitar playing despite missing a finger that was cut off at age four while chopping wood with his brother.

1996 - The Ramones officially broke up.

Birthdays:

Rinus Gerritsen, bassist for Golden Earring, is 72.

Whitney Houston was born today in 1963.

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