History Highlight:

Kenny Rogers was born today in 1938, making him 80 today. Most famously known in country music circles, Rogers has had more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone, and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Also, Today In:

1961 - Elvis Presley started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Something For Everybody, his sixth No. 1 album.

1961 - Patsy Cline recorded the classic Willie Nelson song "Crazy". Cline was still on crutches after being in a car accident two months earlier and struggled at first to reach the high notes of the song due to her broken ribs.

1965 - The Rolling Stones started a three-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Out of Our Heads, their first U.S. No. 1 album.

1965 - The Beatles played their one and only concert in Minnesota. Having played in Chicago the night before, the Beatles arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at 4:15 p.m., and they were taken to Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minn., (now the site of the Mall of America) for a press conference, where George Harrison was presented a new 12-string Rickenbacker guitar by the employees of B-Sharp Music. Following the press meeting and a sit in the sauna in the Twins' locker room, the Beatles performed a set of 11 songs from a stage near the baseball diamond's second base to a crowd of 30,000 screaming fans, still in the height of Beatlemania. After spending the night in the Leamington Motor Inn in downtown Minneapolis (razed in 2008), the Beatles left the next day for Portland, Ore., which was the next stop on their tour. (See Andrea Swensson's feature about this historic concert.)

1972 - Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and Jack Casady were sprayed with mace by police after a rather boisterous Jefferson Airplane concert in Akron, Ohio.

1982 - U2 singer Bono married Alison Stewart, his girlfriend since 1975, at All Saints Church in a northern suburb of Dublin. U2 bassist Adam Clayton was Bono's best man. The two are married to this day.

2005 - Synthesizer pioneer Robert A. Moog died at age 71 at his home in Asheville, N.C., due to complications from brain cancer. The Moog synthesizer was made popular by '70s progressive rock bands like Manfred Mann, Yes, Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer; The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on Abbey Road and a Moog was used to create the eerie sounds on the soundtrack to the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange.

2006 - A man surfing the Internet in the U.S. foiled three men who broke into a shop in Liverpool, England. The man had logged onto a site streaming live footage of a forthcoming Beatles festival when he saw the men smashing the window of a shop and climb inside. He phoned Merseyside police who arrested the men.

2008 - Drummer Buddy Harman died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79. Harman worked with Elvis Presley ("Little Sister"), Patsy Cline ("Crazy"), Roy Orbison ("Pretty Woman"), Johnny Cash ("Ring Of Fire") and Tammy Wynette ("Stand By Your Man"). He was also the first house drummer for The Grand Ole Opry.

2013 - Legendary concert promoter Sid Bernstein, best known for booking The Beatles at Carnegie Hall and later Shea Stadium, died at the age of 95. Bernstein changed the American music scene in the 1960s by bringing The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, The Moody Blues, and The Kinks to America. He was the first promoter to organize rock concerts at sports stadiums.

2016 - The Tragically Hip drew a sellout crowd to a show in Kingston, Ontario, as Gord Downie, failing in health, bid Canada farewell. The show was broadcast live across Canada and was shown at hundreds of public screenings across the country in bars and outdoor venues.

2017 - During a historic solar eclipse, Bonnie Tyler sings "Total Eclipse Of The Heart," while Ozzy Osbourne performs "Bark At The Moon."

Birthdays:

Count Basie was born today in 1904.

Joe Strummer, of The Clash, was born today in 1952.

Serj Tankian of System of a Down is 51.

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