History Highlight:

Today in 2018, American record producer, songwriter, music publisher, and musician Rick Hall, best-known as the owner of Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama died at age 85. Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James and Clarence Carter were just a few of the rhythm and blues artists who recorded under Hall's supervision.

Also, Today In:

1962 - A scheduled appearance by The Weavers on the Tonight Show with host Jack Parr was canceled after the folk group refused to sign a statement denying any involvement with the U.S. Communist Party.

1965 - Elvis Presley's soundtrack LP Roustabout hit No. 1.

1968 - The entire shipment of John and Yoko's album Two Virgins was seized by authorities in New Jersey due to the full frontal nude photograph of the couple on the cover. The album was eventually wrapped in plain brown paper in record stores.

1969 - The Beatles began work on what would become their Let It Be album and accompanying film. The project was filled with tension as the band quarreled over the songs and the direction of the band. Both the film and the album were eventually released after the band broke up.

1971 - George Harrison's All Things Must Pass began a seven-week run at the top of the U.S. albums chart.

1974 - Country singer and actor Tex Ritter (father of actor John Ritter) died of a heart attack in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 68. His first of many hits was 1944's "I'm Wastin' My Tears on You."

1978 - Two months after quitting the band, Ozzy Osbourne rejoined Black Sabbath.

1979 - The trial of one-time Sex Pistol bassist Sid Vicious for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen opened in New York City. Vicious died of a heroin overdose one month later and never heard a verdict.

1981 - David Lynch of The Platters (1955 single "Only You") died of cancer at age 51 in Long Beach, California.

2005 - Green Day put out their seventh album American Idiot. The album went on to be nominated for seven Grammy Awards, winning the Best Rock Album of 2005.

2008 - With talk of a Kinks reunion in the air, the band's guitarist, Dave Davies, took to the Internet to share his feelings: "It would be like a poor remake of Night Of The Living Dead."

2009 - According to official U.S. sales figures AC/DC were the biggest sellers of 2008 with over 3.4m sales.

2016 - Adele was at No.1 on the U.S. album chart with her third studio album 25. The album was a massive commercial success, debuting at No. 1 in more than 25 markets and broke first-week sales records in multiple countries, including the United Kingdom and United States; in the U.S., the album sold 3.38 million copies in its first week of release, marking the largest single-week sales for an album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991.

Birthdays:

Country singer/songwriter Roger Miller was born today in 1936.

Glenn Goins of Parliament, Funkadelic was born today in 1954.

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