History Highlight:

Today in 1949, twin brothers Maurice and Robin Gibb were born. The twins, along with brother Barry, form the Bee Gees. Born on the Isle of Man to English parents, the Gibb brothers were raised in England until the late 1950s. There, they formed the skiffle/rock and roll group the Rattlesnakes. The family then moved to Australia where the group, now named the Bee Gees, received their first chart success with "Spicks and Specks". They returned to the UK in 1967 and went on to achieve worldwide success. Most of the albums from the band included at least one or two songs featuring Maurice's lead vocals, including "Lay It on Me", "Country Woman" and "On Time". Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits. The group wrote all of their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists and have been regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop music history.

Also, in:

1956 - Elvis had the most charting singles of the year with a total count of 17. Pat Boone was a distant second with five, followed by Fats Domino, Little Richard and The Platters with three each.

1958 - The Chipmunks' "The Chipmunk Song" hits #1 on the Hot 100, the last Christmas song to ever top the chart.

1963 - The Dave Clark Five scored their only U.S. No. 1 single with "Over And Over", a No. 5 in the U.K.

1973 - Elton John started a two-week run at No. 1 on the U.K. album chart with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It also had an eight-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. chart.

1978 - One-time Faces drummer Kenney Jones became the permanent replacement for the recently deceased Keith Moon in The Who – a tough act to follow.

1979 - Rupert Holmes' "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" hits #1 on the Hot 100. It retains the top spot for two more weeks, becoming the last chart-topper of the '70s and the first of the '80s.

1980 - Stiff Records released an album in the U.K. called The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Reagan. The entire disc contained 40 minutes of silence.'

1984 - Madonna started a six-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. charts with "Like A Virgin," her first U.S. No. 1. The iconic song is the title track off her album and was the first single released. The lyrics to the song, which are full of innuendo, showcase a sexually independent, confident woman and the song undeniably became a defining one for Madonna's career. Besides the song's success in America, it reached the top of the charts in Australia, Canada, and Japan, and in the top-ten of other countries.

1985 - Dennes Boon of the Minutemen is killed in a van accident in Tucson, Arizona, at age 27.

1987 - After a night of debauchery with Robbin Crosby of Ratt and Slash from Guns N' Roses, Mötley Crüe bass player Nikki Sixx suffers a drug overdose and his heart stops beating. He is declared clinically dead, but comes back to life.

1995 - Three years after her feature film debut in The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston gives her second acting performance in Forest Whitaker's romantic drama Waiting to Exhale, leading an all-African American cast that includes Angela Bassett and Dennis Haysbert.

2002 - Former Clash singer and guitarist Joe Strummer, born John Graham Mellor, died of a suspected heart attack aged 50.

2014 - Joe Cocker died of lung cancer in Crawford, Colorado at age 70. The singer had a career lasting more than 40 years, with hits including his cover of The Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends", "You Are So Beautiful" and "Up Where We Belong". He received an Order of the British Empire at Buckingham Palace for services to music in 2011 and was ranked number 97 on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest singers list in 2008.

2020 - Leslie West died at age 75 after suffering a heart attack in his home near Daytona, Florida. He was a founding member and co-lead vocalist of the hard rock band Mountain that formed on Long Island, New York in 1969 and are best known for their cowbell-tinged song "Mississippi Queen", as well as the heavily sampled song "Long Red" and their performance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. Mountain is one of many bands to be commonly credited as having influenced the development of heavy metal music in the 1970s.

Birthdays:

Barry Jenkins, drummer with The Animals, is 79.

Rick Nielsen, lead guitarist and main songwriter for Cheap Trick, is 75.

James Gurley, guitarist with Big Brother and the Holding Company, was born on this day in 1939.

Meghan Trainor is 30.

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