History Highlight:

Today in 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany. Beethoven is one of the most popular and influential composers in all of Western music. His ideas were rooted in the foundations built by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn, but Beethoven — inspired by his own imagination and by the spirit of the Enlightenment — expanded the boundaries of music as it had been understood to that time. Some of Beethoven’s most enduring and popular works include “Für Elise”; his Symphony No. 5 (“buh-buh-buh BOM!”); “Ode to Joy”; and his Moonlight Sonata. Beethoven’s music has continued to inspire musicians across genres; for example: John Lennon is said to have based his song “Because” from Abbey Road on the reverse chord progression of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata; Billy Joel’s “This Night” uses the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathétique Piano Sonata No. 8; Walter Murphy scored a huge hit in 1976 with his disco adaptation, “A Fifth of Beethoven”; Bright Eyes’ 2005 album I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning includes the song, “Road to Joy,” which is an interpolation of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”; and Jon Batiste’s 2024 album, Beethoven Blues, is a collection of blues interpretations and re-imaginations based on Beethoven’s compositions.

Also, in:

1960 - Seventeen-year-old George Harrison was deported from Germany for being too young to perform with The Beatles.

1965 - The Beatles released a two-hit single with "Day Tripper" on one side and "We Can Work It Out" on the other.

1966 - The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their first single, "Hey Joe".

1974 - Mick Taylor revealed in a press release that he was departing The Rolling Stones after a five-year run, stating that he "felt it was the time to move on and do something new."

1974 - Mott The Hoople (Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs and company) announced that they were over as a band.

1981 - Ray Charles received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1983 - Hoping to jumpstart her flagging acting career after the box-office bomb Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John reunited with Grease co-star John Travolta in the fantasy film Two of a Kind. That film flopped as well, but it did yield the Top-10 hit "Twist Of Fate." To be fair, the 1980 song “Xanadu” by Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra did hit No. 1 in the U.K. and several other countries, and it peaked at No. 8 in the U.S.

1983 - The Who issued a statement making their breakup official, a formality considering they called their last shows in 1982 their "Farewell Tour." History proved it was far from the end, however, as the Who regrouped for a seemingly unending series of "reunions," starting with Live Aid in 1985.

1988 - American soul and disco singer Sylvester James died of complications from AIDS in San Francisco at age 41. James scored the 1978 U.S. No. 36 single "You Make Me Feel, Mighty Real" and sang backup vocals for Aretha Franklin on her 1985 Who's Zoomin' Who album.

1989 - Billy Joel went No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with his 11th studio release Storm Front. The album featured "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "Leningrad", Joel's take on the end of the Cold War.

1991 - Chubby Checker filed a lawsuit against McDonald's in Canada seeking $14 million for the unauthorized use of a simulation of his voice in a commercial.

1993 - MTV aired Nirvana's "Unplugged" session for the first time. The album featured an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993. Unlike many artists who appeared on the show, Nirvana filmed its entire performance in a single take with the band's fourteen-song set list including six cover versions.

2000 - Eminem lands his second U.K. No. 1 when "Stan" tops the chart. The song, which tells the story of a deranged, obsessive fan. The song becomes so ingrained in the culture that in 2017 the word "stan" is entered into the Oxford American Dictionary as a term for an obsessive fan.

2007 - Singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg died at his home in Maine at the age of 56. Emerging out of the '70s soft rock scene, he made his mark with sensitive records like "Leader Of The Band" and "Same Old Lang Syne."

2013 - Miley Cyrus insured her tongue for $1 million.

2013 - Country singer Ray Price died at the age of 87.

2018 - With some radio stations pulling "Baby It's Cold Outside" from their holiday playlists in response to the #MeToo movement, WAKY in Louisville, Kentucky played the song continuously for two hours. Response from listeners was overwhelmingly positive. Two years prior to that, however, Minnesota musicians Lydia Liza and Josiah Lemanski recorded a rewritten version of the song that emphasizes the importance of consent in relationships.

2020 - After nearly 178 days, Twenty One Pilots pulled the plug on the livestream for their "Level Of Concern" video, which refreshed every 3:40 with new footage uploaded by fans. Guinness declares it the longest music video ever made.

Birthdays:

Ludwig van Beethoven was born today in 1770.

The Hollies guitar player Tony Hicks is 80.

Göran Bror Benny Andersson (Benny Andersson) of ABBA is 79. Andersson was a founding member of ABBA — one of the most popular music groups of all time — formed in Stockholm in 1972. The band had 48 hit singles from 1974 to 1983, and again in 2021. In 1999, ABBA's music was adapted into Mamma Mia!, a successful musical that toured worldwide. Andersson was co-composer of Mamma Mia!, and for the 2008 film version and its 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, he worked as an executive producer. On 5 November 2021, ABBA released their first studio album in 40 years, Voyage.

Billy Gibbons, guitarist and lead singer of ZZ Top, is 76. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Gibbons’ father was a concert pianist and orchestra conductor, and young Billy took an early interest in music. As a teenager, Gibbons was co-founder of a band, Moving Sidewalks, who opened four shows for Jimi Hendrix on the first national tour of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In 1969, Gibbons and two friends formed the band ZZ Top; in 1970, the band’s lineup solidified as Gibbons on vocals and guitar, Dusty Hill on bass and vocals, and Frank Beard on drums — a lineup that remained in place until Hill’s death in 2021. Beyond ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons has also worked as an actor (most notably, in a recurring role on the TV series Bones), and he has contributed original music to film soundtracks.

Robben Ford — guitarist who has worked with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, and more — is 74.

Lalah Hathaway is 57.

Christopher Thorn of Blind Melon and the Afghan Whigs is 57.

Michael McCary of Boyz II Men is 54.

DJ Paul van Dyk is 54.

Travis Morrison, frontman of the Dismemberment Plan, is 53.

Scott Storch, record producer for Beyoncé, 50 Cent, Dr. Dre, and more and keyboardist for the Roots, is 52.

Benjamin Kowalewicz of Billy Talent is 50.

Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts, IMDB, Royal Ballet and Opera, YourClassical MPR, Interlude, WFMT, and Wikipedia.