Birthday Highlight:

George Alan O'Dowd, better known as Boy George, is 65 today. Lead singer of the Grammy and Brit Award-winning Culture Club, the band had megahits such as "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me", "Time (Clock of the Heart)" and "Karma Chameleon." These days George mostly splits his time between songwriting, DJing, writing books, designing clothes and photography, but his soulful voice and bold appearance put him in history among the likes of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Culture Club still tour on occasion; they played the Minnesota State Fair in 2018, and in 2022 and ‘23, they held a residency in Las Vegas while touring to select cities in North America and in the U.K.

Also, Today In:

1961 - Patsy Cline was seriously injured in a car accident. During her two-month hospital stay, her song "I Fall to Pieces" gave the singer her first Country No. 1 and also became a huge country-pop crossover hit. Cline passed away in 1963 when her flight crashed in heavy weather. Millions of her records have sold since, and she became the first female solo artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973, 10 years after her death.

1965 - Along with a string quartet, Paul McCartney recorded what would turn out to be one of the most recorded songs of all time: "Yesterday."

1966 - Deeming its "butcher cover" in poor taste, Capitol Records recalled the new Beatles album, Yesterday and Today, which had been scheduled for release the next day. The shot of the group — wearing butcher uniforms amid dismembered doll parts, cuts of raw pork and sausage links — was meant to show how they were being torn apart by their celebrity. About 60,000 advance copies had already been sent to stores and media outlets when backlash began, making it clear that retailers wouldn’t put the album on shelves. A furious effort began to replace the cover, and when the album was finally released on June 20, it was with an innocuous shot of the Beatles posed around an open trunk. In 2016, a copy of the album with the original cover sold for $125,000.

1970 - Eric Clapton's new band were introduced as "Derek and the Dominos" when they took the stage at the Lyceum in London. They told the promoter they were "The Dynamics," but he convinced them to add the "Derek," which was a nickname for Clapton. This mangled name interpretation stuck.

1970 - The Grateful Dead released their fourth album, Workingman's Dead. With more compact songs like "Uncle John's Band" and "Casey Jones," it reached a wider audience than their previous albums.

1974 - David Bowie's Diamond Dogs tour began in Montreal. As part of the elaborate stage show, a giant diamond opened up to reveal Bowie.

1976 - Chicago released their eighth studio album, Chicago X. It features "Another Rainy Day in New York City," "If You Leave Me Now" and “You Are on My Mind.”

1980 - Peter Gabriel reached No. 1 on the U.K. album chart for the first time with his third self-titled album, which spent two weeks on top.

1980 - Billy Joel's Glass Houses was the No. 1 album in the U.S. for the first of six consecutive weeks.

1985 - Corey Hart released his second album, Boy In the Box. It features “Never Surrender” and “Single of the Year.”

1988 - Guy released their self-titled debut album. It features "'Round and 'Round (Merry Go 'Round of Love)," "Groove Me," “Teddy’s Jam,” “I Like,” and “Spend the Night.”

1989 - Carole King received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1993 - Jamiroquai released their debut studio album, Emergency on Planet Earth. It features the title track, “When You Gonna Learn,” “Too Young to Die,” and “Blow Your Mind.”

1994 - Aaliyah released her debut studio album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number. Recorded in Chicago in 1993 and early 1994, the record fuses her soul-filled R&B and hip-hop vocal lines and the “new jack swing” production of the era. It shows Aaliyah’s incredible range as a performer, from the tender interpretation of the Isley Brothers’ “At Your Best (You Are Love)” to the upbeat party anthem “Back & Forth.” Both songs were top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and the album has sold more than six million copies worldwide. It was the first of three studio albums she released during a promising career cut tragically short when she died in a plane crash in 2001.

1994 - Noted film composer Henry Mancini died of pancreatic cancer at age 70. During his lengthy career, Mancini scored more than 100 films, writing such memorable selections as “Theme from Romeo and Juliet,” “Moon River” (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), and “Theme from the Pink Panther.”

1995 - Police in Columbus, Ohio, received 20 noise complaints from a Ted Nugent concert, but Nugent didn't turn down the volume, claiming he was within the legal noise limits.

1995 - Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were interviewed together on ABC, insisting their marriage was not fake. They got divorced in January 1996.

1995 - Irish blues rocker Rory Gallagher died of a staphylococcal infection following a liver transplant at age 47.

1996 - Beatles producer George Martin was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1997 - Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You," a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., hit No. 1 in the U.S., where it stayed for 11 weeks, dominating the summer of 1997.

2002 - Mick Jagger became a Sir when he was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honors.

2003 - "Bring Me To Life," the debut single from Evanescence, hit No. 1 in the U.K. and stayed for four weeks. The song peaked at No. 5 in the States.

2003 - Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers was awarded a Member of the British Empire medal by Queen Elizabeth in London.

2004 - Beastie Boys released their sixth studio album, To the 5 Boroughs.

2005 - Foo Fighters released their fifth studio album, In Your Honor. It features “Best of You.”

2006 - Rufus Wainwright, son of folk singer Loudon Wainwright III, recreated the whole of Judy Garland's legendary 1961 Carnegie Hall concert at the famous institution in order to mark the show's 35th anniversary.

2008 - Pearl Jam and My Morning Jacket bonded, a tardy Kanye West riled the crowd and called organizers "squid brains," and MGMT danced like hippies at Bonnaroo 2008.

2010 - The Chemical Brothers released their seventh studio album, Further.

2016 - Irish guitarist Henry McCullough died after never fully recovering from a severe heart attack he had suffered four years earlier. He recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings and was featured on "Live and Let Die" and "My Love", the solo which he made up on the spot in front of a live orchestra. He was also a member of Spooky Tooth and The Grease Band.

2017 - The National Music Publishers Association gave Yoko Ono the Centennial Award for song of the century and added her name to the credits of the award-winning song, "Imagine." John Lennon had taken the sole credit, but later admitted he got the idea from Yoko's book Grapefruit, where she wrote things like, "Imagine 1000 suns in the sky at the same time."

2019 - Noah Kahan released his debut album, Busyhead.

2020 - BTS drew about 750,000 viewers (in 107 countries) to their Bang Bang Con livestream concert, earning an estimated $20 million in ticket sales, far more than what a traditional concert could earn. It proved that livestream shows, which had mostly relied on donations, could be immensely profitable as ticketed events.

Birthdays:

Burl Ives was born today in 1909.

Jazz composer and pianist Cy Coleman was born today in 1929.

Motown saxophone great Junior Walker was born on this day in 1931.

Renaldo “Obie” Benson, founding member of the Four Tops, was born today in 1936.

The Zombies founder Rod Argent is 81.

Barry “The Fish” Melton, co-founder of Country Joe and the Fish, is 79.

Brian Eno collaborator Paul Rudolph is 79.

Jim Lea of Slade is 77.

Alan White, drummer for Yes, was born on this day in 1949.

Nick Van Eede, frontman for Cutting Crew, is 68.

Marcus Miller — bassist for Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Luther Vandross, Wayne Shorter, and many others — is 67.

Boy George is 65. (See highlight, above)

Singer-songwriter Joshua Radin is 52.

Siobhán Donaghy of Sugababes is 42.

Gunna is 33.

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