History Highlight:

Today in Today in 1946, Linda Ronstadt was born, making her 80. The multiple Grammy Award-winning singer grew up on her family’s cattle ranch in Tucson, Arizona, and as a teenager, she formed a folk trio with her siblings. At age 18, Ronstadt relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a music career, co-founding the band the Stone Poneys, whose breakthrough came in 1967 with their recording of Mike Nesmith’s song, “Different Drum.” Ronstadt recorded her first solo album in 1969, but her breakthrough came in 1974 with the release of her fifth solo album, Heart Like a Wheel. Containing the singles “You’re No Good,” “I Cant’ Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You),” “When Will I Be Loved” and “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” Heart Like a Wheel was Ronstadt’s first No. 1 album, and in 2013, it was selected to be inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. Ronstadt enjoyed a string of seven consecutive albums that sold more than a million copies each, and in the 1980s, she expanded her repertoire to light opera, jazz, songbook standards — and in another breakthrough, Spanish-language songs, with the release of her 1987 album Canciones de mi Padre. The Grammy-winning album was certified double platinum by the RIAA, and it remains the best-selling non-English album in the U.S. to this day. In 2013, Ronstadt was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis that has since been changed to progressive supranuclear palsy, a similarly degenerative disease that has deprived Ronstadt of her ability to sing. Nevertheless, Ronstadt continues her creative pursuits, having published the autobiography Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir in 2013, and another memoir, Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands, in 2022. Her first book inspired the 2019 documentary, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, which won a Grammy Award for Best Music Film in 2021. Ronstadt was honored with a National Medal of Arts at the White House in Washington, D.C., in 2014, and she won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

Also, Today In:

1952 - Eight-year-old prodigy Gladys Knight appeared on the TV show Ted Mack's Amateur Hour, which was a precursor to shows like Star Search and American Idol. Knight won the top prize of $2,000 (more than $25,000 in 2026 dollars) for her performance of Nat King Cole's "Too Young."

1958 - John Lennon's mother Julia was killed by a car driven by a drunk driver. John was 17 at the time.

1964 - Roy Orbison released “Oh, Pretty Woman” as a single. The title was inspired by Orbison's wife, Claudette, interrupting a conversation to announce that she was going out. When Orbison asked if she had enough cash, his co-writer Bill Dees interjected, "A pretty woman never needs any money."

1965 - This week's U.S. top three singles were No. 3, The Byrds, "Mr Tambourine Man"; No. 2, The Four Tops, "I Can't Help Myself"; and at No. 1, The Rolling Stones with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

1972 - Elton John started a five-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Honky Chateau, his first U.S. chart topper.

1973 - Induced by exhaustion and a falling-out with his wife, Ray Davies announced that he was departing The Kinks. After a week of rest, he changed his mind.

1978 - The Rolling Stones started a two-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Some Girls, the group's seventh U.S. No. 1 album.

1978 - Bob Dylan performed at what was the biggest open-air concert in history for a solo artist, playing for more than 200,000 fans at "The Picnic at Blackbushe" at Blackbushe Airport in Hampshire, England.

1983 - Bauhaus released their fourth studio album, Burning from the Inside. It features “She’s In Parties.”

1983 - The Waterboys released their self-titled debut studio album. It features “A Girl Called Johnny” and “December.”

1986 - Run-DMC's Raising Hell became the first rap album certified platinum.

1989 - Simply Red scored their second U.S. No. 1 single with "If You Don't Know Me By Now," a 1973 U.K. hit for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes.

1997 - The Dandy Warhols released their second studio album, …The Dandy Warhols Come Down. It features "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth."

1997 - Sarah McLachlan released her fourth studio album, Surfacing. The album was produced by McLachlan’s longtime collaborator, Montreal-based Pierre Marchand, and its released was timed to coincide with the beginning of Lilith Fair, the multi-city festival co-founded by McLachlan. The convergence of the album’s release and Lilith Fair’s launch proved highly successful; Surfacing debuted at No. 1 in the Canadian album charts and it would peak at No. 2 in the United States. The album includes the tracks “Building a Mystery,” “Sweet Surrender” and “Adia,” as well as the song, “Angel,” which McLachlan was inspired to write after musician Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose (Jonathan Melvoin was the brother of singer Susannah and guitarist Wendy Melvoin, members of Prince’s band The Revolution). More recently, Sarah McLachlan’s 10th studio album, Better Broken, released on Sept. 19, 2025.

1997 - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott released her debut album, Supa Dupa Fly. It features "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)."

1998 - Aerosmith were forced to cancel a forthcoming U.S. tour after drummer Joey Kramer was involved in a freak accident in which he was filling his car with gasoline and it caught fire. Kramer was hospitalized with second-degree burns.

2002 - Idlewild released their third album, The Remote Part.

2007 - Prince released Planet Earth, his 32nd studio album. The album was distributed as a free covermount with The Mail on Sunday national newspaper in the U.K., followed by the album's worldwide distribution. This move brought much criticism from U.K. record stores which resulted in Columbia refusing to distribute the album in the U.K., though its release in the rest of the world remained unaffected. (Fun fact: This was not Prince's first or only time releasing an album for free. In 2004, he gave free copies of Musicology to all concertgoers during the Musicology Tour; he gave away copies of Planet Earth with tickets to his 2007 concerts in London; and at his final show on April 14, 2016, in Atlanta, all attendees received a free CD of HITnRUN Phase Two.) Planet Earth features “Guitar.”

2008 - The Hold Steady released their fourth studio album, Stay Positive.

2009 - Forty-five years after he played at the Ed Sullivan Theater with The Beatles, Paul McCartney returned to the venue to appear on The Late Show With David Letterman. Earlier in the day, McCartney played a few songs from the theater's marquee, surprising the onlookers in Manhattan.

2012 - "Gangnam Style" was unleashed upon the world. Performed by K-Pop singer PSY, the song debuted on YouTube and became its most-watched video (ever. in history.), surpassing even Justin Bieber's hit "Baby" in that capacity. The song, partly in Korean, is about the lifestyle of the Gangnam district in Seoul, South Korea. The video features PSY's now-famous signature dance moves and it spawned several parodies, animated versions, and mash-ups. "Gangnam Style" goes on to become a worldwide phenomenon, with its dance moves attempted by U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron; it was also declared a "force for world peace" on the floor of the United Nations.

2014 - “Weird Al” Yankovic released his 14th studio album, Mandatory Fun. It includes parodies of songs by Pharrell Williams, Robin Thicke, Iggy Azalea, Lorde, and Imagine Dragons. It also features original songs in the form of pastiche, imitating the styles of the Pixies, Cat Stevens, Foo Fighters, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Southern Culture on the Skids.

2015 - A judge trimmed more than $1 million from the damages Pharrell Williams was ordered to pay after the "Blurred Lines" copyright trial. The case revolved around the question of whether Williams and his co-writer Robin Thicke had copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit "Got To Give It Up." The judge also gave Gaye's family a 50 percent cut of future earnings from the song.

2016 - Michael Kiwanuka released his second studio album, Love & Hate. It features “Black Man in a White World.”

2016 - In what they famously described as a “conscious uncoupling,” Chris Martin of Coldplay and actress Gwyneth Paltrow officially divorced after more than 10 years of marriage.

2018 - "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses became the first '90s video to pass one billion views on YouTube. The next closest '90s video was "Zombie" by The Cranberries, at 739 million.

Birthdays:

Dorothy Fields — songwriter who wrote “The Way You Look Tonight” and “I’m in the Mood for Love” — was born today in 1904.

Cowboy Copas — a Grand Ole Opry member with the hits “Alabam” and “Signed Sealed and Delivered” who died in the same 1963 plane crash that killed Patsy Cline — was born today in 1913.

American soul and R&B singer Millie Jackson is 82. Jackson was born in Thomson, Georgia, and grew up in the greater New York City area. Over a 50-year recording career, Jackson has released more than two dozen albums, including three Gold-certified collections and the 1979 collaboration with Isaac Hayes, Royal Rappin’s. A one-of-a-kind performer, Jackson created a lane for herself with stage banter between songs that plays out like a NC-17 comedy routine. While she has plenty of material clean enough for successful radio play — including a Grammy-nominated take on “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right — many tracks, both dirty and clean, have gotten new life as hip-hop samples. In recent years, Jackson launched her own label called Weird Wreckuds.

Peter Lewis, founding member of Moby Grape, is 81.

Linda Ronstadt is 80. See highlight, above.

Roky Erickson of the 13th Floor Elevators was born today in 1947.

Artimus Pyle, drummer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, is 78.

Trevor Horn — a member of the Buggles, Art of Noise, and Yes who later produced albums by Grace Jones, ABC, Franckie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, LeAnn Rimes, and Belle and Sebastian — is 77.

Gregory Isaacs was born today in 1951.

Marky Ramone is 74.

Johnny Thunders, New York Dolls singer, was born today in 1952. He passed away in 1991.

Alicia Bridges (“I Love the Nightlife [Disco Round]”) is 73.

Today in 1956, Ian Curtis, singer-songwriter and frontman of the band Joy Division, was born in Stretford, Greater Manchester. Interested in poetry, art and music from a very early age, Curtis met Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook in 1976 at a Sex Pistols gig. Sumner and Hook were trying to form a band, and Curtis immediately proposed himself as vocalist and lyricist. After recruiting drummer Stephen Morris, they formed Joy Division and released their debut album, Unknown Pleasures, in 1979, and recorded their follow-up, Closer, in 1980. Among the band's better-known songs are "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Transmission," the latter of which is used as the theme music by our own Jake Rudh on his program of the same name. Joy Division disbanded in 1980 after Curtis, who suffered from epilepsy and depression, took his own life. The remaining members formed the band New Order. Today, Joy Division are considered pioneers of the post-punk movement and are seen as one of the most influential bands of the late 1970s.

Guitarist Joe Satriani is 70.

Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham who has played with the remaining members of the group, is 60.

Stokley Williams of Mint Condition is 59.

Buju Banton is 54.

John Dolmayan of System of a Down is 54.

Ray Toro, guitarist and co-founder of the alternative band My Chemical Romance, is 49.

Highlights for Today in Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Song Facts, AllMusic, U.S. Inflation Calculator, AARP Magazine and Wikipedia.