1963 - Stevie Wonder first entered the U.S. singles chart as Little Stevie Wonder with "Fingertips Parts One and Two"; Wonder was only 13 years old, making him the youngest artist ever to top the chart. The track featured a young Marvin Gaye on drums.
1970 - Led Zeppelin appeared at Laugardalsholl Hall, Reykjavik, Iceland on the group's one and only visit to Iceland. It is suggested that Robert Plant was inspired to write the lyrics to 'Immigrant Song' during this trip."
1971 - Joni Mitchell released Blue. Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss etched with stunning complexity. It raised the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness. Brandi Carlile performed the album in it's entirety at Carnegie Hall in November of 2021.
To the crowd, Carlile said, “I wanted to do Blue so I could share my energy and love with a bunch of folks like you and then collectively we could just pinch ourselves and say, we’re alive in the time of Joni Mitchell.” (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
1979- Neil Young and Crazy Horse release Rust Never Sleeps. Young divided his record into acoustic and electric sides while filling his songs with wildly imaginative imagery. The leadoff track, "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" (repeated in an electric version at album's end as "Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black]" with slightly altered lyrics), is the most concise and knowing description of the entertainment industry ever written. In between, Young spent the rest of the album demonstrating that his chief weapons against rusting were his imagination and his daring, creating an archetypal album that encapsulated his many styles on a single disc.
1993 - Liz Phair releases her debut album, Exile In Guyville. The indie rocker approached the project as a track-by-track response to The Rolling Stones' 1972 album, Exile On Main St. Her candid perspective on sex and relationships earns her favor with critics and a growing fanbase and Guyville is hailed as one of the best albums of the decade.
2000 - After giving himself various new identities during the 1990s, The Artist Formally Known As Prince announced he wanted to be known as Prince again.
2016 - Robert Plant told a court hearing in the "Stairway To Heaven" copyright dispute that he had a dim memory of the time the song was written. Plant also said he could not remember meeting the band Spirit, who claimed the band stole their guitar riff for Stairway to Heaven in the 1970s. "I don't have a recollection of almost anyone I've hung out with," Plant said, causing roars of laughter in the court.
Birthdays:
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson is 86. His hits include "Me And Bobby McGee" and "Help Me Make It Through The Night".
Todd Rundgren is 74.
Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream is 60.
Cyndi Lauper is 69.
On this Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.