1969 - On the way to their fateful Altamont concert of December 6, The Rolling Stones stop at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama, where they spend three days recording the songs "Wild Horses," "You Gotta Move" and "Brown Sugar."
1976 - The first day of the photo shoot for the forthcoming Pink Floyd Animals album cover took place at Battersea Power Station in London, England with a giant inflatable pig lashed between two of the structure's tall towers. A trained marksman was hired ready to fire if the inflatable escaped, but was not needed on this, the first day. Unfortunately the following day the marksman hadn't been rebooked, so when the inflatable broke free from its moorings, it was able to float away, eventually landing in Kent where it was recovered by a local farmer, reportedly furious that it had ‘scared his cows.’ Photo by FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/AFP via Getty Images)
1983 - MTV aired the full 14-minute version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video for the first time. Regarded as the most influential pop music video of all time, the video was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2009, the first music video to ever receive this honor, for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.
2012 - Led Zeppelin received a Kennedy Center Honors award at a dinner event at the White House from Barack Obama for their significant contribution to American culture and the arts. In his tribute to the band, Obama said: "When Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham burst onto the musical scene in the late 1960s, the world never saw it coming." The president thanked the former band members for behaving themselves at the White House given their history of "hotel rooms being trashed and mayhem all around".
2013 - Reggae star Junior Murvin dies at age 67. The Clash covered his "Police and Thieves" on their debut.
2014 - Saxophone player Bobby Keys died. Keys started touring at age fifteen with Bobby Vee and fellow Texan Buddy Holly and was best known as being the main saxophone player for The Rolling Stones. When on tour with the Stones, according to legend, Keys filled a bathtub with Dom Perignon champagne and drank most of it.
Birthdays:
Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel is 53.
Singer Nelly Furtado is 43.
Britney Spears is 40.
On this Day in Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.