1965, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" made its debut, airing on CBS in place of The Munsters. The special was commissioned and sponsored by Coca-Cola, was quickly written over a period of several weeks, and produced on a shoestring budget in only six months. It has since been honored with both an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and became an annual presentation in the U.S., airing during the Christmas season every year since its debut. Its famous jazz score, written by Vince Guaraldi and performed by his trio, also achieved commercial success, selling four million copies in the U.S. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
1966 - Cream released their debut studio album Fresh Cream. Fresh Cream represents so many different firsts, it's difficult to keep count. Cream, of course, was the first supergroup, but their first album not only gave birth to the power trio, it also was instrumental in the birth of heavy metal and the birth of jam rock. It shows Cream feeling their way forward, creating their heavy psychedelic jazz-blues and, in the process, opening the door to all kinds of serious rock music that may have happened without Fresh Cream, but it just would not have happened in the same fashion as it did with this record as precedent.
1978 - The Blues Brothers released their first single, a cover of "Soul Man." The original was by Sam & Dave, whom the Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) emulated to create their act.
1988 - A poll was published with the curious finding that the music of Neil Diamond was favored as the best background music for sex. Beethoven was the second choice, and Luther Vandross was voted third.
2016 - The Rolling Stones topped the charts with their latest album Blue & Lonesome, the band's first studio album to reach No. 1 for 22 years. As Keith Richards tells it, the Rolling Stones' first-ever all-blues album is the result of the band learning how to play in the unfamiliar surroundings of Mark Knopfler's British Grove Studios. To ease into the new place, the Stones decided to knock out a version of Little Walter's "Blue and Lonesome" and it sounded good enough that the band decided to cut a few more covers, winding up with a full album of Chicago blues in a few days.
Birthdays:
Neil James Innes of The Rutles and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and Monty Python collaborator was born on this day in 1944.
Alice Cooper Band bassist Dennis Dunaway who co-wrote "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out" is 75.
Joan Armatrading is 71.
Donny Osmond is 64.
Jakob Dylan of The Wallflowers is 52.
Geoff Barrow of Portishead is 50.
Frank Wright III (Tre Cool) of Green Day is 49.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from Allmusic, This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.