History Highlight

Amy Winehouse was born today in 1983. Known for her deep vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, jazz and reggae, Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was a critical success in the U.K., and her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, led to five 2008 Grammy Awards, tying what was then a record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made her the first British female to win five Grammys — including three of the general field "Big Four" awards: Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In 2012, Winehouse was ranked 26th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women In Music, and the BBC has called her "the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation."

Also, Today In:

1955 - Little Richard recorded the song "Tutti Frutti." The session had not been going well, but with only 15 minutes left in the session, Richard recorded the song and coined the phrase, "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom."

1968 - The first episode of the animated series, The Archies, based on the comic strip, aired on television. Rock mogul Don Kirshner (who also brought us The Monkees), was put in charge of the show's studio musicians.

1968 - Roy Orbison's house in Nashville burned down, and his two eldest sons both died in the blaze. Orbison was on a U.K. tour at the time of the incident.

1974 - Stevie Wonder started a two-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with Fulfillingness First Finale, his second No. 1 album.

1979 - The film Quadrophenia was released. Based on The Who's 1973 rock opera, the film featured Phil Daniels, Toyah Willcox, Ray Winstone, Michael Elphick and Sting.

1984 - David Bowie won Video of the Year for "China Girl" at the first MTV Video awards.

1984 - At the very first MTV Video Music Awards, Madonna performs "Like A Virgin" in a white wedding gown accessorized by her famous "Boy Toy" belt.

1995 - The lyrics to The Beatles song 'Getting Better' hand-written by Paul McCartney sold for £161,000 (about $250,000) at a Sotheby's auction in London.

2002 - No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani married Gavin Rossdale of Bush in St. Paul's church London.

2003 - Australian rock band Jet released their debut album Get Born that went on to sell over 3.5 million copies worldwide. The album is an homage to a lyric from the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and includes Jet's most popular song, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl".

Birthdays:

Musician (The Blasters, Los Lobos) and producer (R.E.M., The Replacements, the Go-Go's, many others) Steve Berlin is 63.

Rapper Nas (Nasir Jones) is 45.

Ashley Roberts, singer of The Pussycat Dolls is 37

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