American Top 40
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Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1924
Printed Date: 06 May 2025 at 5:20am
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Topic: American Top 40
Posted By: EdisonLite
Subject: American Top 40
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 9:11am
| Though this post is somewhat off topic, I think a lot of members would be interested to know this info. I just found out about it a couple days ago. Every week, one of Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" programs from the 70s, and one from the '80s, airs on XMSatellite radio's 70s and '80s channels, respectively. While listening last night, I noticed they usually play single edits and/or mixes (for instance, last night they played the single edit of LRB's "Lady"), and this could be a good way for us to check out the edits and mixes that are no longer played on current radio! These shows don't air chronologically -- they pick a random date from the decade (one per week) and air it twice during the week (without commercials). (I sort of recall there may be the occasional time when the show itself edited a song but that was pretty rare and I think most of the songs play just the way they were as singles). Since so many of us want to know, have, check out the actual single versions, this is one way to discover them. Plus, it sure was a LOT of fun (at least for me) to hear a vintage show of AT40! I never thought I'd have the chance to do that again. |
Replies:
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 12:43pm
|
Ah the memories...I grew up on AT40, faithfully writing down the Top 40 each week from about 1974 until Casey left in 1988 (could never get used to Shadoe). If memory serves, they would occasionally play an edited version. I remember it most on the year-end countdowns when they had to squeeze in 50 songs per show instead of 40 (they divided the Top 100 of the year into 2 shows).
The most outrageous one I remember is the 1986 year-end show when they edited "Crush On You" by The Jets down to what seemed about 2 minutes! |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 4:13pm
|
I did the same thing, writing down the songs every Sunday morning. (99X/WXLO-FM in New York, then 66 WNBC in New York, then WPLJ in New York, then 98PXY in Rochester, NY when I went off to college) I still have the 3-ring binder with all the pages from 1979-1989. Fond memories, indeed!
While AT40 played mostly the single edits, that wasn't a hard and fast rule. I can think of a few examples off the top of my head. Frank & Moon Zappa's "Valley Girl" only spent 3 weeks in the top 40 in 1982, and at least one of those was the LP version. (Maybe two?) At some point in the song chart life, they switched from LP to 45, or just faded out early. Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" was the DJ edit throughout its chart life, not the commercial 45 version, much to the dismay of this particular record buyer... Murray Head's "One Night In Bangkok" began with an orchestra-type intro, then went straight into the vocals during the first verse. I'm not sure if that's the LP version, but it's certainly not the commercial 45. I believe that Don McLean's "American Pie" was the DJ edit of the song, which clocked in at 5 minutes or so. AT40 also used to occasionally edit songs to make the show segments fit into the allotted time. And not just during the year-end countdowns - this was year-round, and based on how much time they had to trim for a particular week. This is mentioned in Rob Durkee's book about American Top 40. On the plus side, the old AT40 shows are where I first discovered the 45 version of Eddie Money's "Two Tickets To Paradise", with extra guitar overdubs and a totally new vocal track with different words! I'd use the old shows as a guideline, or maybe a way to give yourself a red flag if you hear something you don't recognize. They're not a be-all, end-all, though. |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 8:35pm
|
To add - for much of the 70s, the show was only three hours long, so the show was a lot tighter for time. I heard them fade out midway through "Year Of The Cat" on one recent show. After about 1979, when they added the fourth hour, there was more time for full songs and long-distance dedications, etc.
In some cases, as crapfrom mentioned, the shows offer limited reference value. Last weekend, they played a 1988 countdown, which surprised me with the 5:00+ version of Def Leppard's "Hysteria." I guess that version existed on 45, though it wasn't the sole radio edit. On another note, I've noticed that today's AT40, with Seacrest, uses curious edits at times, such as the LP version of "How To Save A Life." Is there any pattern there? |
Posted By: cmmmbase
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 8:47pm
|
a quick note on "One Night In Bangkok". On the promo 45, there was a version with orchestral intro called the "US Radio Edit". The commercial 45 version was on the other side and was called "Original European Hit".
I also recall hearing the orchestral intro version on AT40 - searched for that version for years, but didn't find it until last year. I believe the LP version was a longer version of the orchestral into version... It's funny in that I also always heard the "Canadian" version of Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" not the "US" mix when it was out in 1986, though the "US" mix is the one that's by far most readily available on CD. |
Posted By: maciav
Date Posted: 05 April 2007 at 8:59pm
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This is the greatest. I have been listening to these Casey Kasem countdowns religiously on XM since last August when they debuted. Besides the edits, you will hear singles you just can't obtain on CD or hear anywhere else: "Butter Boy" by Fanny; "George Jackson" by Bob Dylan; the 45 version of Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" without the "mother"; Think's "Once You Understand"; Wing & A Prayer's "Babyface"; Eddie Schwartz's "All Our Tomorrows"; the 45 version of Honey Cone's "Want Ads", and scores and scores more. I am so glad XM brought these back. My old cassette recordings from the 70s and 80s have seen their better days so it is nice to hear the countdowns digitally. It is especially neat to hear some of the "Not Available on Domestic CD" songs from Pat's website. And if you have an XM MP3 player you can record some of these rare beauties. I hope if the merger with SIRIUS goes through that Casey Kasem won't go away! ------------- Mike C. from PA |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 06 April 2007 at 8:56am
|
Mike, that's nice to know that occasionally AT40 played single versions, single edits and that these old shows even include some songs that have never been on CD. Since you have made mp3s of all these great finds, I take it you've listened closely on headphones -- can you tell if the show used carts (i.e. tapes) for their sources or the actual 45s (with pops and clicks and all)?
On last night's show I only noticed a vinyl source on a song from the '50s (where they obviously had never received a cart source) but that was the only one I noticed, without listening on headphones, and so it seemed all these non-CD songs (and single mixes) I heard were all from tape sources! |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 06 April 2007 at 2:16pm
|
In Rob Durkee's book, he mentions that at the beginning, they produced the show in real time. For each segment, Casey and the records were recorded again and again if necessary.
I seem to remember him mentioning a move to carts, but I could be making that up. By the end of the show's inital run -- Shadoe Stevens' early-90s era -- Durkee says that all the songs were already on a computer for easy access. By that point, they were manipulating songs on a case-by-case, show-by-show basis. He mentioned how one week, the producers extended the intro to U2's "Mysterious Ways" some 50 or 60 times, as a bed under a Bono interview clip, before letting the song play on. So, in these cases, these were certainly not single versions. |
Posted By: sriv94
Date Posted: 06 April 2007 at 2:49pm
|
Was the show distributed on vinyl, though? I remember once while hearing the show on WLS in Chicago that during the playing of Barry Manilow's "Read 'Em And Weep," there was a skip.
(The Manilow tune never made it to WLS' playlist, but was carted up as it was played during their local survey countdown show.) ------------- Doug --------------- All of the good signatures have been taken. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 06 April 2007 at 3:39pm
| For most of the show's run it was distributed on vinyl (not sure if reel-to-reel was also available). I own a couple of them from 1984-85. I'm not sure when they first switched to CD, but I'm guessing around 1988-89. Occasionally I would hear a skip or better yet, the DJ would get the show out of sequence, which really sucked (one of my first radio gigs involved playing the weekly Dick Clark countdown show and I made damn sure that everything was in sequence and the show timed out to the second). |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 06 April 2007 at 5:27pm
| From 1970, for the first couple of years, the show was distributed on reel-to-reel. Within a couple years, they started pressing vinyl instead. Based on some shows I have, I know they were still pressing vinyl by late 1988, and that they had CDs available by sometime in 1989, probably with some overlap in the meantime. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 11:18am
|
Just FYI,
The first four-hour AT40 was October 7, 1978 and the first show distributed on CD was July 1, 1989. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 11:52am
|
Interesting.
Paul, When was the very first AT40? (I heard it was July 4th weekend, 1970 - is that true?) And when was the last show with Casey, before Shadoe Stevens took over? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 11:54am
|
<This is mentioned in Rob Durkee's book about American Top 40.>
What is the name of that book? I think I'd like to get it. Are there any other books on the subject of AT40 (I mean, other than the Whitburn chart books)? |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 2:25pm
I believe it was somewhere either on or close to 7/4/70. I have a recording somewhere, and I know #1 was "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)," if someone can cross-reference that. Rob Durkee's book is called "American Top 40: The Countdown Of The Century." Looks like it's out of print. It's expensive ($40) at amazon, but some half.com sellers have priced it more affordably. Pete Battistini also wrote a book called "American Top 40 With Casey Kasem (The 1970's)" that appears to be an encyclopedic look at each show. This is still in print. |
EdisonLite wrote:Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 5:30pm
|
Here's a link with a lot of information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40 |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 07 April 2007 at 6:01pm
The very first show was July 4, 1970. Casey's last show on the "original" AT40 was August 6, 1988. I consider Rob Durkee and Pete Battistini to be the authorities when it comes to AT40. Rob actually worked on the show and his book tells the story from beginning to end with lots of "behind-the-scenes" perspectives... also his "American Top 40 Fun & Games" website is quite entertaining. Battistini has the world's biggest and best private collection of AT40 shows and his book really goes into great detail about the contents of each show. I used to think I was the only one that was really into the show, but Rob and Pete blow me away with their knowledge and insight. |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 09 April 2007 at 10:58am
|
The books about AT40 are an eye-opener for long-time fans like me, and, presumably, most of you. (And not just because I'm mentioned in the acknowledgments of Rob Durkee's book - right before Debbie Gibson!)
eric_a asked about carts. For those of you that didn't work in radio years ago, carts (short for cartridges) were used universally for everything from IDs, promos, ads, and music all throughout the '70s through the '90s. On old reruns of Frasier, you can see the wall of tapes behind Roz - all full of carts, and typical for radio control rooms. They're the same size as 8-tracks, but the sound quality is broadcast quality, and the insides are configured a little differently. A radio station would usually record its own carts, so that they would have uniform levels, reliable start cues and so forth. The production guy at the station would "cart up" song additions to the playlist, so that they wouldn't wear out the records. Carts were usually pretty reliable and wouldn't skip, although we can all remember the cart deck getting mad and eating a cart. AT40 got their music on records, just like the radio stations. Most likely, they recorded their own carts, just like the radio stations as well. When CDs became more prominent in the late '80s, you would hear a credit that some of the music was provided by TM Century Hitdiscs, which (probably) continues to the present day. Also, the reel-to-reel distribution of the show lasted about a year-and-a-half. I have a vinyl LP show from November 1971, which is only the third week ever distributed on LP. |
Posted By: elcoleccionista
Date Posted: 09 April 2007 at 1:43pm
Interesting topic! Had not been reading for a while. I clearly remember Jody Watley's "Some Kind Of Lover" was played in both its remixed 45 and album versions during its run on AT40. |
Posted By: anthology123
Date Posted: 09 April 2007 at 4:20pm
|
Love to hear AT40 every weekend, but I opted to record Solid Gold Saturday
Night instead. Both were good shows. This could convince me to go with XM. |
Posted By: john halloran
Date Posted: 09 April 2007 at 5:00pm
|
Great posting edisonlite, more action on this post so quick than any in the year I've suscribed.
One thing to mention- as another way to get XM (at least for now-who knows after this merger) is through a DirectTV suscription-the receiver I received features two extra sets of RCA outputs, one of which feeds nicely into a CD burner. As to the issue of carts-at least on the 70's shows,I'd say no-I have several vinyl shows where I would hear noticeable "clonks" (for lack of a better technical description.) What is a "clonk"?? It is a major rumble of major low-frequency distortion, created from what I believe was the board operator leaving a pot open on the non-tracking turntable, while a second turntable was tracking (recording a record). The ham-handed operator would bump his hand or arm against the tonearm pickup while back-cuing the next record (I've never heard a back-cue come up on a show-those they probably edited out). I'm sure they were burdened with production and distribution deadlines so they let those pass. I originally attributed those clonks to the station that aired the show, until I bought a few shows years back at a record show. If carts were being cued this would have been avoided. I dont know about the 80's shows-I dont have any. I think this was mentioned in the Durkee book, but in the early years they almost exclusively relied on commercial stock copies (Durkee mentions "An American Trilogy" as an anecdote-they could never find a clean copy!). I dont have this as gospel but it probably wasnt until the third or fourth year of the show,when they could deliver 300 stations (and the ears that went with them)that the major labels must have decided it was in the labels and their artists best interests to supply AT-40 with DJ-promos, rather than taking their chances on AT-40's edits (although some weren't that bad). This also partially explains why sometimes in the early years a LP-version was played in the first week or two of a song's chart run-they couldnt find the 45! Anyway-as an old-time AT-40 fan-a great post. |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 10 April 2007 at 7:44am
|
Okay, can't resist coming out of hiding for this one. :-) I can definitely credit "AT40" and its sister weekend TV show, "America's Top 10" (also hosted by CK), w/ getting me started as a music collector, back in '82 - w/ a nod to the TV countdown show "Solid Gold" as well. I, too, began writing down the songs each week, as well as taping my favorite songs from the show - but after about six or eight months, I finally decided it would just be easier (and a little less time-consuming) to simply track down this "Billboard" magazine that Casey's countdown shows were based on. And lo & behold, in May of '83, I found it for sale at my local bookstore in SoCal. Even though the cover price was a pretty steep $3, I was instantly hooked, and have been buying the mag every week since (managed to save every issue, too - just wish it was still $3 a week, lol). But for several years, I still continued to watch CK on TV and tune in almost every weekend to hear him count down the entire top 40 on good ol' KIIS-FM Los Angeles, though...
Just three months ago, in January, I actually bought my first copy of the "AT40" radio show from a seller on eBay - it's the 3-LP box set from September 2, 1972, complete w/ original cue sheets. (The seller was even kind enough to include a CD-R copy of the entire show in the box.) These original radio shows ain't cheap, though, so I don't intend to make a habit of buying/collecting them, but I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a few from the early to mid '80s, just for the memories (alas, I don't currently subscribe to XM radio, but that's very cool that they've brought the old shows back!)...
Since a fellow poster here on Pat's board was kind enough to help me in a book search of my own a couple years ago, I'll add that yes, there is one more that no one here has mentioned yet. I first stumbled across it in a used bookstore about ten years ago, and at the time, had no idea it even existed - it's titled "Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Yearbook", edited by Don Bustany & Jay Goldsworthy. It's a softcover, and was published by Target Books in the Spring of '79. Cover price was $4.95; ISBN no. is 0-448-15575-3. The only problem w/ that copy I found: unfortunately, it was missing a page... :-( I, too, have Durkee's book (bought it not too long after it came out in '99, which was a few years after I found the yearbook), and much to my surprise, I discovered he actually tells about the above yearbook on pgs. 117-118, for those here who want to learn more about it. (According to Durkee, only 20,000 copies were published, so it's quite rare - who knows how many survive today???) Ah, but a few months ago, I started tracking "AT40" shows & memorabilia on eBay, and to my surprise, an eBay seller had another copy of the yearbook, and w/ a "Buy It Now" price that was dirt cheap - so I grabbed it, and now have a complete copy to replace the old one. :-) I noticed yet a third copy turned up in eBay stores last month, and I just checked eBay for that one again, and it appears that one also sold, as I no longer see it listed. :-( However, I'm willing to trade my original copy w/ the missing page (and will gladly include photocopies of both sides of that page from my complete copy), if interested, EdisonLite... |
Posted By: sriv94
Date Posted: 10 April 2007 at 8:03am
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One question that I don't think has been answered here: What time do the shows air on XM? ------------- Doug --------------- All of the good signatures have been taken. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 10 April 2007 at 9:47am
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<One question that I don't think has been answered here: What time do the shows air on XM?>
The '70s shows air at Saturday 12 pm EST & Wednesday 10 pm (on the '70s channel, 7). The '80s shows air at Sunday 12 pm EST & Thursday 10 pm (on the '80s channel, 8). |
Posted By: torcan
Date Posted: 10 April 2007 at 1:24pm
|
I started watching "America's Top 10" during summer 1980, and heard "American Top 40" for the first time in early '81. I got my first issue of Billboard in summer 1981 and collected them right up until about 2003. To be honest, I don't really like much of today's Top 40 music, and it was too expensive and took up too much room for me to continue collecting it. About 10 years ago I found a used bookstore that had old issues from about '77-80 and picked those up at a pretty good price. I'd love to get older issues from the '70s if I could ever find any!!
I listened to Casey every Sunday morning, and most weeks followed along in Billboard. (There were a few weeks here and there where a couple of songs were in different positions on Casey's countdown than Billboard indicated, but Rob Durkee briefly mentions those in his book). What I found is that, if a song was on the countdown long enough, you'd usually hear the longer album version at least once during its time in the top 40. They actually edited songs quite frequently. It's been noted that the Year-End Top 100 countdown usually contained edited songs, but sometimes regular countdowns would as well. I guess if that particular hour was running late they'd edit down a couple of songs. They almost certainly used promos during the '80s. Sometimes they'd play shorter "radio edits" of songs where the 45 was the longer album version. What wonderful memories I had of listening every week...in fact, my name was mentioned on the show during November 1984 with a trivia question I sent in! I guess I've got to go and get satellite radio now to hear them all again! |
Posted By: 80smusicfreak
Date Posted: 11 April 2007 at 7:51pm
I know what you mean! I've considered giving up "Billboard" myself a few times now in the last five years, but every now and then it still has some great articles that appeal to me, so I've kept on - geez, that mag has been a part of well over more than half my life now! But I definitely don't follow the charts as religiously as I used to, since like you, I've also become quite disenfranchised w/ today's music - I buy very little "current" music nowadays, and whenever I do hear something I like (e.g., Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", etc.), of course it's almost never available as a (domestic) commercial single... :-( BTW, if I may get up on my soapbox for a moment, I HIGHLY recommend a new indie documentary that just came out this past November to all folks here on Pat's chat board who are also dismayed by the current state of pop music here in the U.S.: Buy the DVD titled "Before the Music Dies" (a.k.a. "B4MD"), made by B-side Entertainment! This film is a fascinating/informative/tragic look at where pop music is at today, filled w/ interviews & performances from rock legends (and some not-so-famous, but legitimately talented), past and present - I got mine a few months ago! For more detailed info, head over to www.beforethemusicdies.com; you can also order it from Amazon...
Ditto! (Make that pre-May of '83 for me...)
Yes! I distinctly remember one such example in the Summer of '83 when I was listening closely to Casey's countdown one Sunday a.m. and one of my all-time faves got snubbed on "AT40" in its second (and it turned out final) week in the top 40 on the "Hot 100", and he then made the correction to listeners the following week...
Cool - I probably heard it then, lol... |
Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 12 April 2007 at 12:30pm
| I haven't chimed in on this post until now, but I wholeheartedly share all of your wonderful memories of the program - it was on every Sunday night in my area. Thanks to this post, I was able to pop on the XM radio on my DirecTV last night, and hear a commercial-free AT40 countdown from 4/3/1971. An absolute pleasure to hear again - thanks for the info! |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 13 April 2007 at 8:26pm
|
I'm a little late joining this discussion too, but I was actually a huge fan of American Top 40 during the Shadoe Stevens era from 1988-1995. Back when I was a young buck aspiring to become the next Casey Kasem in radio, I would try my darndest to emulate Shadoe's deep, powerful voice but my teenage vocal chords could only go so low! ;-) Anyway, my family and I were stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany from 1988-1991 and I looked to Shadoe and AT40 to keep me in tune with the most popular songs in the U.S. I'd listen religiously to the show for four hours every Saturday evening on the Armed Forces Network's FM dial and would write down each song as they were counted down from #40 to #1 (I know, I didn't have much of a social life back then!). The show was instrumental in launching the huge interest I have in Top 40 music and the Billboard charts to this day!
For what it's worth, I have purchased a handful of actual AT40 broadcasts on CD from eBay over the years and they usually don't sell cheap. But it's always a real treat to re-live those old shows I used to listen to on my boom box's FM dial every weekend whiled locked away in my bedroom! |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 14 April 2007 at 9:13am
| I asked a friend with XM how the sound quality compares to FM radio. And he said FM sounds better than XM. Is this true?? I'd like a few opinions on that before committing to pay for XM. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 14 April 2007 at 3:29pm
|
EdisonLite, that is a very good question, and it's one of the reasons I don't subscribe to XM or Sirius. Both of them sound WORSE than FM. My fiance had a free one-year subscription to Sirius when she leased her Jeep. One of the first things I noticed is how awful it sounds.
Yes, it's true that you get far more variety than what's found on regular FM stations. What I don't like about their marketing campaign (and I don't know if they still use this) is how they over-emphasize the "pure digital sound." This is a gimmick to trick the ignorant listener. Yes, it is a digital signal, but what they don't tell you is that it's compressed down to (my guess) about 48 kbps. They have to compress the "digital" information down a LOT in order to send 100 channels to your radio. Consumer beware! There are many claims (including some by HD stations) that digital sound is equal to CD quality, which is just not true. The bit rate of a CD is 1411 kbps, which is nearly 30x the bit rate of XM or Sirius. I'm not sure what HD sounds like, but I guarantee it isn't true CD quality. I don't think technology has advanced enough to be able to send that much information fast enough via the Internet or digital radio. I just hope that HD uses at LEAST compression rates of 128 kbps or better. |
Posted By: Santi Paradoa
Date Posted: 14 March 2020 at 3:51pm
|
I just listened to a classic AT40 on SiriusXM from March 12th, 1977 and heard Casey correct three of the positions he had counted down earlier. Sure enough, when I check the official chart for that date the three songs he updated chart positions for were not as originally counted down. I probably was listening back in 1977 but do not remember him stopping the countdown to make these changes after a phone call from Billboard magazine with the update. BTW, the three songs were at numbers 32, 28 and 26. And now on with the countdown. ------------- Santi Paradoa Miami, Florida |
Posted By: PopArchivist
Date Posted: 14 March 2020 at 9:11pm
Just my two cents in 2020. I wouldn't pay for XM, Spotify or any streaming service or anything that controls how and what availability the music is disseminated, even if it sounds good. Not too old fashioned that I want vinyl, but not naive enough to think that paying for music that I cant own and the artist can pull anytime is worth it. Even with a free trial I passed. I listen to FM. It's free. If you like older music, burn a CD. Better quality. Or buy a 256 IPOD Touch full of lossless music and carry it with you. Much better investment and listening experience.... ------------- Favorite two expressions to live by on this board: "You can't download vinyl" and "Not everything is available on CD." |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 15 March 2020 at 3:41am
|
Just a heads up, Mixcloud has several classic American Top
40 shows for streaming. I think some get removed from time to time, but others will pop up too. I hate it when the local oldies station will cut-off the first hour to fit it in to the 3 hour time slot. Some of the best songs are in that first hour! |
Posted By: Bill Cahill
Date Posted: 15 March 2020 at 5:04am
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They run here, https://www.iheart.com/live/classic-american-top-40-6545/ - iheartradio , these are the same restored versions played on FM stations
each week. 80's run more than 70's, some shows are completely restored from vinyl, some have songs replaced by CD sources. The channel gets updated from time to time, when the person responsible for it has some free time. Close to 200 shows are rotating. The 80's countdowns are the complete 4 hour versions. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 15 March 2020 at 8:36am
I listen to those too. However, there's too much repetition and you can't pick and choose or fast-forward, etc. I wish there was a site that just had them all uploaded for streaming. |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 15 March 2020 at 9:05am
|
Someone mentioned early in the thread about the show being
done in real-time. As I recall reading somewhere, Dick Clark filled in as host around 1972 and was amazed that it was done that way vs. recording the vocal tracks ahead of time (an early type of voice-tracking.) I believe after than point that Casey also recorded his vocal tracks ahead of time. I could be wrong. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: LunarLaugh
Date Posted: 15 March 2020 at 7:22pm
FWIW, there are a lot of scoped versions from many various years uploaded on to YouTube. Not ideal, but better than none at all. ------------- https://thelunarlaugh.bandcamp.com/ - Listen to The Lunar Laugh! |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 3:51am
That is exactly right, John. IIRC, that story is in Rob Durkee's book (which I highly recommend). |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 3:52am
|
The scoped versions on YouTube are good too. Still nice
to hear the full songs though. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 6:01am
Well, the "dead dog" rant from circa 1976 seems to indicate he was pre-recording his tracks by then. Makes sense, the show sounded very scripted to me...why waste your star's time sitting thru songs when he can get his part "in the can" and let the producers assemble the show. |
Posted By: jebsib
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 7:57am
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I think hundreds of those scoped AT40s on YouTube got pulled off.
I can only find a few on there this year. |
Posted By: Paul Haney
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 10:13am
Actually, the "dead dog" fiasco was in 1985. I'm not sure of the exact date when Casey started recording his voice tracks, but the Dick Clark show was March 5, 1972, so it was shortly after that date. I faithfully listened to AT40 every single week starting in August 1974. I had heard the show before that, but that was the first time that I wrote down the Top 40 and started keeping my weekly stats. I'm not sure exactly when I stopped listening every week, probably around 1985 or so. I would still listen when I could, but would get the charts from my local library. That show was a perfect training ground for my career at Record Research. |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 12:17pm
|
Yes, the dog rant was 1985. And, the uptempo record that
Casey complained about was "Dare Me" from the Pointer Sisters. ------------- John Gallagher Erie, PA https://www.johngallagher.com" rel="nofollow - John Gallagher Wedding & Special Event Entertainment / Snapblast Photo Booth |
Posted By: thecdguy
Date Posted: 16 March 2020 at 12:25pm
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Yes, the dog incident was a long distance dedication to a
dog named Snuggles who had passed and the song played was Henry Gross' "Shannon" which was a hit in 1976 and also about a dog who had passed. It was on the countdown for the week of September 14, 1985 and iHeart Radio just happened to play it yesterday. As I was listening to it, I could hear the tone of Casey's voice and at certain points it seemed as if he wasn't too happy about doing it. IIRC, he was upset that the dedication immediately followed an uptempo song (The Pointer Sisters' "Dare Me"). But its placement on the countdown wasn't moved and still was played after The Pointer Sisters' song. |
Posted By: RoknRobnLoxley
Date Posted: 17 March 2020 at 6:34am
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I started listening to AT40 in early 1974 (till the end of 1979). My local radio station had stopped doing their own weekly countdown, fired the DJ's, and went with that Drake-Chenault robo-DJ format, ugh.
The Durkee AT40 book is a great read and a hoot. Lots of inside stories, some reveals on Billboard manipulations/shenanigans (Andy Gibb). Got a used copy off Amazon that was a library copy, in fab shape. Expensive now, but keep after it for a good price, it's a great book for us chart freaks. The Battistini AT40 books are fab too, both the 70s and the 80s. Good to have all those special AT40 countdowns documented. I too wish someone would make all the AT40 shows available, especially the special countdowns (I still have several on cassette that I taped off air in the 70s). |