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A Chart Oddity?

Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
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URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=502
Printed Date: 06 April 2025 at 1:01am
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Topic: A Chart Oddity?

Posted By: JMD1961
Subject: A Chart Oddity?
Date Posted: 08 November 2005 at 7:47pm

Recently, we were discussing how to handle airplay hits from the 90s. Well, while researching that era, I've come across what (to me at least) has to be the strangest example of, not only a top 40 hit, but of a #1, as well.

In 1992, Cashbox charted a song by Wayne Newton called "The Letter". All total, it spent 31 weeks on the chart, making it all the way to #1 in December.

I've been able to find no other reference of this song on any other chart I've researched. So, where did this oddity come from? You'd think that for it to do that well on Cashbox, it would have had to at least chart on Billboard. Right?

Replies:

Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 09 November 2005 at 12:38am

Do you mean 1972? That would be a real oddity if you really meant 1992. I don't think Cashbox was even around in the '90s.

Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 09 November 2005 at 3:07am

Nope, I mean 1992. Cashbox lasted until 1996.

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/randypny/cashbox/

Not only that, but I have a copy of "Cashbox Pop Singles Charts 1950-1993", a Whitburn like listing of the chart data (co-written by Pat Downey, in fact), and the song is listed in it.

Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 09 November 2005 at 5:50am

Oh, yeah, I've seen that before. It's well known that, in its latter days at least, Cash Box was under the influence of organized crime. The Letter didn't even Bubble Under in Billboard -- it came out of nowhere in Cash Box, quickly rose to the top, displacing Whitney's "I Will Always Love You" for one week, then quickly dropped off and disappeared.

But much worse things happened at Cash Box: the 1989 murder of their chart director Kevin Hughes. He may have only been their country chart director, I'm not sure. Last year a jury convicted former Cash Box chart director Richard D'Antonio of his murder, and he received a life sentence.

http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section=9&screen =news&news_id=26840

Metzgar testified Tuesday that Cashbox was, in fact, fixing its charts in the late 1980s. He said the magazine would add artists to its charts in exchange for payment from both promoters and the artists themselves.
"The minimum amount for six to seven weeks on the chart was $2,500," Metzgar said.

D'Antonio, who had been the Cash Box chart director prior to Hughes, was partnered in a record promotion business with a man named Chuck Dixon. The prosecution claimed Dixon regularly accepted large sums of money from clients eager to see their names on the independent country charts. D'Antonio, they said, then manipulated the data he was receiving from radio stations, sometimes paying stations to report records that were never played. The connection between Chuck Dixon (who died of cancer in 2001), and the Cash Box charts was supposedly so widely known that some Nashville insiders took to calling the trade magazine "Chuck Box."

Prosecutors alleged that when Kevin Hughes signed on as chart director, he attempted to legitimize the charts. That, argued the prosecution, threatened the defendant's gravy train.

Other sources claim Hughes was actually planning to go public with the fact that the charts were fixed. I'm unclear if this refers to all Cash Box charts or just their country charts. But obviously somebody paid someone to get Wayne Newton's "The Letter" single on the Cash Box Top 100.

Posted By: JMD1961
Date Posted: 09 November 2005 at 2:27pm

Whoa.

Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 20 June 2016 at 11:15pm

As terrible as this song is, I thought it would be a nice addition to my collection, given the history. Here are the details:

CURBD-1008
1. non-described version (listed & actual 4:29)

-------------
Aaron Kannowski
http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound
http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop

Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 21 June 2016 at 8:33am

Aaron is this a cd single, cassette single or vinyl single?

Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 21 June 2016 at 8:43am

Hey Pat, I should've clarified in my post that it's a promotional CD single.

-------------
Aaron Kannowski
http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound
http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop

Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 21 June 2016 at 10:42am

Brian W. wrote:

It's well known that, in its latter days at least, Cash Box was under the influence of organized crime.

I re-read the earlier posts (which I haven't read in almost 11 years) and this got me thinking, how much good could this have done Wayne Newton? If he performed it in concerts or discussed it at parties or in conversations and said, "I just had the #1 song in the country, 'The Letter'", anyone he told who'd been listening to the radio at all wouldn't recognize the song and would think he was making it up. So it makes me wonder how much of a booster this was for his career, and if the money spent (presumably by him or his team?) was even worth it. Like, did he make up for it in extra ticket sales. I kind of doubt it. I mean why would a fan who didn't hear any new song of his on the radio be more inclined to buy a concert ticket?