American Top 40
American Top 40: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!
The inaugural episode of Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” aired the weekend of July 4, 1970. The show featured the best-selling and most-played songs in the United States for the week of July 11, according to Billboard magazine.
That format hadn’t changed much by the week of July 11, 1981, 30 years ago this week.
Back in those days, my father acquired the AT40 record set that was played on WHHY in Montgomery, and I revisited this 30-year-old treasure over the weekend.
The four-hour program was delivered to its affiliate radio stations in a blue box with the week’s date and program number stamped on the cover. Inside are four records, complete with national commercials and room for local spots to play.
In these days of digital delivery, it is hard to believe a DJ had to actually drop a needle on a vinyl record for “hour 2, segment 3”. But that’s the way it was.
What is even harder to believe is the variety found in that top 40 countdown. Today, although a country artist like Brad Paisley seems to be successful everywhere, he probably wouldn’t appear twice in a countdown like Kenny Rogers did back in ’81. Ronnie Milsap and John Schneider are among the other country artists on the pop chart from back then, as well.
Similarly, jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour appeared. Jazz on the radio? How about The Manhattan Transfer’s version of “Boy from New York City,” which showed up at #16.
Neil Diamond is there with “America,” and the Moody Blues with “Gemini Dream”. The Carpenters sang their final hit “Touch Me When We’re Dancing,” and “Believe it or Not,” by Joey Scarbury, was the one and only top 10 appearance by that artist.
The top 5 songs were by Hall & Oates, Rick Springfield, Air Supply, George Harrison, and Kim Carnes.
I checked the current AT40, hosted by Ryan Seacrest. While Adele sits atop the chart and could have fit into that 1981 countdown, I doubt seriously that Wiz Khalifa, Lupe Fiasco or Britney Spears would have made it. But that is the absolute beauty of the top 40: they are always the songs that are selling and being played on radio stations.
In the words of Casey Kasem, “keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars!
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Great memories!!!!
99.9 out of Auburn plays a random 80′s show Saturday mornings.
Casey sounded so stiff on those first shows. You could tell he was really trying to be “precise” and “professional”. He loosened up, but it was very gradual (several years).
Today, lots of music is just vulgar. I try not to listen, but it’s hard to do so when they guy next to you on the boulevard is blasting. But that’s another subject…..
Casey was also the voice of “Shaggy” on Scooby Doo. Of course AT40 was the gig that made him famous. I won one of those AT40 vinyl sets off of Y-102 back in the day. I wish I still had it.
Grew up listening to AT40 on WKMX out of Enterprise. I enjoy listening to the 70s-80s AT40 broadcast on SiriusXM. I would love to know how many times “Wind Beneath My Wings” was the requested Long Distance Dedication. The Long Distance Dedications always cracked me up.
The funniest outtake, if you can find it somewhere, is when Casey Kasem is doing a Long Distance Dedication about a dog dying, and it comes after an uptempo record. He absolutely freaks out, starts going off on his producer, and unleashes a blue streak of profanity that you’d never expect “Shaggy” to say to Scooby Doo.
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