AMERICAN TOP 40-THE 70's MAJOR SCREW-UP! 10/13/73

[NoWayNoCC]

And playing, supposing this is so, a wrong cut on a show produced every week with just a few day's turnaround schedule and with no digital delivery or modern convenience is hardly a "Major screw up." Stuff like that happened... amazingly not that often... to all of us in the business back then.

It actually happens more often now.

 

[davideduardo]

It actually happens more often now.

No, it does not. Records miscued, carts that did not cue and play silence, EOM tones audikble on the air, tapes loaded tails in when the label said tails out. 45s at 33. Cue burn. Skipping records when the jock was in the john. Whup, whup, whup in the background on a badly erased cart. Wrong copy on the cart. Time carts out of sync on an automation system. Yesterday's weather in the weather deck. Tape breaks while airing,or cart tape breaks, winding around the capstan and changing the speed of the next cart. Back timing did not quite work... Caller swore in pre-delay days, or caller swore and tape delay had not been started. That's the 60s and most of us did or lived through every one of these.

 

[NoWayNoCC]

No, it does not. Records miscued, carts that did not cue and play silence, EOM tones audikble on the air, tapes loaded tails in when the label said tails out. 45s at 33. Cue burn. Skipping records when the jock was in the john. Whup, whup, whup in the background on a badly erased cart. Wrong copy on the cart. Time carts out of sync on an automation system. Yesterday's weather in the weather deck. Tape breaks while airing,or cart tape breaks, winding around the capstan and changing the speed of the next cart. Back timing did not quite work... Caller swore in pre-delay days, or caller swore and tape delay had not been started. That's the 60s and most of us did or lived through every one of these.

I hear CD's skipping and outdated weather forecasts all the time.

 

[firepoint525]

One week I heard Kenny Rogers "Lucille" with literally the first verse and the last chorus, with the rest of the song sliced out. Must have run one minute.

IIRC, when AT40 moved to the four hour format, the show started with a recap of the top three songs of the previous week. That segment is, of course removed from the show in the reruns we hear today. Depending how many "AT40 extras" and long distance dedications per show, those can be dropped. Suposedly the reason for the expansion to four hours was songs getting longer since the debut 1n 1970.

That has always been the official story. To play 40 songs in three hours requires at least 13 songs an hour, with 14 songs in one of the three hours. I remember my local affiliate station carrying it with the first two minutes of the top of the hour network news (up to the first break). They may have even had a quick weather forecast before rejoining the countdown.

 

[firepoint525]

IIRC, American Top 40 did not have network/barter commercials until sometime in the mid-eighties...it was all cash for the stations that aired it.

AT40 was developed by Tom Rounds as the first successful barter-based program right from the get-go. The early revenue stream was spotty, so stations, particularly in smaller markets, paid for the show... but the barter model was always there.

If they had to pay for the program now, they wouldn't shut it away in the early hours of weekend mornings like they do now. My local affiliate used to carry it on Sunday afternoons, but eventually, Sunday afternoons belonged to major league baseball. When they launched their FM station, they moved Casey there. But by then, they were shoving the countdown away in early morning weekend hours.

 

[viper452]

"IIRC, when AT40 moved to the four hour format, the show started with a recap of the top three songs of the previous week. That segment is, of course removed from the show in the reruns we hear today."

I just heard that part of the segment today

 

[CTListener]

I looked it up, and that Marvin Gaye/Diana Ross duet "only" reached #12! A little surprising, considering that both of them were coming off recent #1 hits, "Let's Get It On" and "Touch Me in the Morning," respectively.

I'm wondering if that substituted title was ever even released as a single. It couldn't really be considered a "stiff" if it never even had a chance to become a hit.

Marvin and Diana's voices weren't a particularly pleasing combination and I never sensed any chemistry there. Tammi Terrell and Kim Weston were much better fits, at least to these ears, and the charts would seem to indicate that I wasn't alone. I love Marvin and Diana's "My Mistake" as a song, but every time I hear it I wish Tammi had lived to be the duet partner.

(OOPS! Just noticed that the previous poster had revived an ancient thread. Too late to delete. Grrrrr....)

 

[Starbucks]

Marvin never actually recorded that song "Your A Special Part Of Me" together in the studio with Diana. They actually couldn't stand each other at that time and was recorded the way that Barbra and Neil's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" first version was. Tracks recorded indvidually and spliced together. Then released as a single.

 

[firepoint525]

Marvin never actually recorded that song "Your A Special Part Of Me" together in the studio with Diana. They actually couldn't stand each other at that time and was recorded the way that Barbra and Neil's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" first version was. Tracks recorded indvidually and spliced together. Then released as a single.

You are correct that the Barbra and Neil recording started out that way. But eventually, they were brought into the studio together to create a new recording of the song, and it was that new recording which was released as a single. The dj who created the original spliced recording actually sued CBS over their "theft" of his idea. (Wouldn't it have been embarrassing for a male vocalist to have a solo song with the title "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" on his album?)

The Michael McDonald/Patti Labelle duet "On My Own" was indeed created with the two singers in separate studios. (The split-screen for the video is actually quite clever.) I am not sure if they ever met.

 

[hornet61]

Sinatra refused to do the "Duets" CD with the other participants...they were all shot separate.
One of the best ones did not make the "Duets" final cut Frank Sinatra and George Strait..."Fly me To The Moon"......but, not to worry, it was included in the George Strait Boxed set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3womIStZk

 

[semoochie]

Probably one of the coolest things I ever saw on television was when, with no introduction, Barbra Streisand suddenly appeared on one side of the stage and Neil Diamond on the other and they went into that song! It was priceless!

 

[Scoobyfan1]

Is cool when Casey welcomes and mentions long defunct stations

Listening to all the old countdown shows, I do enjoy hearing all those old station mentions, especially when they're defunct stations(I think there were a few defunct stations even in the Seattle-Tacoma area where I live; like once casey mentioned the old 106.9 KHIT, which is now an adult contemporary station known as Warm 106.9).

Speaking of those, as a Casey Kasem fan(probably because of his cartoon work ;D when XM started to run his old countdowns I started to write down station mentions(or as many mentions as I could from each show they would rerun; I have an XM reciever which is able to record audio, so that's pretty easy).

I started writing mentions down in a bunch of notebooks, but I recycled those; although I still have a bunch of notebooks that I write mentions in every so often too.

 

[FreddyE1977]

I managed to catch a Classic Top 40 this weekend. Even though it was digitally remastered, for the first
time since I was a kid I heard that familiar old friend, the vinyl "pop and click" on a record by The Temptations.
Was familiar and comforting in an odd sort of way.

I did notice however that the AT 40 theme music (not the jingles but the instrumental theme) had been replaced
by some similar but very cheesy sounding synthesizer tracks. Copyright issues I presume?