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AT 40 Turns 40

Re: AT 40 Turns 40-July 4th or 11th?

In listening to the syndicated re-run of "American Top 40 - The '70s", Casey's son mentioned the week as July 11th, 1970. This bears out as the #1 song was "Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Three Dog Night. On Casey Kasem's final countdown show a few years ago (2005?), he mentioned that the first #1 song he played was "Mama Told Me Not To Come". The #1 song on the chart for the week ending July 4th, 1970 was "The Love You Save" by The Jackson 5. Maybe they were using the chart from the next week, having already been compiled, but not yet published in Billboard Magazine.
 
Lots of R&B was on the charts in July of 1970. The most powerful one was "Ball of Confusion" by The Temptations. Also of note was "Band of Gold" by Freda Payne, the first hit on Invictus Records, which was headed up by Holland-Dozier-Holland, the long-time Motown writing team. The same team were also behind Hot Wax Records and they had my favorite song on this Top 40... "WESTBOUND #9" by FLAMING EMBER, who were a Rock band that dabbled in Blue-Eyed Soul, and enjoyed hits on the R&B charts as well. Then there was "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps which was flying up the chart on its way into the Top 10. Also flying up the chart was "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" by Stevie Wonder. "Loveland", the best song done by Charles Wright and The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, was in the Top 20. I believe that Mr. Wright and his band were brought to Warner Brothers Records by Bill Cosby. They had a lesser hit on a smaller label before. The luckiest song on this Top 40 had to be "End of Our Road" by Marvin Gaye. It spent the first of its 2-weeks at #40 before falling off, so that means it got played on the first two shows produced.
 
Re: AT 40 Turns 40-July 4th or 11th?

johnbasalla said:
Maybe they were using the chart from the next week, having already been compiled, but not yet published in Billboard Magazine.
Click to expand...

I believe you are right. According to the Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Top_40 they aired the show on July 4th, but were using the chart from the 11th. I don't quite understand that either.
 
I do remember about 10 years or so ago, when AT40 was using R&R, I could go online a couple of weeks in advance and see what the top 40 was going to be 2 weeks from now, so the chart companies seem to work (or at least used to) work ahead of time. It almost seems "this weeks" Top 40 was really "2 weeks ago's" Top 40. (Even though "The Week Of _____ is the actual published date.)

It seems overall, the countdown was always recorded the same week the chart was compiled, so that the countdown program would air the same week the chart was released, so they would be coordinated.

I guess the radio show and the charts had to both give themselves a couple of weeks to get their materials shipped out.
 
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