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AT TOP 40 Of the 60's

S

Starbucks

Before Kasey Kasem debuted with his countdown in 1970.....was there a countdown show coast to coast or regionally back in the 60's which was based on a trade magazine?
 
"Before Kasey Kasem debuted with his countdown in 1970.....was there a countdown show coast to coast or regionally back in the 60's which was based on a trade magazine"

I don't think so, because there wasn't one on the air in LA, and I'm sure one of the 4 of 5 Top 40 stations in the market at that time would have run such a show on the weekends, if it existed.

I can tell you that Casey was the fill-in and weekend guy on KRLA for a couple of years leading up to AT40 - and he did virtually the same countdown show with the same elements, except the number ratings were from the trade mag called "Cash Box," not Billboard. And of course, AT40 had the AT40 jingles and musical signatures, not KRLA jingles. Otherwise, the show was virtually the same. Perhaps Casey turned up the schmaltz a little for AT40 - KRLA was considered a hip station for the time, and had brought some FM album rock elements into their programming, so Casey was definitely the squarest DJ there.

Programming genius Ron Jacobs (PD at KHJ, and later KGB) gets a lot of credit for AT40, and perhaps he deserves it for selling the show so successfully around the country. But the show's format was Casey's baby all the way.
 
Remember the good ole days, when you used to be able to listen to AT 40 on Sunday afternoons? Nowadays, if you want to listen to these type programs, you must set your alarm, so that you can be up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings to listen! How many of you do that? I never did!
 
Lkeller said:
"Before Kasey Kasem debuted with his countdown in 1970.....was there a countdown show coast to coast or regionally back in the 60's which was based on a trade magazine"

I don't think so, because there wasn't one on the air in LA, and I'm sure one of the 4 of 5 Top 40 stations in the market at that time would have run such a show on the weekends, if it existed.

I can tell you that Casey was the fill-in and weekend guy on KRLA for a couple of years leading up to AT40 - and he did virtually the same countdown show with the same elements, except the number ratings were from the trade mag called "Cash Box," not Billboard. And of course, AT40 had the AT40 jingles and musical signatures, not KRLA jingles. Otherwise, the show was virtually the same. Perhaps Casey turned up the schmaltz a little for AT40 - KRLA was considered a hip station for the time, and had brought some FM album rock elements into their programming, so Casey was definitely the squarest DJ there.

>>>>I thought there was some type of countdown containing the Cashbox charts....but I didn't think Casey had anything to do with that. I guess that could've been experimental for the upcoming syndicate AT 40. I would love to hear those airchecks of those countdowns of the late 60's if they were available.
The interesting thing is why it took so long till 1970 to come up with a show like AT 40. Over 15 years went by as far as your favorite pop and rock hit records charted.
Programming genius Ron Jacobs (PD at KHJ, and later KGB) gets a lot of credit for AT40, and perhaps he deserves it for selling the show so successfully around the country. But the show's format was Casey's baby all the way.
Click to expand...
 
I'm old enough to remember and I can't specifically recall any "syndicated" countdown show prior to the debut of AT-40. (There could have been one, but I don't remember hearing one).

Most Top 40 stations had their own music surveys, (usually based on the compiling of sales reports from the major record stores in a town) and would count down the survey either on a nightly and/or weekly basis locally.

I know this because when I was a kid, I managed to get a copy of the local Top 40's station's "sales report" that it sent to the record stores.
 
"I thought there was some type of countdown containing the Cashbox charts....but I didn't think Casey had anything to do with that."

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it was Cashbox that Casey used before AT40. But he was not syndicated then - it was a local show on KRLA in Los Angeles - if you didn't live in SoCal in the late 60s, you wouldn't have heard him.

Speaking of Casey - Last night 20/20 did an interesting report on anger. For fun, they ran some infamous celebrity outbursts...Alec Baldwin yelling at his daughter, etc. They included the famous Kasem outburst on AT40, when he trashes people on his staff. It never got on the air, of course, but some sneaky engineer saved it, and made sure the world got to hear it. 20/20 bleeped the 4 letter words, of course.
 
I don't remember any syndicated shows on the radio at all (at least top40 genre) growing up. (There was a pedccessor to "Poweline", a religious show called "Sillhouette"). CKLW ran the Big 30 countdown on Tuesday nights, as I recall. They still played "Goldens",and due to where I lived, I never got to hear the end due to the pattern change.
 
"...a religious show called 'Sillhouette' "

The host was "Brother John" Rydgren - a Presbyterian minister who probably got into radio because he was blessed with one of the best voices (deep bass) ever. In LA, he hosted another hip, rather psychedelic religious program called "Heaven is in Your Mind.", and was the original voice of the album rock "Love" FM format that ABC radio tried for a few years on their O&O stations. He also jocked and did a lot of voice work.

http://www.laradio.com/wherer.htm
 
"Sillhouette" aired Sunday nights at 10:30 on WOWO, and like Powerline, interspersed current hits with the religious message. Also heard it on vacation on WOKY, Milwaukee one Sunday morning. Would love to hear an aircheck of it. I just remember one segment discussing "the hippie version of the creation of the world". Thanks much of the info on the "other Brother (John)"
 
Shadoe Stevens did a tribute to Brother John on AT-40 upon his passing.

It's mentioned in the book about the American Top 40 that I have here at house...
 
firepoint525 said:
Remember the good ole days, when you used to be able to listen to AT 40 on Sunday afternoons? Nowadays, if you want to listen to these type programs, you must set your alarm, so that you can be up at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings to listen! How many of you do that? I never did!
Click to expand...

At the tail end of the original AT40, I heard it on WPGC (FM and AM) Morningside, Maryland (Washington DC market). This was when I was a Marine Corps Officer Candidate at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Va. I, being a good radio geek, brought my Radio Shack portable with me to OCS. When I tuned it to 'PGC-FM on Sunday mornings, EVERYONE knew who Casey was...and asked me to turn it up! I believe it ran from 8 to 11 AM Sunday mornings on WPGC, which was a unique station in its own right in that it was a tandem AM/FM operation...starting life on 1580 AM as a daytimer, adding FM in the late 50's to have a nighttime service, rising to fame in the 60's, and leading the way to making Washington the first dominant FM market in the mid 70's.
 
Jason Roberts said:
I'm old enough to remember and I can't specifically recall any "syndicated" countdown show prior to the debut of AT-40. (There could have been one, but I don't remember hearing one).
Click to expand...

Tom Rounds pretty much invented the barter syndication model in the very late 60's when TR, Ron Jacobs and Casem developed AT40.
 
Lkeller said:
Programming genius Ron Jacobs (PD at KHJ, and later KGB) gets a lot of credit for AT40, and perhaps he deserves it for selling the show so successfully around the country. But the show's format was Casey's baby all the way.
Click to expand...

The person who developed AT40 as a syndication and barter concept was Tom Rounds, not RJ. RJ was the creative person who worked with Casem to produce the show, but the model that made it work economically was Rounds.

Rounds, for the last 13 years, has produced and distributed The World Chart show in something like 100 countries and a dozen or so localized versions around the world. TR called Jacobs to help launch the World Chart Show briefly in 1995, too.
 
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