It would be interesting to look at actual airplay data, such as what times of day they played it.
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Songs That Were Much More Popular On WLS And WCFL Than On The Billboard Hot 100
- Thread starter Schroedingers Cat
- Start date
It would be interesting to look at actual airplay data, such as what times of day they played it.
I can tell you for certain that they played it every afternoon on the "Silver Dollar Survey Show" at that time hosted by Dex Card. (Afternoon drive)
That show played the Top 30 songs in Chicago every afternoon. As you can see at the link below, WLS played the record for 10 weeks. It reached number four on Oct 1 and was in the Top five for three weeks. Top ten for seven weeks.
WLS 890 Chicago Survey 10/15/65
Chicago radio station WLS 890 AM survey chart for the week of 10/15/65.
www.las-solanas.com
How did you do this search on ARSA that showed "The World Through A Tear" on 120 stations?
I've used ARSA to view specific surveys, but never to do a thorough search like you did. Thanks for your help.
Nevermind, I figured it out. Thanks for bringing my attention to it.
How long have you been a member on ARSA? I signed up a few times and kept forgetting my password. Finally, I got wise and saved it. At first, you didn't need to register to see all the data. Back then, there were few charts. But I guess they were getting bogged down by so many users. I think they need to upgrade the capacity. I like the old school database search software though, and would hate to see that change like the FCC databases have and you're always playing catch up. Some things are a little clunky, but I'm used to it.
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I was looking up about Dex Card to see if that was his given name, and basically it was, as Dexter Card. I've been looking up some of the ones who have passed away, and have been fascinated by some of the ones I never heard about before. Didn't realize until recently that the original Svengoolie was Jerry G. Bishop, but that was also far from his given name. Of course, there was Lawrence Lee Blankenburg, but that's been known for decades. One afternoon on WCFL, Dick Williamson (real name) had a question about if that was his real name, and asked the question in such a convoluted way that when the woman answered correctly, he interpreted that she was wrong, and had to ask her to call back to give her the prize. It's sometimes hard to understand how some (but not all) air personalities are really out there on the air, but are really introverted and difficult to talk to one on one. One notable exception is Shotgun Tom Kelly, but that is also an altered surname.
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I've been using ARSA for years. Not sure when I actually became a member. It's a great sight for historical Top 40 history.
Jerry Ghan is not too far removed from Jerry G Bishop. His Svengoolie character was a hippie (and hipper version) of Cleveland's Ghoulardi, better known as Ernie Anderson. Then there's Ron Magel, loved by many as King B, Ron Britain.
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Some of the Record Publications such as Billboard, CashBox, and Record World, etc. have the Record Reviews, sometimes record company ads showing chart positions on certain stations, National and Regional Breakouts, Biggest Movers and such, so you might be able to fill in some information on worldradiohistory.com, but it's kind of difficult to find information in the issues, unless David has some search suggestions.
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No suggestions. It just takes looking at the charts week by week and following individual songs. The same can be done using the Whitburn books, which I highly recommend.
It would be an amazing project if Whitburn could present song histories in graphic form, showing chart progress from debut to death of the Hot 100 songs. Even if limited to Top 10 or even Top 20 charting songs, it would be so great to have a chart graph for each, along with a symbol for certified gold, the album name, etc.
I always wondered if the charts were accurate enough to use the integral of the chart position value week by week to estimate sales. Variety had a Top 50 chart with chart position values in the 1970s. Motown/Universal has only recently been awarded Gold Records to some their early stuff. Vee Jay still hasn't had Gold Records awarded the last I looked. Ewart Abner and Berry Gordy were reportedly secretive about this. Ewart Abner was reported to keep financial and sales records "in his head" at Vee Jay.
Chart positions are relative. The top ranks depend on the other songs also vying for the top positions. At some times, a #1 song may sell less than a #10 song in a "hot new release" period. But still, having charts of individual songs rather than charts of all songs together would be intellectually interesting to chartists... at least.
Part of that was he didn't want the artists to know how much he was making off of them.
That is what the Variety Chart position values showed. I remember that the #1 varied from 98 to 114 while I was monitoring it. I used to eat in the dorm where a lot of Music Students stayed at U of M, and the dorm library had Variety. I followed it for about a year in 1976-1977. WLS was still big there at Night at the time, as many still didn't have FM radios that pulled in decent stations. And at Night, many stronger AMs signed off or changed patterns at Night. That was true throughout much of Michigan at Night before FM really took off. Bob Seger and John Landecker listened to WLS, WCFL (he said it was his favorite as I recall in some interviews), and WLAC with John R (Richbourg) for R & B.
John Richbourg picture.
6a010536b86d36970c0192aaada30b970d-600wi
Not what you had pictured? Me either, and nothing to do with race.
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They're also based on different criteria. A sales chart isn't the same as an airplay chart isn't the same as a streaming chart.
All different criteria. For years, sales charts weren't always based on sales, but on orders. If the records ordered didn't sell, they were sent back to the distributor. But some charts didn't take into account the returns. It really wasn't until SoundScan that we had accurate sales data.
Dean Friedman-Ariel #4 WLS #26 Hot 100 is interesting, given its numerous geographic references to Paramus, NJ... Don't know what to make of that!
I'm sure that's a secret that Rick Sklar took to his grave. He programmed WABC and WLS (and other ABC stations. It was banned in New York City on certain stations, apparently WABC. They edited verses out and changed phrases to avoid problems with some regions of the country the record company thought would be problematic. Dean Friedman didn't like it and filed a complaint with the JDL or some similar organization. I just thought the song was cute. I figured out the demographic details about Ariel from her collecting money for WBAI, before I ever heard the "uncensored" version.
Looking at the linked survey from 1965, Marianne Faithfull's "Summer Nights" hit #24 on the Hot 100 but peaked at #10 (or higher) on WLS
While he was VP of Programming for ABC AM Radio stations at that time, he hired John Gehron to program WLS.
And Gehron stuck to Sklar's philosophy of only playing what he thought were sure hits.
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