Stories Behind the Music: Two Old Guys Kicked the Beatles' Butts

Thanks. Wish I could say it was my invention. Done for my by Charles Buell, and AR member here.

Michael,

Dino is back in vogue, the King of Cool they call him.

Stephen,

The old guys had to get their licks in when they could. That era was dominated by the Beatles, the Supremes, Herman's Hermits and the youngsters, although Petula Clark, from the UK, was old for a pop star of the era.

Barbara,

I have to admit that every New Years Eve I put Dino on the CD player with That's Amore and his greatest hits. I enjoy him, probably more than Sinatra. I have quite a bit of Sinatra too.

Russel, That is U.S. charts per Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Last published 2003. If you have that tome, they do not go with your Whitney Houston theory. They state that there was another release, prior to So Emotional, that only went up to to ten. It was an old recording, released by her prior label, but it still charted in between her number one songs. That broke the streak. So, technically, she stopped with five in a row. The release, that broke the string was called Thinking About You. On page 686, they give that explanation. Then they reinforce that view on page 145 where they state the Beatles hold four of the five records, as of 2003, a date after when Whitney had done those recordings. Several artists have broken that jump to #1. I see that October of this year that one fell a couple times. Comparing record charts to baseball is not such a wild comparison. Many of my stories are based on my memory of events having been in broadcasting, having lived some of these songs in the industry, other times information is reinforced with texts. I try to be as accurate as I can but this stuff keeps changing, sometimes between publishing dates of the various bibles of music. And different credible books have different information too. There are statistics that there are disagreements on. I have been going with Billboard for US charts and you should assume that is the case unless I mention UK charts. Far as I know, Billboard does not chart over there in Europe. By the way, when I was in radio, there was another magazine -- considered to be about as equally credible as Billboard -- Cashbox. The stations went with both charts which were similar but not exactly the same. Also, within the industry the periodical Radio and Records is probably more of a bible than Billboard. I think the original Cashbox folded but R&R is still around. It has been a major player for years. Consumers know Billboard because it has been publicized more and has been around forever, but R&R has been incredible at picking the hits for all formats. It is what the pros went by when they were selecting playlists.

Having worked in the field for 30 years, I will also warn against taking any of this chart business too seriously. Record companies have been known to buy back their own product to make a record number one. Eric Burden says that is exactly what happened with House of the Rising Sun, a huge song. He says that was part of how the game was played, by labels, to manufacture their hits. Makes sense really. Once you have made a hit, you can re-sell those copies to everyone who will want the song. I look at it this way: What was top ten was top ten, number one was number one, a hit was a hit but some of the other statistics in between border on hocus pocus and are to be taken with a grain of salt. Interesting filler for a post sometimes, but often just monkey business that is likely to be contradictory depending on the slant of your apparently credible source. Kind of like politics and baseball stats.

Answering my own question about what happened to Cashbox: Ceased original publication 12 years ago. New owners giving it a shot too.

http://www.cashboxmagazine.com/aboutus.htm