AT40 Memories

[Matt Cameron]

Hello, anyone and everyone! New to the site, just wanted to share with you my story of how I got hooked on AT40, and some memories from over the years.
It was 1978. I was 10 years old, and "Saturday Night Fever" hits were all over the radio. My parents were driving me and my brother and sisters home from church. Dad turned on the radio, and a pop song was playing (I wish I could still remember which one) - only when the song was over, this voice came on saying "that was so-and-so at number __, with...". I asked my Dad, "What is this?" "The Top 40." "What's the Top 40?" "This is where they play the best selling songs of each week, from number 40 to 1."
"They do that?"
From that point on, AT40 became my altar, and Casey Kasem my preacher. I used to write down all the songs and where they moved from week to week, and feel bad when a song I loved fell off the survey.
I remember hearing the first LDD, "Desiree" by Neil Diamond; the #1 hits of the 70's and 60's, of which Casey played three a week; all the year-end Top 100 countdowns; the Disco special from 79, etc.
Well, some 25 years later, I found myself getting up at 6:00am on Sundays because the local radio station switched the start time from 10:00 to 6:00. I didn't care. I was still there (although, I'll confess, if it turned out Casey was off that week, I usually went back to bed).
I gotta tell ya, for a shy awkward 10 year old kid desperate for something (anything) to be passionate about, AT40 was a godsend. As an adult, I've started to collect some AT40 shows (on vinyl if possible) and those shows instantly take me back to a simpler time.
Thanks for listening, and I'd appreciate anyone's personal AT40 stories or memories.
Matt

[BrettVW]

As one of the younger Casey fans up here (i'm 18) I got hooked on Casey in 2000. I was having trouble falling asleep at night, and noticed that leaving the radio on at night helped me fall asleep. I started waking up on Saturday mornings to Rick Dees and Sunday mornings to Casey's Hot AC version of AT20. After deciding Casey was better....I started following the show and then waking up early for the start of it.

When that station dropped AT20 (after it had moved it from Sunday mornings to Sunday nights) we got AT40 at 6am on Saturday mornings and sure enough, I got up. I started liking AT40 better, and followed it until Seacrest took over, when AT20 came back in Cleveland, and now like AT20 better again (basically, whatever I am hearing is good)

I have, since, obtained old shows and stuff, but nothing beats getting up every Sunday for the latest Casey show.

[Matt Cameron]

Amen to that!
Can't get into Seacrest, he's a bit of a tool. I caught AT10 for a few months until the local station dropped it. Still looking for a local station that carries AT20. Don't really mind Rick Dees too much, but like another poster mentioned, his show is comedy first, music second. I always liked that Casey played the hits and let you make up your own mind about them. As I was posting my original message, my doorbell rang, and it was the postman delivering (believe it or not) an AT40 record set that I won on e-Bay, chart date 09/10/77, which actually predates my involvement with the show!! Neat to hear "Cat Scratch Fever" on the same countdown with "I Feel Love"!!

[Robbie]

Hi to everyone, new to the site

I live in England, my first memory of AT40 was coming across the programme by accident whilst tuning through the medium wave (AM) band back in early 1977 - I stumbled across the American Armed Forces radio which broadcast from (West) Germany and itwas during a broadcast of the US charts. This was broadcast from midnight Friday/Saturday. I then began tuning in every week. Often the signal would fade, sometimes it was clear, but I would listen in every week. Around summer 1979 AFN would sometimes break off from AT40 to carry a sports programme (usually baseball, I think) and listeners could continue to hear the AT40 show on FM, which was impossible for me to pick up given that I lived several hundred miles from the transmitter.

I was introduced to many wonderful songs that otherwise I would never have heard, and I thought the programme was quite magnificent. Unfortunately, around 1983 AFN split its programming for AM and FM completely and the sports programming became a regular feature. Indeed, all the current music programming switched to FM only with AM carrying oldies etc. The station also broadcast programming by the likes of Wolfman jack and Dr Demento (?) - weird!

Also, by 1983 AFN had seriously messed up the scheduling of AT40 to such an extent that the chart it broadcast was the chart of two weeks previous - back in 1977 when I first heard it it was the current Billboard chart that broadcast in the correct week and bar occassional weeks where a previous show had to be repeated because the tape or whatever hadn't arrived, up to 1982 the chart broadcast was the current chart. then in 1982 it fell behind by a week, then by 1983 it was two weeks behind.

So that's my era for AT40, 1977 to 1983. After that I began to lose touch with much of the US music scene, though by 1984 a lot of British music was making it big over in the US and we did have a programme on our national radio music station that quickly counted down the Billboard Top 40 (I'd listened to that since 1976!). That programme was dropped in late 1988, then my local radio station began to carry Rick Dees' show, from 1990 to 1993. After that, most US music I no longer know unless it charts over here, and most of that happens to be urban (in all its genres) music, which I'm not a big fan of. There never seems to be much diversity in the US top 40 these days, but back in my AT40 era, there was a little bit of something for everyone.

[Matt Cameron]

Hello, Robbie, and welcome to the site. Nice to hear an opinion from someone across the pond, as it were. I agree with you about the diversity of classic AT40 shows compared to the one-genre countdowns we get today. I had much more fun listening to the program back then and am enjoying collecting them today.
I loved listening to a show called 'Rock Over London' in the mid-to-late '80's that played a bunch of songs by British artists, plus the Top 5 on the British charts that week. I've started to collect those old shows as well.
Again, welcome aboard!

[Deleted]

one of the moments from AT40 that sticks out in my head is running the car in late 83/early 84 (I think) after Jr. Church was over and my big sister turning the boombox on to hear the last few songs of AT40. Me, being 6 years old had no real idea of the difference between what MTV aired, and what radio stations did. I got my introduction to that one early afternoon when American Top 40 got to "Thriller" and there we were singing along and all of a sudden where Vincent Price was do his rap, I started rapping where he would but noticed there was no Price anywhere. Then I asked what happened to the evil part, and my sisters told me radio couldn't air it because it was too controversial...they then had to explain what that word meant. That was my first experience with the different world of radio. And my, my how things have changed.

[JasonWQMA]

"Thriller" was probably edited on your radio stations due to length, not controversy. I remember stations in my area playing the song in its entirety, and later playing an edited version after the song had started to drop in popularity...

[Deleted]

It was heard during AT40 and the instrumental of that part still played. I also had some shows from that era and they were the same way.

[mstgator]

The shortened version of "Thriller" (which edited out Vincent Price, along with much of the intro music) was the 45 rpm single version.

[mycool44]

The first time I heard "American Top 40" was sometime in the mid-to-late 70's, when I heard Casey's velvety voice booming from my sister's room next door. I was instantly hooked and did what I could to hear "A.T. 40" from that point on. Of course, there were times when missing the show couldn't be helped - like when the entire family had to make some early morning road trip and my mom and dad would put on the classical station - or when some dumb relative came over for breakfast and I had to sit there and pretend to like talking about art class. The year-end "AT40' shows were a religious event. I would write down the entire list, especially when the earth-shattering news hit that the top 100 listed in the Billboard year-end issue was different than "A.T. 40"'s year-end list. How could this type of world be possible?? In 1984, I started recording the year-end shows and collecting the earlier ones I didn't own. It may sound corny, but there was no better feeling than waking up Sunday mornings and hearing the opening theme music fade into last week's #3 song as Casey began the re-cap. Nothing better! I also loved hearing the songs from "Grease" and "Saturday Night Fever" move up and down the chart. To be honest, I have not been as thrilled with the current Casey era, as his style has become very cookie-cutter ( as an industry friend has called it). Since he came back to "AT40" in 1998, he has been "Casey Kasem"; more hokey and old-fashioned than ever in his style and the stories that he delivers. But if you go back to the 70's and the shows that created his persona, you'll hear a quick-paced jock with quirky, interesting stories to tell and even a personal observation or two (something he would never do in the past 20 years). However, the first 17 years (until Casey first left 'AT40' for his WW1 show) remain a classic period in my childhood and my dream is to collect every weekly show from 1977 through 1984. In short, Casey is the man and there will never be another one like him or another show like that first edition of "American Top 40".

[coldcardinal]

For me, AT40 is synonymous with childhood longing and unfulfilled desires.

I became hooked on it on August 8, 1981, just before starting third grade. It was really the only thing to which I looked forward. But only a year later I was forced to start Sunday school, which overlapped exactly with the countdown. My most vivid memories from 1983 are all of hearing a song somewhere, and wishing I could record it from the countdown (I couldn't afford to buy records). So when the 1983 year-end countdown was set to air during holiday break, I had brand-new tapes all cued up, ready to make up for a lost year. 8:00 a.m. came, and KRQQ (Tucson) was still playing regular programming. Then 8:05, then 8;10. . .I called the station, and the DJ patiently explained to this frantic 10-year-old that KRQQ had just left the ABC network the previous week and would no longer air the countdown. They started carrying Rick Dees the next week, but he had already done a year-end show.

For 20 years, 1983 was a symbol of frustration for me, and the music (as great as it is) always had melancholy undertones. But in 2003 I discovered the AT40 collectors. As one of them generously agreed to help get my collection started, the first show I asked for was the 1983 year-end countdown. I finally got to hear it in March. A week later, I got an offer for my first real job. Two months later, I finished my Ph.D. and met the woman I would marry last year. Coincidence? Yes. But it was a pretty cool convergence of wish fulfillment.

So now I collect obsessively.

[at40petebattistini]

Here are some vintage memories from a few folks that may not have posted for a while ... always good for a re-read.

[pointpark04]

The radio station in Pittsburgh that aired AT40 back in the 1980s is the same one that airs the classic "AT40 The 70s" series every Sunday morning, WWSW-FM, aka 3WS.

Back in the summer of 1983, I entered the drawing to win an edition of a countdown on vinyl. I was 12 years old. To my shock and pleasure, I won the drawing. Even more incredible, it was the countdown that aired on my mother's birthday, August 6.

I still have that show. I'll never part with it.

That's just one of my many AT40 memories.

[Deleted]

After hearing "Hold on Tight" on Casey Kasem's American Top 40 Mighty 690 AM Radio Show back in 1981 while with family around Ventura, California, a US 101 road trip to Santa Barbara when I was just 8 years old, Dad then bought me my very first Electric Light Orchestra album from Tower Records, an audio cassette of Time by ELO, thus started the fandom over 30 years ago!

[pamelajaye]

Thanks for that bump. I'd never seen them.

I feel as if I spent years looking for the countdown without really know it existed, even though I only got back into top 40 radio around Feb 74 and found AT40 in September.
Further research turn up a batch of WRKO Top 30 Music Surveys, so I may have heard of them back in 69 when listening to WRKO all day was not optional.

So my years of AT40 were September 74 to.... not sure 80? 81? 82?
by 83, punk was in and I was off to AC format and by 86 I stopped listening to the radio.