I'll post more about this later, but regarding the "Listen to This" segment featuring Faron Young's accomplisment of having at least one Top 40 hit every calendar year for 24 years (1953-1976) on the Billboard country charts (including the Hot Country Singles chart after 1962) ... Casey's remark that Young's record may never be broken is now one for the history books. Several artists have since either matched or exceeded Young's feat.
More on that in a follow-up post, along with the rest of this show's Country Connections.
Brian
OK, I've done the research, and I confirmed what I already knew was correct — Faron Young's accomplishment has been equalled or bested
several times in the past 32 years. In fact, one artist had already surpassed Faron Young's record as of 1976: Marty Robbins, who had a Top 40 hit every calendar year since 1952 ("I'll Go On Alone," which entered the Country Best Seller's chart that December). And just so everyone knows, I'm going by the year in which the artist's song first entered the chart's Top 40; a year is not counted if the song peaked early in the following year.
Before I list the artists who have also achieved parity with Faron Young, first I need to establish the Singing Sheriff's eventual accomplishment on the Hot Country Singles chart: It was 26 calendar years, set in 1978 with a top 40 entry chart entry called "Loving Here and Living There and Lying in Between." So, for the record Young's accomplishment is, 1953-1978, starting with "Goin' Steady" (the first chart entry) and ending with "Loving Here ... ". More on Faron later.
First, the other artists. I'll list the artist's name in boldface, followed by years of the streak of consecutive calendar years with a Top 40 hit on the Hot Country Songs (and all earlier names), total number of years, and the first and last songs in the streak.
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Marty Robbins, 1952-1980 (29 consecutive calendar years). Began with "I'll Go On Alone," ended with "An Occasional Rose."
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Ray Price, 1956-1982 (27 years). Began with "Run Boy," ended with "Old Friends" (a song that featured a couple of his old friends, Roger Miller and Willie Nelson).
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Johnny Cash, 1955-1979 (25 years). Began with "Cry! Cry! Cry!" and ended with "I Wish I Was Crazy Again" (a duet with Waylon Jennings). OK, so the Man in Black was a year off; I also wanted to include at least one who came close to parity with Faron.
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Merle Haggard, 1963-1990 (28 years). Began with "Sing a Sad Song," ended with "If You Want to Be My Woman."
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Conway Twitty, 1966-1991 (26 years). Began with "Guess My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Heart," ended with "She's Got a Man on Her Mind."
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George Strait, an ongoing streak that began in 1981 (28 years ... and counting). Began with "Unwound," and his current hit is "Troubador." (Note: it's now 34 years … and counting with his most recent hit "
I Got a Car.")
And the current champion ... (drumroll please) ...
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George Jones, 1955-1993 (39 years). Began with "Why Baby Why," ended with "High-Tech Redneck." The only one that will probably come close to beating the Possum is George Strait, since he's still a hot commodity in Nashville. Since George Strait will probably have a new hit first reach the Top 40 early in 2009, the streak of consecutive calendar years in the Hot Country Songs chart's Top 40 will be extended.
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Now, the rest of the story on Faron Young:
• The song clip played as part of the "Listen to This" feature, "Hello Walls," was Young's biggest country hit ever from the spring and summer of 1961 ... and with a peak of No. 12, his lone hit to reach the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.
• In 1963, Faron founded and began publishing one of the first successful magazines devoted exclusively to country music — the
Music City News.
• The song "Just What I Had in Mind" was played on the very first "American Country Countdown" program from Oct. 6, 1973. The song had reached its peak at No. 9 on the Hot Country Singles chart a week earlier, a fact host Don Bowman probably pointed out when he played the song ... which was at No. 12 on that first program. For those who consider it important, Faron was in the company of two other songs that fell out of the top 10 that week: "You Really Haven't Changed" by Johnny Carver, and "If Teardrops Were Pennies" by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton.
• Faron's biggest international hit never charted in the Top 40 of the Hot 100 (it did peak at No. 92) ... but was amazingly a No. 3 hit on the UK pop chart. The song was "It's Four in the Morning," a No. 1 country smash from February 1972. Six months later — right around Labor Day weekend, to be exact — the song was in the Top 5 of the UK chart.
A video clip from one of Faron's concerts, where he performs "It's Four in the Morning," was the first-ever video to air on CMT.
• In the comic strip Peanuts, Frieda's cat was named Faron. According to Wikipedia, Charles Schultz was a big Faron Young fan.
• His fortunes dropped steadily, then rapidly after his last Top 40 country hit in 1978. A succession of deals with minor labels failed to produce a hit, and his health began a slow, painful decline (thanks to emphysema). His marriage of 32 years ended in 1988. By the early 1990s, years of wear and tear on the road, worsening health, and (through no fault of his own) fundamental changes to country music were beginning to get to him. His country tastes were clearly in the past, and it has been said he deeply resented new superstars of the era (most likely, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, whom he thought had no business making country records, were at the top of his list). On Dec. 9, 1996, Faron took a gun and shot himself; he died the next day, just 64 years old.
• Four years after his death, in 2000, Faron Young was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. A man who thought he had been forgotten (he never was) was, is, and always will be revered by his peers and fans who still enjoy his music today. No wonder Faron Young had such a hit streak ... and Casey Kasem's apparent deep respect.