Joel Whitburn - The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 9th Edition: Complete Chart Information about Americas Most Popular Songs and Artists, 1955-2009

Copyright 2010 by Joel Whitburn
The Billboard chart data used in this work is copyright
1955 through 2009 by Billboard Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Billboard Books, an
imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Billboard is a registered trademark of Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010930782

eISBN: 978-0-307-98512-5

v3.1

In 1970, I published my first book. It was a compilation of my longtime research of Billboard magazines pop singles charts. I titled this 208-page, staple-stitched softcover Record Researcha name that fit so well that I incorporated it several months later. That first edition not only inspired a business but 150 more books, including a 1,344-page, hardcover twelfth edition now entitled Top Pop Singles.

My first book caught on as a tool for disc jockeys and music professionals, and then with record collectors the world over. My small business was able to deliver to this select market. As Top Pop Singles grew in popularity, it became evident that a more limited edition of my research would appeal to a larger base of music fans, which we did not have the means to reach.

I approached Billboards book division, Watson-Guptill Publications, about creating a spin-off version that would go where no other Record Research book had gone beforebookstores. Whereas my Top Pop Singles book covered every song and artist that hit the Hot 100 chart, in great detail, I proposed a book covering those that hit the Top 40 of the Hot 100, the songs and artists heard most frequently on the radio. Jules Perel, then president of Watson-Guptill, came to Wisconsin to meet me and see if there was any merit to my proposal. It took some convincing for this publisher of art books to take a chance on a new venturea mass market music reference book.

In 1983, I flew to New York for the publication of the first edition of The Billboard Book Of Top 40 Hits. To celebrate, I was invited to dinner by Mr. Perel and Mr. W.D. Littleford, the grandson of the founder of Billboard, who began working there in 1934 and was now the president of Billboard! I had seen his name on his magazines masthead for decades and now we were strolling down Broadwayquite a thrill for a record collector from Wisconsin! Mr. Littleford picked up a copy of the New York Times and read, to our amazement, that the book was at #6 on the bestsellers list!

This is our ninth editionproof that Americas Top 40 hits still have great appeal! And this book spans the breadth of pop music, from Joan Webers Let Me Go Lover, the first #1 hit in 1955, to the Black Eyed Peas amazing achievement of holding the #1 spot on the Hot 100 for twenty-six consecutive weeks! If youre a trivia buff, this book could be the highlight of your next get-together with family and friends. For instance, what were Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs two Top 10 gold hits? Name the teen idol who was married to Nancy Sinatra and whose mother was a big band vocalist. What female singer from Australia had her only Top 40 hit go platinum in 1978 with her version of a Bee Gees song? Name the famous jazz keyboardist who wrote Mongo Santamarias hit Watermelon Man? Which former cast member of TVs Saturday Night Live had a seasonal hit with The Chanukah Song? And these are just a few teasers from a two-page spread in this book.

My hope is that youll have fun as you browse through the thousands of songs and artists that had the most success on the national charts in the past fifty-five years. You may find yourself thinking, Wow, I forgot about that artist, or I havent heard that song in twenty years! You will certainly further your expertise about who recorded what and when, and from where. So, enjoy your trip down memory lane, and, if you feel inspired to go beyond the Top 40, then stroll over to my website www.recordresearch.com where youll find plenty of more music research books to satisfy every top music expert in your neighborhood.

JOEL WHITBURN

A special note of thanks to Billboard for a 40-year career as the longest licensee in their history. Thanks also to my wife, Fran, my daughter, Kim Bloxdorf, and my staff: Jeanne Olynick, Paul Haney, and Brent Olynick.

This book features Americas most popular songs and artists from the beginning of the rock era through June 2009. It is an abridged version of Joel Whitburns Top Pop Singles book, which includes all of the songs and artists that hit Billboards Hot 100 chart. In the pages ahead, youll rediscover the biggest-selling and most-played hits and recording artists on pop radio from New York to Los Angeles.

The research of Top 40 Hits begins with 1955the year rock n roll scored its first mainstream success with the chart-topping hit Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets. At that time, Billboard magazine published three main pop singles charts: Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played By Jockeys, and Most Played In Juke Boxes. The research begins with the issue of Billboard dated January 1, 1955, and includes all hits within the Top 40 on the above-mentioned charts, even if they first charted in 1954. In November of 1955, Billboard introduced their first 100-position chart, The Top 100. These four charts reported on different aspects of the sales and radio airplay of the hottest singles. Each of these charts are researched in order to impart an intricate picture of popular music of the mid-1950s.

August 4, 1958, marked the first issue of Billboard to feature the Hot 100 chart. It was Billboards first chart to fully integrate the hottest-selling and most-played singles. Ever since, the Hot 100 has stood the test of time as the premiere monitor of the most popular songs in America each week. All songs to make the first forty positions of this 100-position ranking through June of 2009 constitute the bulk of this book.

For the Hot 100s first four decades, an essential qualification for a songs placement on the chart was its commercial availability in America as a single. The record industrys practice of releasing singles commercially declined dramatically in the 1990s. More and more radio hits were ineligible to chart on the Hot 100, as they were never released as singles. The Hot 100 Airplay chart that Billboard created in 1984 became a valued accompaniment to the Hot 100 chart in providing a thorough picture of each weeks biggest hits. For this reason, all Top 40 hits of Billboards Hot 100 Airplay chart that did not appear on the Hot 100 chart are included. Billboard made major adjustments to the compilation of their Hot 100 in order to keep pace with a rapidly changing music marketplace. On December 5, 1998, Billboard debuted a completely revised Hot 100 that included, for the first time, songs that were not commercially available in America as singles.

All chart data within Top 40 Hits