Sunday, March 18, 2007

Vintage American Top 40 - Casey Kasem on XM Radio


For the last few months, when I have time, and I am home, I tune into XM Radio and listen to vintage American Top 40 shows. I believe through AOL Radio you can access some XM stations for free. On Saturday at noon ET they play a 70s AT40 show on Channel 7. On Sunday at noon ET, they play an AT40 show from the 80s on Channel 8. Casey Kasem did the Billboard countdowns from 1970 to 1988.



I remember now why I enjoyed Casey Kasem, it was all the trivia he spewed in between counting down the top 40. You can check out PDF files of many AT40 charts from 1970-1995 here.

I was such a geek about the charts in the early 1980s, I would write them down as they were played on the radio. Shortly thereafter I found out my local Turtles' record store had weekly copies of Billboard magazine. I would go there and ask for the old copies. I wish I had kept them, I find out now the old issues fetch pretty good on eBay if they are intact. I also recall back in one summer in the 80s, I was listening to AT40 on the radio and the show was skipping on record! That's when I realized that Casey's syndicated show was issued on LPs. I never saw the LPs but know they also fetch for a good bit now. I had thought that it was sent out to radio stations on cassette tape. Earlier than that, I thought it was done live until my family would travel around the country, and hear the show at different times on the radio.