Casey Kasem's American Top 40 The 70s

Solid Gold FM are proud to bring you Casey Kasem's AMERICAN TOP 40 - The 70s

Each Sunday from 9am - 12midday and repeated again from 9pm - 12midnight

These full 3-hour classic shows feature the all-time 'King of The Countdown' Casey Kasem

The American Top 40 shows are from 1970 - 1978 and all in their original broadcast form.

Relive the 70s with Casey Kasem's American Top 40 - The 70's on Solid GOld FM

ABOUT CASEY KASEM'S AMERICAN TOP 40

“ Here we go with the Top 40 hits of the nation this week on American Top 40, the best-selling and most-played songs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. This is Casey Kasem in Hollywood, and in the next three hours, we'll count down the 40 most popular hits in the United States this week, hot off the record charts of Billboard magazine for the week ending July 11, 1970. In this hour at #32 in the countdown, a song that's been a hit 4 different times in 19 years! And we're just one tune away from the singer with the $10,000 gold hubcaps on his car! Now, on with the countdown! ”
  — Casey Kasem at the beginning of the inaugural AT40 broadcast

American Top 40 began on the Independence Day weekend in 1970, on seven radio stations.  It was first presented in mono until it started recording in stereo in September 1972.  The program was hosted by Casey Kasem and co-created by Kasem; Don Bustany; Tom Rounds; and legendary 93/KHJ Program Director Ron Jacobs, who produced and directed the various production elements. Rounds was also the marketing genius; the initial funder was California strawberry grower Tom Driscoll.

The show began as a three-hour program written and directed by Bustany, counting down the top 40 songs on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. The show quickly gained popularity once it was commissioned, and expanded to a four hour-program on October 7, 1978, to reflect the increasing average length of singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

Features of the Casey Kasem-era shows

During Kasem's run as host, the AT40 show had a number of popular and distinguishing features:

Bios & stories: Most segments of the show included two countdown songs. Often Kasem would introduce the second song in the segment with a "story" about the song and/or its recording artist, with the number one song always being preceded by a story.

"Number" jingles: Occasionally a song would be preceded by a brief audio clip of a group of singers announcing the song's position on the chart (e.g. "Number 40!"). This was especially common for the first song played in each hour of the show, but was usually not done for the #1 song (which was usually introduced with a drum roll), or for songs preceded by a story. The "number" jingles were updated and re-recorded from time to time.

Chart trivia: AT40 also featured several question letters in each show, where a listener would write to ask a chart trivia question. Sometimes these letters led to an extra song being played, though this became less common as songs increased in length in the 1980s.

Long Distance Dedication: This feature had evolved from a spoken-word 45 single that Kasem had recorded in 1964, "Letter from Elaina".  The LDD feature began with the August 26, 1978 broadcast, two months before the show expanded to four hours (the first LDD was "Desiree" by Neil Diamond, sent in by a man whose girlfriend, named Desiree, was moving to Germany to live with parents on an American air base).  Most shows featured two long distance dedications; one would be taken care of during each half of the show. (Sometimes a song currently in the countdown would also be requested as a LDD; in such cases, Kasem would typically read the dedication first, and sometimes not even announce the song's chart status until after the song was played.)

Dropoffs: Generally during the first hour on most shows, Casey would announce songs that had left the top 40 that week.

#1's on other Billboard charts: Casey would give a rundown on songs and albums that have made #1 on other Billboard charts, such as country, soul/R&B, and dance/disco. These would typically be announced during the Top 10, often before the #1 song on AT40.

Predicting next week's #1 song: For a time in 1972 and 1973, following the week's #1 song, Casey would try to predict what the #1 song would be on the following week's countdown, based on a poll of the AT40 staff. During the 46-week period that the predictions were used, the poll was successful only 22 weeks, and failures 24 weeks. The final song predicted, on the December 8, 1973 broadcast, was The Most Beautiful Girl by Charlie Rich, which was #1 the next week.

Special Reports: Occasionally, Casey would do a special report on a particular subject involving the music industry, usually related to a particular song or artist on that week's countdown.

Whatever happened to...: Casey would periodically do a segment giving an update on an artist who hasn't been on the charts for some time.

Oldies: During its first year, each AT40 show would feature 3 or 4 "oldies", or chart topping songs of the past. Normally, one old song would air per hour, which at the time mirrored the format of most Top 40 stations. Most of the oldies included were from the Rock 'N Roll era (post 1955). But occasionally, songs by pre-rock artists like Kay Starr, Perry Como or Nat King Cole would be included. Each song was heavily promoted by Casey and contained a story about the artist or some sort of fact making it relevant to the contemporary audience. By the fall of 1971, only 1 old song appeared per show. The following year, the "oldie" feature was dropped altogether. Oldies were brought back to AT40 in the fall of 1975 under the title "AT40 Extra". But the feature was phased out again by the end of 1976. Old songs would rarely appear again until the AT40 Archives feature began in 1978.

AT40 Archives: Once the show expanded to four hours, each of the first three hours ended with the "AT40 Archives" segment that featured a number one song of the past.

Sign-off: After the #1 song was played, the bumper music would begin playing, and over that, Kasem would typically give that week's chart date and read the end credits, then sign off with what would become his, and the show's, unofficial motto: "Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars." In the early years of the show, he usually added "and keep your radio tuned right where it is"; this phrase had returned to the show by the time the AT40 brand name was revived in the late 1990s (Kasem had used it also on "Casey's Top 40" and its Adult Contemporary-format spinoffs). Even his sign-off music became popular, as "Shuckatoom" (written by: James R. Kirk) became a highly-requested song, although it was never used apart from the show.

Although the show's format obviously implied an average of ten countdown songs per hour (once the show had gone to a four-hour format), this was not rigidly enforced; however, by the mid-1980s it had become increasingly rare for the final hour of the show to have any more than the top eleven or any fewer than the top nine songs left to play. The songs' run times determined how many would comfortably fit into each hour. The show bent to fit the Billboard rankings which, to many listeners, were sacred, and some songs had to be edited (in addition to whatever edits had been done for single release), with a verse and/or chorus chopped out, in order to fit into the show. But Casey and his producers never lost sight of the fact that the same music was being played on other stations everywhere, and that the stories behind the songs were the chief reason that listeners tuned to AT40.

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