In early 1981, a radio show was broadcast – possibly by the same folks that did American Top 40 – that ran over several days, and was a retrospective of the rock era, which they defined as beginning in the middle of 1955, when “Rock Around The Clock” hit #1 on the Billboard chart – the chart that would become the Hot 100.
The end of this show featured a montage of every single number one song… just a snippet of each, in order. So if you were listening to the montage as it rolled through the early 1970s, you’d hear: “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl, good enough for me and my Bobby McGee, well it was just my imagination, joy to the world, brown sugar, how come you taste so good…”
You get the idea.
Does anyone remember this show, or any details of it?
Man, I think I might have a tape of this somewhere in the depths of my tape collection. Waaay down deep.
I had a science teacher in middle school who was keen on taping stuff off the radio. He had a little setup in a “secret room” in the back of his classroom for it.
Mostly, he just taped Dr. Demento-type stuff and played it in class sometimes. But I do recall him having a tape just like you describe. I remember because he asked me to take a copy home and find out all the names of the songs for him. I did it and I got a ton of extra credit.
If no one can produce a digital version for you, I’ll see if I can go down to the basement tomorrow and find said tape. I can’t digitize it but I would gladly send you a copy on tape.
“The History of Rock and Roll,” narrated by Robert W. Morgan. I used to have that montage on tape, too, but I can’t put my hands on it at this time.
Here is a site that purports to have the 1981 montage (mine was 1978) online, but you have to sign up. I haven’t actually gone thru with that process to see if it works.
This is the collection, all right, but it looks like it’s streaming audio, not something downloadable… ZipperJJ I would LOVE a copy of the tape, and will pay all shipping and duplication costs.
I just looked through my tape collection twice, and while it was a nice trip down memory lane, I did not find the tape you want. Perhaps I didn’t keep the copy he gave me.
