Customer Reviews

American Top Forty: The Countdown of the Century

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Next July marks the 30th anniversary of American Top 40. Like millions, I grew up listening to AT 40. I recently heard that Casey was back doing the original AT 40 show. I developed a renewed interest and started browsing the web for AT 40 history, etc. I stumbled on this book, "American Top 40: The Countdown Of The Century" by Rob Durkee. After reading this book, I must tip my hat to the author. Mr. Durkee gives the reader a behind the scenes look at the history of this show from the first show, w/ Casey Kasem to Shadoe Stevens, to the demise and dramatic rebirth of the show. AMAZING!

This book will appeal to the chart fanatic, the historian, and anyone who enjoyed spending their Sunday mornings listening to Casey. The author discusses, in depth, the long distance dedication, as well as other popular features of the show. What is also delightful is his listing of what the number one songs were at the time various events were transpiring with the show, (As well as the lists of charts at the end of the book).

I highly recommend this book as I enjoyed reading this cover to cover. In fact, it is time for this book to be made into a movie.

If you have/had ANY connection to Top 40 radio during the 70s, 80s & 90s - from radio station manager to listener - "American Top 40: The Countdown Of The Century" is a book that you will enjoy. It is obvious that Rob Durkee spent a lot of time researching Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" radio program, and provides many insightful interviews, historical perspectives and details! As a longtime AT40 listener and collector of radio station copies of the program, I often find myself using the book as a point of reference. (I believe this book has fueled interest in collecting AT40 copies.) "American Top 40" has touched millions of radio listeners around the world, and Rob did an excellent job in capturing a true start-to-finish perspective about it.

While growing up I, like thousands, if not millions of others spent 4 hours glued to my radio every weekend listening to American Top 40. When the show left American airwaves in 1994, I really felt a profound sense of loss. With this book, I felt like I gained a part of it back. Durkee does a wonderful job telling the story of AT40 and all of the colorful characters involved. It also tells the early story of Casey Kasem and how he became involved in this american tradition. Durkee also speaks of how the show came to it's tragic end, and rebirth in the mid and late 90's. If you are a fan of this show and spent the weekends of your youth glued to the radio because of it, I recommend you get this book. It also contains a lot of different charts in the appendix that will hold great interest to the chart fanatic.

A very interesting and highly informative account of AT40 from when it first got started in the 1970s till its "final" show in 1995. I particularly enjoyed the chapter "Dear Casey" about the Long Distance Dedication ( LDD ) which was AT40's most popular feature. The Top 100 year end charts and special show charts in the appendix also make good references.

This book is a comprehensive look at the History of American Top 40, from it's humble beginnings to the present. If you're a fan of the show, it's a must-purchase. The author worked for the program in it's second incarnation and gives an understandably good inside account of the "Shadoe Stevens era" at American Top 40. But I found his style of writing to be a litle annoying at times as he has a tendency to offer his personal opinions about things, some of which aren't always justified.

As a HUGE fan of AT40, I found this book answered most of my questions and memories of the show. There were a couple of things not included that I thought should have been, but they were covering 24 years. Couldn't give it 5 stars, but it is a good book.

American Top 40 has become highly regarding as one of the premiere music countdown programs in the world, although it may have not been the first it truly set the standard for other countdown programs to follow.

The show covers the main people involved in launching AT40 (Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds, and Ron Jacobs) and how a pop music festival in Miami helped AT40's original distributor Watermark get the money needed to launch the program.

Also the book talks about the early years when Watermark was losing money, and how it actually took 18 hours to record the very first AT40 program. Their are chapters about 'Long Distance Dedication' segments of the program and how it was a segment that took about eight years to finally be featured on AT40, and a chapter on very popular outtake in which Casey lost his self control and cussed out his partner and producer Bustany. He could not get in mood when he was coming out of an up-tempo song and was going into a dedication about the loss of a pet.

The book goes into much detail on how ABC Radio handled the show when they acquired Watermark in 1982, and according to Durkee it was not good. ABC used AT40 as a way to make radio stations air more ABC Radio Network programming and if they refused they will lose AT40 to another station. One of those stations that lost AT40 was LA's KIIS which in turn would birth a chief rival countdown program (Rick Dees Weekly Top 40). By the mid 1980's Casey was in contract renewal talks which went nowhere thus Casey leaving the show he co-created after being host for about 18 years to host a rival countdown with his name in the title (Casey's Top 40). Meanwhile AT40 just hired Shadoe Stevens to be the new host in attempt to make AT40 hip, but ABC did not give Shadoe creative control and also tried many gimmicks and effects to make the show stand out. It did not work and eventually the show would end in 1995, only to have it revived by Casey Kasem in 1998 in the original format that people were used to.

Durkee's book is indeed for those who want to know about AT40 in detail. It may not give you everything you want to know about the program, but it gives you a lot of into the rise and fall, and rebirth of an American Institution, and how it created many countdown clones including AT40's spinoff program "American Country Countdown" along with many others in different radio formats.

This is a great book - so easy to read and so informative. It's obvious Rob Durkee spent many months (if not years) assembling all the info to document the play-by-play of American Top 40 history. Many, many interesting avenues of this great radio show are covered in detail throughout the 300 plus pages. The chart statistics alone are enough to grab any radio fan's attention. Even if you're not a fan of AT40, you have to like this book. Well done indeed!

Rob Durkee's book on "American Top 40" is terrific-I started listening to "AT40" in 1974 & have been a fan of the show ever since-What I liked about the book is the fact that Durkee includes an appendix of all the special countdowns that were hosted by either Casey Kasem or Shadoe Stevens-As a music buff,this book is hard to resist-I highly recommend it!

mr durkees book american top40 the countdown of the century is very entertaining reading for any fan of american top 40 .the information in the book is very accurate.mr durkee was a staff writer& chief statistician on american top 40 from 1989-1995.he interviewed several people who worked on american top 40.mr durkee talks about how casey kasem & shadoe stevens both got started in radio .the book also list all the special coundowns & year end coundowns of american top 40.it aslo gives an insdie view on how a coundown show is produced .every sunday i used to listien to american top 40 & the book has brought back many great memories for me .i recomend this book to any fan of american top 40 it will be enjoyable reading