The canon of country music, covering its history from Ernest Tubb to Shania Twain, is an all-inclusive, artist-by-artist listing including more than 2,100 artists and 16,693 songs that debuted on Billboard's "Top Country Singles" charts from 1944 through 1997. This fourth edition features extensive chart data and record and artist information plus valuable highlights: the B-sides of all charted singles, an all-new record price guide, new picture sleeve symbols, and easy-to-spot hottest streaks and biggest hits. A song title section helps identify the artist of each song. Fifty-three years of #1 records are listed week by week. Top artist and record rankings chronicle a host of significant achievements in country music history. For anyone who knows or wants to know anything about country music, this is your book! 544 pages, 7 inch. x 9 1/4 inch., Hardcover.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sadly obslete!,
By Brian Rathjen (Davenport, IA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Top Country Singles - 1944-1997 (Hardcover)
To be honest, this is a great reference book that has been appreciated by many fans. Whether it's a country radio programmer who is trying to put out the best radio show possible or two friends settling an argument, this book helps fit those and many other needs. However, I downrated the book because of its glaring flaw -- it's already obselete. When one is trying to track a country performer's most recent chart activity, he can't (since the cutoff date is 1997). The reader would have to use other means to find out the more recent information. Yes, I do know annual update guides are available, but most people don't know that or aren't interested in buying the individual books. However, I do hope Joel Whitburn will soon update "Top Country Singles." One feature I hope he adds to this (and all other books he publishes) is a year-end chart listing the top 100 songs by year (e.g., the top 100 songs of 1944, etc.). That would be another great way to reference how well a classic or current artist has done (or is doing).
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still useful, though a bit dated (2008+ edition),
This review is from: Top Country Singles - 1944-1997 (Hardcover)
The period covered ends in 1997, obviously. I kept this edition when looking at Whitburn's updated (2004?) version came out, due to the then-new book's change in format. The 2004 edition deleted the 45 B-sides in favor of A-side songwriter credits, which I found far less useful. The newer 2008+ editions reinstated the B-side listings, which I happily acquired. If your C&W interests don't make the post-1997 period necessary, you'll find this 1944-1997 edition still quite handy. Anyway, after Twitty went from '50s preacher/greaser look to the afro, singing excruciating geezer boogie (ugh, what can you say about aging C&W lounge lizard pickup song, that Pointer Sisters' "Slow Hand"? --simply putrid!) and Dolly went Disco in '78, does anyone care about mainstream country music? Sheesh!
5.0 out of 5 stars
every country chart watcher's dream book,
This review is from: Top Country Singles - 1944-1997 (Hardcover)
In this book, Joel Whitburn displays his signature style of extra features like "Most Charted Singles"; "Most Top-40 Singles"; "Most Top-10 Singles"; etc. This 4th Edition is spotlighting the years of 1944-1997. Whitburn gives a history of the singles charts and including the Juke Box, Disc Jockey, and Best Seller charts. Whitburn also explains that the Juke Box chart ended in 1957 and in 1958 the other two merged into the Top-30 Country and Western Sides chart and from that point forward as the genre grew and expanded, more chart positions were added and more radio stations were switching to country music that by the dawn of 1973, the chart had expanded to 100 positions from 75 and was by now called Hot Country Singles. This 100 position counterpart to pop music's Hot 100, remained the norm until 1990. Every artist that has ever had a single land on the charts at any position is listed. All Top-200 Artists have their picture next to their section. The book also lists the value of the singles in case anyone comes across them at a flea market or wherever. the prices listed almost always go own as the years progress. Like, one single by an artist is listed at a $5.00 value, but yet the very next one reads only $3.00! then, some artists that go way back, their singles are worth over $50.00 but their value goes down as their career progresses...which i don't understand. let's say an artist may have reached his peak for example, in 1976...but that doesn't mean, in my opinion, that a single from the years following isn't valuable to fans that may need it to complete their collection...and because of the elusiveness and rarity of this single, it has a value placed on it by the fan which goes beyond commercial worth. The price guides are not what the book is all about, but they're listed just like in the "Top Country Albums" book. the bottom line is that this book is necessary for chart freaks like myself that love diving into the history of music and studying what people were buying in a given year or era.
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