Customer Reviews

WCFL Chicago Top 40 Charts 1965-1976

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

 

 

I just received my copy of Ron's new book, "WCFL Chicago Top 40 Charts 1965-1976". It is a worthy companion to his three volumes based on the WLS charts.

It inclues an artist section, which lists every charted single by artist and title, with its debut date, peak date, peak position, and number of weeks on the chart. This is followed by a title section, which is more than just an index, as it includes all the information from the artist section of the database, but arranged in title order.

Next is a chronological list of every song that made it to #1 on the WCFL surveys, from December 1965 through February 1976. This is followed by year-by-year lists of the 40 most popular songs on 'CFL from 1966 through 1975, an all-time 'CFL top 40 songs list, and an all-time top 100 artists list, all based on the weekly WCFL music surveys.

The introduction gives a concise capsule history of WCFL's years as a top 40 station.

If you were listening to top 40 radio in Chicago in the '60s and '70s you will find this book to be a treasure trove of half-forgotten musical facts. There were significant differences between the playlists of WLS and WCFL when they were battling for ratings supremacy in Chicago. If you have never been to Chicago and never heard WCFL, you will still find this book to be interesting, because if you're reading this essay you are probably an oldies junkie like me and will enjoy the comparisons between what WCFL featured and how the same songs fared on WLS or in Billboard, or even on CHUM! (By the way, aside from Chicago and Toronto, have any other cities had the local top 40 charts covered in book form?)

Support your local disc jockey! Buy this book!

Excellent resource for chart watchers. But be aware, as extensive as this book is in terms of numbers, it's just that. Numbers and more numbers.

That in itself is not bad. But perhaps a future edition will include illustrations of many of the music survey covers during the period this book covers.