Welcome to my collection of American Top 40 syndicated radio shows featuring Casey Kasem. My collection is definitely incomplete, as the local market had gaps, in that over the years at least four radio stations had the contract to air the shows. I collected as many of the actual LPs from the stations as possible, until it no longer aired where I live. Sometimes I was only able to borrow the LPs. In that situation, I recorded the show onto reel-to-reel tape, which have all been transferred to WAV files.

Most of the LP boxes have the cue sheets. Sometimes the board operator wrote on the cue sheets. So, not all cue sheets are clean.

Select the year from the following selections:

For those shows that are marked as containing program/production errors, see what those are in Pete's AT40 books. Visit his website for details on obtaining a copy. See link below.

AT40 Documentation

AT40 Operation Manual (Circa 1974) PDF 32 MB

Various Letters/Inserts PDF 33 MB

Various Billboard Ads PDF 35 MB

AT40 News Clippings

AT40 LP Box Covers/Labels (1971 thru 1980)

AT40 LP Box Cover		First Used	Comment
		714-3 10/16/71	First LP cover design in my collection. Design used when first shipment of LPs started. The lid portion is the scan, while the container portion was black (border). Previously shipped on 10.5" reel-to-reel tapes.
		741-1 1/05/74	They finally went to an all white box using the same cover design.
		742-4 4/27/74	The same basic design was kept, but now they added the border.
		794-11 12/08/79	Major redesign. Now the LP box is a solid blue with new artwork.
		802-12 6/21/80	They needed to add the Watermark logo.
		All LPs thru 802-12	The STEREO was added when they started shipping LPs in stereo, which was with show 731-8 (2/24/73). But, many stereo LPs used the old mono labels until they got used up. This version of the logo lasted through the 6/21/80 (802-12) show. The side-by-side images are the two sides of a LP.
		742-9?	They stopped putting the program # and date on both sides of the discs. Now only the "A" sides contain the information. But, they were not consistant. For me 742-8 (5/25/74) was the first show. For Pete, 742-8 has the date stamp on all sides. It wasn't until the next week that the new pattern was consistant. But wait, it gets even more weird. Pete dug through his collection and discovered: 742-4 (4/27/74): 1A -- date stamp/2B -- date stamp 742-4 (4/27/74): 2A -- date stamp/3B -- date stamp 742-4 (4/27/74): 3A -- date stamp/1B -- "See other side..." 742-6 (5/11/74): 1A -- date stamp/2B -- "See other side..." 742-6 (5/11/74): 2A -- date stamp/3B -- date stamp 742-6 (5/11/74): 3A -- date stamp/1B -- date stamp 742-7 (5/18/74): 1A -- date stamp/2B -- "See other side..." 742-7 (5/18/74): 2A -- date stamp/3B -- date stamp 742-7 (5/18/74): 3A -- date stamp/1B -- date stamp This would seem to indicate that other collectors might have some of the same differences. Is it possible there is a mix-n-match set for 742-9?
		802-13 thru 821-13	The Watermark logo was added with show 802-13 (6/28/80). Also note that they changed the font for the "American Top 40" text. Notice that the colors used for the labels varied, depending on the disc. This version of the logo lasted through the 3/27/82 (821-13) show. The next week, new LP labels were used, as a result of ABC Contemporary Radio Network's purchase of Watermark. See Pete Battistini's 1980s AT40 book, page 141, for a photo of the new label.
		804-11	This is the program label for the replacement LP. It is the only time that a replacement LP was sent out. No idea why the old non-Watermark labels were used. It did make it easier to tell them apart.
		743-9	Box cover art for one of Watermark's Presentation tapes. Reel-to-reel tape @ 7.5ips. Full track mono (12:27). My copy has a section of the tape partially mangled. No idea if it happened during recording, or mishandling at a later date. But, when transferring the tape, the right channel portion of the tape wasn't affected.
		742-8	Watermark's supplier was supposed to have quality control when pressing and distributing the discs. But, this disc made it through. Notice the two white marks in the disc. The two marks are actually shards of a disc label that got pressed into the disc. The disc still plays OK, though I think the smaller mark caused some pops. I, or Pete, may have other examples of bad pressings. I haven't gone looking for them.

NOTE: Thanks to Pete Battistini for looking in his collection to fill in the gaps as to when cover designs potentially started and when various label designs were first used. It is possible that a change in box design started shipping before the time frames indicated above, as stock was also being depleted and it was the luck of the draw as to which one we ended up with within our collections. For example, Pete has in his collection both a white box and blue box for show 794-11. They bounced back and forth between black/white and white/blue.

Links

Pete Battistini's site.
For those shows that are marked as containing program/production errors, see what those are in Pete's AT40 books. Visit his website for details on obtaining a copy.

Charis Music Group

Rob Durkee (Author of "American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century")

American Top 40 Wiki Page

Official AT40 Site

AT40 Fan Site (Name of site's author is unknown)

Billboard Magazine: Happy 50th Anniversary (7/01/20)
The article had an error in that the show did not start out on vinyl, it was on 10.5" reel-to-reel tapes.

Delaware Public Media: 50 Years Ago (7/03/20)

Obituary: Why Casey Kasem Was the Nerd Leader of Pop Music Geeks (6/16/2014)

Last modified on Saturday, 28-Sep-2024 22:53:54 CDT.