What the HECK happened to Billboard's R&B charts from 1956-1963????!!!!!

[Charles Rogan]

Blue-eyed soul singers like Timi Yuro, the Righteous Brothers, Dusty
Springfield, Hall and Oates, Teena Marie and Rick Astley crossing over
to the R&B charts is natural and not a surprise. Don't get me wrong, I
like R&B, but I have no idea what the heck happened to the R&B charts
in the mid '50s. LOOK at some of the songs that made the top 5, some
actually made #1!

At the Hop - Danny and the Juniors
Big Girls Don't Cry - The Four Seasons
Diana - Paul Anka
Hey Paula - Paul and Paula
Honeycomb - Jimmie Rodgers (didn't know blacks like folkie type music)
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
It's My Party - Lesley Gore
Just a Dream - Jimmy Clanton
Sherry - The Four Seasons
Splish Splash - Bobby Darin
Sugar Shack - Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs
Wake Up Little Susie - The Everly Brothers
When - The Kalin Twins
Theme From a Summer Place - Percy Faith (#2) (a soft, pop ballad that
even BLACKS love!!!)
Everybody's Somebody's Fool - Connie Francis (#2)
Volare - Domenico Modugno (#2) (give a break, blacks love Italian
songs!!!???)

...and on and on and on
WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!!!????????????

[Scarlotti]

Post by Charles Rogan
Blue-eyed soul singers like Timi Yuro, the Righteous Brothers, Dusty
Springfield, Hall and Oates, Teena Marie and Rick Astley crossing over
to the R&B charts is natural and not a surprise. Don't get me wrong, I
like R&B, but I have no idea what the heck happened to the R&B charts
in the mid '50s. LOOK at some of the songs that made the top 5, some
actually made #1!
At the Hop - Danny and the Juniors
Big Girls Don't Cry - The Four Seasons
Diana - Paul Anka
Hey Paula - Paul and Paula
Honeycomb - Jimmie Rodgers (didn't know blacks like folkie type music)
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
It's My Party - Lesley Gore
Just a Dream - Jimmy Clanton
Sherry - The Four Seasons
Splish Splash - Bobby Darin
Sugar Shack - Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs
Wake Up Little Susie - The Everly Brothers
When - The Kalin Twins
Theme From a Summer Place - Percy Faith (#2) (a soft, pop ballad that
even BLACKS love!!!)
Everybody's Somebody's Fool - Connie Francis (#2)
Volare - Domenico Modugno (#2) (give a break, blacks love Italian
songs!!!???)
...and on and on and on
WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!!!????????????

It would appear that r&b was subsumed into/replaced by pop-rock. :)

[Marv Goldberg]

What happened is that black teenage listeners decided that they liked
these songs and pestered their local record stores to get them. The
stores, in turn, went to their normal distributors (who mostly handled
R&B records). The distributors came up with them somehow and, because
they were R&B distributors reporting into the trade papers, these
songs were tagged as R&B hits.

Post by Charles Rogan
Blue-eyed soul singers like Timi Yuro, the Righteous Brothers, Dusty
Springfield, Hall and Oates, Teena Marie and Rick Astley crossing over
to the R&B charts is natural and not a surprise. Don't get me wrong, I
like R&B, but I have no idea what the heck happened to the R&B charts
in the mid '50s. LOOK at some of the songs that made the top 5, some
actually made #1!
At the Hop - Danny and the Juniors
Big Girls Don't Cry - The Four Seasons
Diana - Paul Anka
Hey Paula - Paul and Paula
Honeycomb - Jimmie Rodgers (didn't know blacks like folkie type music)
I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March
It's My Party - Lesley Gore
Just a Dream - Jimmy Clanton
Sherry - The Four Seasons
Splish Splash - Bobby Darin
Sugar Shack - Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs
Wake Up Little Susie - The Everly Brothers
When - The Kalin Twins
Theme From a Summer Place - Percy Faith (#2) (a soft, pop ballad that
even BLACKS love!!!)
Everybody's Somebody's Fool - Connie Francis (#2)
Volare - Domenico Modugno (#2) (give a break, blacks love Italian
songs!!!???)
...and on and on and on
WHAT HAPPENED!!!!!!!????????????

[SavoyBG]

From: Marv Goldberg
What happened is that black teenage listeners decided that they liked
these songs and pestered their local record stores to get them.

Really?

Then why is it that most of those records DID NOT chart on Cash Box's R & B
charts?

I think you're wrong here Marvin. What happened was that Billboard's chart
methodology was terrible from the last 50s through the early 60s, which is why
they dumped their R & B chart in late '63 and didn't revive it until early
1965. Once they got the methodology right, you didn't see records like that on
the R & B chart anymore.

It's My Party - Lesley Gore

NOTHING by Leslie Gore ever made the Cash Box R & B charts.

I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March

This did not make the Cash Box R & B chart.

How do you explain the above two examples Marvin?

Do you insist that black teenagers were buying Little Peggy March and Lesley
Gore, and that somehow Cash Box missed this, but Billboard knew about it?






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[RandyPNY]

Post by SavoyBG

From: Marv Goldberg
What happened is that black teenage listeners decided that they liked
these songs and pestered their local record stores to get them.

Really?
Then why is it that most of those records DID NOT chart on Cash Box's R & B
charts?
I think you're wrong here Marvin. What happened was that Billboard's chart
methodology was terrible from the last 50s through the early 60s, which is why
they dumped their R & B chart in late '63 and didn't revive it until early
1965. Once they got the methodology right, you didn't see records like that on
the R & B chart anymore.

It's My Party - Lesley Gore

NOTHING by Leslie Gore ever made the Cash Box R & B charts.

I Will Follow Him - Little Peggy March

This did not make the Cash Box R & B chart.
How do you explain the above two examples Marvin?
Do you insist that black teenagers were buying Little Peggy March and Lesley
Gore, and that somehow Cash Box missed this, but Billboard knew about it?

But Cash Box did list some songs that were just as suspect on its R&B
charts, such as "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like A Man" by The
4 Seasons, all of which reached #1. Also, Cash Box beat Billboard to the
punch when it temporarily discontinued its R&B chart for the period March
12-Dec, 10, 1960, and for the same reason: it was decided that there was too
little difference between the R&B and pop charts. This of course had more to
do with the number records by black artists that were crossing over to pop
than it did with black teenagers buying a lot of Paul Anka or Connie Francis
records (although I'd guess there was some of that, too).

- Randy

[SavoyBG]

From: RandyPNY
But Cash Box did list some songs that were just as suspect on its R&B
charts, such as "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like A Man" by The
4 Seasons,

I don't agree that the Four Seasons were JUST AS SUSPECT as Lesley Gore and
Little Peggy March.






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[Mark Dintenfass]

Post by SavoyBG

From: RandyPNY
But Cash Box did list some songs that were just as suspect on its R&B
charts, such as "Sherry," "Big Girls Don't Cry" and "Walk Like A Man" by The
4 Seasons,

I don't agree that the Four Seasons were JUST AS SUSPECT as Lesley Gore and
Little Peggy March.

Good point. I don't know why the Four Seasons get such a bad rap from
some people. In the early 60s their stuff was better than most of the
things you could hear on top-40 radio and their sound was an
interesting mix of superior production and rough-edged vocals. No one
would have mistaken them for a black vocal group, but they sounded more
like black vocal groups than most other white groups in the cusp
period. The drumming on Four Seasons records was always worth hearing.
Coming out of a car radio turned up loud songs like "Big Girls Don't
Cry" or "Rag Doll" sounded just fine.