We’ve finally got some more information on the new Record Research “Gavin Report” book that we “teased” a few weeks back …
From Paul Haney …
If you worked in radio or were an avid record collector at any time from the 1960s through 2000, it's very likely that issues of The Gavin Report were at your fingertips. In this Record Research book, you’ll find an A-Z artist listing of every record that made the Top 40 of The Gavin Report from the first issue of May 20, 1958, to the final printed chart of November 17, 2000. In addition, we have added hundreds of “regional only” hits from the 1960s, that just missed the Top 40. This is truly the first-ever, in-depth research compiled on this now hard-to-find, but important publication, which documented the history of Top 40 radio’s golden years.
The Gavin Report 1958-2000 features every artist and song that appeared on the weekly chart. The Artist Section is an alphabetical-by-artist listing. Listed for each song is its Debut Date, Peak Position, Weeks on the Chart, record’s B-side, label and number, and an indication if it is not in our Top Pop Singles editions (and thus did not make Billboard magazine’s “Hot 100” chart). Artist biographies appear only for those artists not in our Top Pop Singles book.
Also includes an alphabetical Title Section, a chronological #1 Hits Section and a Rankings Section (Top 150 Artists, Top Hits By Decade, All-Time Top 100 Hits, and Achievements).
A Brief History of The Gavin Report
From a small, hand-typed mimeographed “tip sheet” to a full-sized, glossy trade magazine, The Gavin Report charted the long and colorful history of Top 40 radio.
Bill Gavin began with a limited sampling of stations which grew to a large panel of Top 40 reporters from markets of every size and paved the way for others to follow, in fair and accurate reporting of what radio stations were actually playing and what music fans were enjoying from coast-to-coast. Issues of The Gavin Report are likely to have been at the fingertips of those who worked in radio or were dedicated record collectors at any time from the 1960s through 2000. Now, Record Research presents one of Joel Whitburn’s final projects: his ‘record research’ of every song and artist that ever appeared in the history of The Gavin Report.
The Gavin Report’s slogan (The Most Trusted Name In Radio) reflected the integrity and impact of the publication’s founder, the late Bill Gavin. Born in Wisconsin in 1907, Bill Gavin became a fan of early radio broadcasts. After graduating from college, Gavin moved to San Francisco and began his career as a baritone vocalist with radio station KPO (later KNBC), as well as in local theater productions. After working for the government during World War II, Gavin returned to KNBC radio and spent time writing commercial jingles for the station’s clients. One of those clients was Lucky Lager beer. In 1951, Gavin began writing, producing and hosting a syndicated radio countdown program called the Lucky Lager Dance Time. The affiliated radio stations (mainly on the West Coast) sent him their local charts to compile the countdown and Gavin’s true calling had begun. By 1958, Gavin had expanded his list of radio stations across the entire U.S. and the result was a mimeographed “tip sheet” called Bill Gavin’s Record Report (this book begins with Report #1, dated May 20, 1958). This soon to be weekly publication quickly became must-reading for radio programmers across the country. Gavin accepted no paid advertising of any kind, which gave him instant integrity among his peers. He believed in only reporting the facts and avoided the usual record industry hype of the day. In 1965, Gavin hosted the first of what was to become an annual gathering of radio industry DJs and programmers. These yearly seminars became an increasingly important place for radio people to meet and share ideas. The Gavin Report continued to grow in stature over the years. Just a few months before he passed away in 1985, Gavin sold his publication to several long-time, trusted employees. The new owners kept the publication as a vital concern, publishing a weekly Top 40 chart until November of 2000, when the publication went monthly (with industry news, but no more charts) and finally ceased production in 2002.
You can view sample pages … and pre-order your copy (with a $15 discount) here …
https://www.recordresearch.com/books/the-gavin-report-1958-2000/
(Put me down for one, Paul!!!) kk
While we await the Revolver set, Joel has a new chart book coming out of the Gavin Report. This was a DJ tipster thing that was really cool to get for radio stations who subscribed to it. The book only has the Top 40 or 50 chart placings, but it (to my knowledge) often had four pages or radio station plugs about records being aired. I wish I could see the collection the book was made from.
Sample pages and ordering info:
https://www.recordresearch.com/books/the-gavin-report-1958-2000/
SAMPLE PAGES:
https://recordresearch.com/PDF/Gavin-Report_7-Pages.pdf
I do have a Gavin Report somewhere but cannot locate it right now. It’s from April of 1964, and it has tons of Beatles.
Here is what I sent to Paul Haney when I ordered the book (with discount) just now:
This is excellent! LOVE seeing music
radio stations played whether hits or not or on 45 or not. In looking at
those great sample pages …
I love seeing the Beatles cuts, altho in early 64, there should be many more
than listed. I always say "Michelle," despite it being an
afterthought today, was THE most played record of all at Christmas ‘65.
It probably helped that MOR stations could actually air a Beatles tune, too.
I have it and the Sgt Pepper entire LP listed #1 on a few surveys. KLIF
listed "All Beatles Records" as #1 on an April ‘64 chart I have.
I see "Mrs. Brown" charting a month before 45 was culled due to
airplay, as it should be, but "Listen People" would have been
similar, getting tons of airplay by Jan 1, 1967.
Not sure what "R" stands for, but "Stairway To Heaven"
should been more of a 300 weeks charter than just 5 weeks.
Brenda Lee always got played tons and it bears out in this listing.
First Family #1 as LP. YES! Here, KLMS listed it as such for a
week.
Monkees' She and Mary, Mary both charting in February, ‘67 fer sure. BUT
stations were playing them both as the new single before I'm a Believer was
issued, so airplay was big before the LP even got out. Interesting to
see' Listen to the Band" reach #25 and "Someday Man" not get
anything.
Nice to see Montanas get at least ONE week of glory at #38!!
Im gonna order this baby!! Great one, Paul.
Now, when do you issue the Variety Mag charts. OR the "KLMS Lincoln,
Ne 1959-1970" book or the "WLSClark Personal Charts 1963-1976"
book? I’ve already done the research on the last two.
Here's a few charts to show:
#1 Duluth, Minnesota:
Years ago when Joel Whitburn and I first talked about doing a Gavin Report book (he was missing a TON of these at the time … so I wonder how he ever managed to find them all!!!), we also discussed doing a Variety Chart Book, which Joel seemed very keen on at the time. I don’t know if he ever pursued that or not … maybe Paul Haney can answer to that … but I definitely have my Gavin Report Chart Book on order. Been waiting a long time for this one. (I just wish it also showed more of his commentary … I still say that’s a book in itself! Not only picking the hits … but it’d be interesting to see which ones he missed along the way, too!)
Yep, like you, really looking forward to receiving this one! (kk)
Speaking of the new "Revolver" release ...
We got this from Mark Lapidos, who was fortune enough to attend an advance “Revolver” listening party, prior to the release of the brand new box set …
REVOLVER LISTENING PARTY, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH, NYC
In a stunning state of the art not-yet-officially-opened recording studio in Chelsea, NYC, Giles Martin kicked off the presentation by guiding us through numerous alternate takes of maybe a half dozen of the album's tracks. He went into great detail on Taxman, showing us the drums, bass, and guitar were all on one track (Revolver was recorded on 4 tracks - today 32 and 64 tracks are common place). In 1966, they had to put them on one track to make room for the other pieces of the song. He told us that it was Peter Jackson and his team who wanted to separate the layers on a track in the Get Back film, so they can hear, for example, the group singing, while taking out any background talking, to make it much cleaner.
This is exactly what Peter explained
to us live on our stage back in April, via Zoom. So the end results of this new
Revolver album
is directly because of this new technology, and a 1966 classic album
released with 2022 technology. We heard it in a Dolby Atmos screening room,
played loud, and it blew me away. Each and every track is enriched. On Here There and Everywhere,
the world's greatest rhythm section (Paul & Ringo) play it beautifully to
fit the song. The guitar on another track was inventive, yet not overstated.
This gave the amazing vocals a chance to breathe and capture the essence of
Paul's classic. This is a rock and roll band just 3 years removed from
recording the Please
Please Me album in one day!!! About three quarters of the way
through listening, I thought of the first few dozen times or so I listened to
my mono copy on a little mono record player (common for an 18 year old in
1966!) I am not a record reviewer, so I will only add that fans will definitely
be thrilled with the results.
I want to mention one of the alternate takes we heard today - a non studio
demo of Yellow Submarine.
I always thought is started out as a Paul song, but it was definitely John's
idea. We get to hear the two of them working the song out after hearing the
song's demo.
It was very nice to see some people we haven't seen in a while - Dennis
Elsas, and the SiriusXM team of The
Beatles Fab Fourum Show. We met with FEST regulars Tom Frangione
(of course), Mitch Axelrod and Rob Leonard. Finally got to meet David Fricke,
who co-hosts The
Beatles Apple Jam with Tom, Rolling
Stone writer Rob Sheffield, Jeff Slate and the good folks at
Universal, who put this all together.
Michelle Joni joined us and asked Giles a great question that he took a
while to answer -- will Beatles house/electronic remixes ever be an
internal project? In short - nothing compares with the originals... and go ask
Ringo. ;) She took this selfie of us while we chatted with Giles a
bit afterwards.
Peace and Love,
Mark
The album and movie commemorating Creedence Clearwater Revival’s concert at The Royal Albert Hall came out last week and if you haven’t seen it, you owe yourself the hour and a half to check it out.
Between September of 1968 and September of 1971, CCR placed an incredible EIGHTEEN songs in The Top 100 of The National Singles Charts. Eleven of those made The Top Ten, with nine of those making The Top Three! And that doesn’t even count timeless classics like their version of “Suzie Q” (#9, 1968), “Fortunate Son” (#4, 1969), “Who’ll Stop The Rain” (#13, 1970).
You can read a great interview with Creedence Drummer Doug Clifford here:
Without question, one of my all-time favorite bands, these guys were definitely in the zone there for a while. We’ll never really know how much further it might have gone had the other band members (Clifford and Bassist Stu Cook) not been pushing for “equal time” on their albums. Once Fogerty gave in to that (John had written and/or produced everything the group had done up to that point, to incredible success), the joyride was over. Some of their albums cuts and B-Sides (they had an incredible SEVEN two-sided hits during this era) have been part of Classic Rock Radio since they were first released.
The Royal Albert Hall film and the documentary that precedes it are beautifully restored both visually and musically … and it’s a real treat to watch for a life-long Creedence fan. (And I think it’ll sway a few newcomers as well!) Available now Netflix.
(Next, I keep hoping that their much-talked-about appearance at Woodstock may also see the big … or the small … screen before too much longer, too.) kk
Hi Kent,
I just released a new 20 song CD called "In My Own Sweet Time.”
The CD is available at henrygross.com … downloads and streams available everywhere.
A video of “In My Own Sweet Time” can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9kdxWazC0E
2 1/2 years in the writing and recording.
Hope you Love it!
Henry Gross
So good to hear from you. (Trying my best to be a “glass half full” kind of guy, I’m seeing that one positive effect of Covid seems to be that it got the creative juices going again for a number of artists. At that point, it almost became a “what else are you going to do?” situation … so you might as well write and record … and SO many of you did … and now we, the fans, get to enjoy all this new music from some of our favorite artists. Happy to spread the word. Thanks, Henry! (kk)
Thanks Kent! Much appreciated.
Sorry to be out of touch, but I disappeared into writing world!!!
Actually, I’ve been writing and recording consistently since February, 2020’s “Too Clever (For My Own Good) CD. It’s just that I write many songs to find 20 I think are worthy of people’s time and I put a lot of songs on a CD to make it a great deal for those who want the superior sounding wav files. If they still have a CD player!!
So even though we all know it’s a fool who keeps doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, I prefer to keep the dream alive and celebrate every happy listener who writes to me - often telling me they’ve been listening in their cars that still have players!
So, the music is for sale at my website and free on You Tube, Spotify and anywhere else folks listen … and downloadable at iTunes, Apple Music, or wherever you do that. Cheers and happy listening,
Henry
After watching “My Life As A Rolling Stone” (VERY well done, by the way, and quite riveting viewing) Frannie made a comment that it would be nice to hear from some of the other former members who spent a good chunk of their careers performing as part of The World’s Greatest Rock And Roll Band.
The most obvious choice, of course, would have been Bill Wyman, who spent more that thirty years playing with The Stones (and now has been gone for thirty more! Just incredible!!!)
Well, coincidently, Vintage Classic Rock just ran a piece on rock stars who walked away from the spotlight … and one of THEIR choices was Bill Wyman as well. I thought their piece, while brief, was to the point … and worth sharing …
Sometimes the choice to leave a band simply comes down to knowing when your time is done. That was the case for Bill Wyman, founding bassist for the Rolling Stones. After more than 30 years, he opted to leave the group in December, 1992.
“I really don't want to do it anymore," Wyman explained at the time. "I have many special memories. It's been wonderful. But I thought the last two tours with them were the best we have ever done, so I was quite happy to stop after that."
The bassist joined the Stones during their 50th-anniversary concert in 2012 and has reportedly remained on good terms with his former bandmates. “I had 30 great years with them,” Wyman noted in 2008, “then a really nice divorce and corny as it may sound, we are still family."
(Corey Irwin)
