Top 40

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Willie Collins

While black popular music could be heard on Top 40 by the original performers of the music, the Top 40 format often played emasculated and watered-down versions of black popular music. "Cover" records had made their debut many years before Top 40. A narrow definition of "cover" referred to a song that was successful by a black artists and then recorded by a white artist on a major label. Black bluesman Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle and Roll" was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets. "Sincerely" by the Moonglows, a black vocal group, was recorded by the McGuire Sisters. The covers in many instances climbed to the top of the charts while the "authentic" originals were shut out. Eventually, the black originals began to outshine the covers, as Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" did over the Teresa Brewer's version.

Top 40, according to radio consultant Guy Zapoleon, can be a format envisioned in four cycles, each lasting from seven to nine years. Each cycle has three stages: birth, extremes, and doldrums. Cycle 1 (1956-1963) encompasses pop, rock, R&B, dance, and country. Cycle 2 (1964-1973) embodies pop, rock, R&B, acid rock and soft rock, and country. Cycle 3 (1974-1983) embraces pop, rock, R&B, the disco, adult/contemporary, and country. Cycle 4 (1984-1993) includes pop, rock, R&B, rap/funk, adult/contemporary, and country. By the end of the twentieth century, rap or hip-hop, country, and hard rock have yet to penetrate the Top 40. When rap first broke into the pop charts, Casey Kasem, the originator of the countdown and Casey's Top 40, is credited with playing the hits, but other Top 40 stations have taken a harder line irrespective of how rap songs charted, most Top 40 stations have consistently avoided rap. Perhaps mainstream rap artists such as Mase and Will Smith will eventually be palatable to the format.

Payola, the act of paying for air play, long suspected in the radio industry, was investigated by Congress in 1960. Representative Oren Harris and his subcommittee targeted Alan Freed, an extremely popular disc jockey who was found guilty of two counts of commercial bribery by the New York District Attorney's Office. His fine was small, but as a result he lost his job and was subsequently indicted for back income taxes. Payola scandals gained notoriety and resurfaced in 1984 and again in 1986. Despite these scandals, Zapoleon believed that Top 40 remained robust and continued to mirror the best of all types of music.

While Top 40 may have been democratic in its selection of playlists where each song was evaluated on its on merit, it was less so in terms of the diversity in race and gender of Top 40 disc jockeys. The majority of Top 40 disc jockeys were white males. No satisfactory explanation exists as to why more disc jockeys of color were not employed in Top 40 radio. In 1964, after Top 40 had been in existence for more than nine years, several black disc jockeys were hired, including Larry McCormick, reportedly the first African American disc jockey to work at KFWB in Los Angeles. In 1965, Chuck Leonard was hired for New York's WABC radio, and in 1968, Frankie Crocker was a Top 40 DJ on WMCA. Also in 1968, Walt Love was hired as a Top 40 disc jockey at Houston's KILT. In 1973, Yvonne Daniels, daughter of singer-dancer Billy Daniels, broke gender and race by becoming the first woman and first African American to be hired as a Top 40 disc jockey at WLS in Chicago.