| |
 |
Big D
began airing contemporary music in the months leading to the
format change on August 18, 1960. The very first Swinging
60 Survey was issued on April 10, 1960.
The survey
pictured to the left is from May 23, 1960 and listed the top
pop records of the week. Thanks to Gene
Knight, the owner, for supplying it. The pictured deejays
are Ron Landry, Art
Johnson, Jerry Bishop
and Jim Raynor.
In its
earliest years as a pop music station, WDRC was unusual
in that it featured a sixty song playlist. When WDRC
began airing contemporary music there wasn't a very large
library of pop music relative to the amount of music available
today.
The
Swinging Sixty provided diversity for listeners and made
the station a haven for record promoters. Big D had a reputation
for breaking new hits. Intense competition from WPOP made
Hartford an important market for record companies to try out
new acts. If a single made a Hartford playlist, it was on
the way nationally.
|
Not only were
weekly playlists distributed in record stores, but for many years
they were also published each week in The Hartford Courant,
The Hartford Times or The New Britain Herald.
For the record,
the last WDRC Swinging Sixty Survey was issued
May 15, 1967. The first WDRC Hit Parade Survey
was issued May 22, 1967. On October 28, 1968 the first WDRC
Big D Big Sound Survey was issued. That title was
dropped altogether in the playlist issued October 20, 1978. Year-end
lists were printed in the newspaper, appearing as Hartford's
Best Selling Sixty through 1969; after that they were listed
as Hartford's (100) Best Selling Songs.
The Big
D Big Sound Survey for the week ending July 2, 1971 (above)
noted an important change in the way songs charted at WDRC.
Click on the
following links for a sampling of WDRC music surveys; be
advised that they are large graphic files and may take some time
to load.
| May
23, 1960 (front)
(back) |
July
24, 1961 (front)
(inside)
|
| March
3, 1962 |
January
15, 1963 |
| September
14, 1964 |
April
26, 1965 |
| June
13, 1966 |
August
29, 1966 |
| May
22, 1967 |
September
2, 1968 |
| January
4, 1969 |
March
13, 1970 |
| May
14, 1971 |
August
13, 1971 |
| December
22, 1972 |
September
28, 1973 |
| November
1, 1974 |
October
24, 1975 |
| September
24, 1976 |
August
26, 1977 |
| October
20, 1978 |
February
2, 1979 |
| February
9, 1982 |
|
| WDRC
FM Solid Gold Hit Parade-December, 1986 Pt.
1 2
3
|
WDRC
FM Solid Gold 300 of 1992 #1-150
#151-300 |
| Top
Records of 1961 |
Top
Records of 1962 |
| Top
Records of 1963 |
Top
Records of 1964 |
| Top
Records of 1965 |
Top
Records of 1966 |
| Top
Records of 1967 |
Top
Records of 1968 |
| Top
Records of 1969 |
Top
Records of 1970 |
| Top
Records of 1971 |
Top
Records of 1972 |
| Top
Records of 1973 |
Top
Records of 1974 |
| Top
Records of 1975 |
Top
Records of 1976 |
| Top
Records of 1977 |
Top
Records of 1978 |
|
|
