CMT Blog: Archive

When my computer goes down, I can still turn in a fairly full day of work; but take away my Whitburn and I might as well be dozing on the beach. After all, who knows when I’ll need to find out the title of Eddy Arnold’s first No. 1 (“What Is Life Without Love,” 1947) or Buck Owens’ last one (“Streets Of Bakersfield,” 1988)? By Whitburn, I refer to that indispensable volume of record research, the latest incarnation of which is called Joel Whitburn’s Top Country Songs: 1944-2005.

I must stress that I have absolutely no personal stake in this product. I have never met Mr. Whitburn, have no financial interest in his company and have never received nor requested a free or discounted copy of his books. Even so, he thrills me with his Olympian sweep of our music. To begin with, he provides for each artist a thumbnail bio that includes the full name, date and place of birth (and, where applicable, death) and a list of CMA Awards and Grammys. There are also pictures of the top 200 artists. Then for each song, he cites the date it first charted, its peak position and the number of weeks it stayed there, the overall number of weeks on the chart, the record label and record number, the songwriter(s) and, in more recent entries, the title of the album the song came from.

The songs are further indexed by title, and there is a final section of lists for such career achievements as most chart hits, most No. 1 hits and most consecutive No. 1 hits. It is an astounding store of useful information and deliciously trivial snack facts. As one might expect in such a monumental undertaking, there are occasional errors. For example, in Brooks & Dunn’s entry, Whitburn cites Ronnie Dunn as a co-writer of “It’s Getting Better All the Time,” when it should be Ronnie Bowman. But that is a mere flyspeck on the Taj Mahal.

When I come across a song in Whitburn that interests me but whose words and melody I don’t know, I listen to a sample on Amazon.com or Tower.com. From that sample, I type the key phrases in a Google search for the complete lyrics. By such devices, one can sound awfully smart awfully fast. Isn’t that what American education is all about?