Tapes Of WLS Top 5 Daily Countdown

Back in the late 1960s, WLS tabulated a DAILY Top 5 countdown, which was tabulated on an "IBM 360 Computer", or something like that, which made it sound really official. Did anyone make tapes of these countdowns? I seem to remember one night that "Watch The Flowers Grow", a light psychedelia flavored tune from late 1967 by The Four Seasons, which only reached #30 Hot 100 but hit #9 on the WLS weekly survey, which put it in the realm of possibility that it happened the way I remembered it, in the Daily Top 5. It seems that I may have even recorded the countdown on a 3 1/4" reel to reel recorder at 3 3/4 IPS. I don't know how I would find that particular tape even if the tape and audio survived. Does anyone else remember those Top 5 Daily Countdowns? I'd love to find some of these. It seems like only a few WCFL minispins and Top 10 countdowns have survived all these years.

Schroedingers Cat said:

Back in the late 1960s, WLS tabulated a DAILY Top 5 countdown, which was tabulated on an "IBM 360 Computer", or something like that, which made it sound really official. Did anyone make tapes of these countdowns? I seem to remember one night that "Watch The Flowers Grow", a light psychedelia flavored tune from late 1967 by The Four Seasons, which only reached #30 Hot 100 but hit #9 on the WLS weekly survey, which put it in the realm of possibility that it happened the way I remembered it, in the Daily Top 5. It seems that I may have even recorded the countdown on a 3 1/4" reel to reel recorder at 3 3/4 IPS. I don't know how I would find that particular tape even if the tape and audio survived. Does anyone else remember those Top 5 Daily Countdowns? I'd love to find some of these. It seems like only a few WCFL minispins and Top 10 countdowns have survived all these years.

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I don't remember WLS ever doing a Top 5 countdown, but I do remember "The Top 3 most requested songs" which began on the Dick Biondi Show in the early 60s and continued in the mid & later 60s by Art Roberts. I may have one or 2 of those on tape, but nothing from 1967.

Sorry I haven't responded and thanks for your recollections. With the new server, I cannot post from my portable device for some reason. You know, in the back of my mind, I thought it was either the Top 3 or Top 5. But I couldn't remember for sure. With the 3 1/4 inch tapes, I was always at least tempted to rerecord, even when I found a 600 foot tape. So I'm not sure if it even survived rerecording. To the person who private messaged, I am really concerned about trying to play tapes this old. I have visions of the magnetic material separating from the backing. I was kind of surprised that "Watch The Flowers Grow" appeared, only being a #30 Hot 100, and almost thought I must have imagined it. I have a buddy on a Blog who considers it one of his favorite songs. I was surprised that it was that big at WLS once I saw it on oldiesloon and ARSA, and then I realized that I was probably remembering it right. I listened to WLS many nights. We got a Sony 6R-11 TRF stage set, and if you nulled out WFDF, you could hear WLS in the daytime, about 225 miles away. WCFL was easy in the daytime on it, and I remember listening to the Top 10 Countdowns on it in the daytime. Before that radio, I had to either listen to it on a Delco Car radio or a radio with a long wire antenna in the daytime. The music was changing fast then, and "In The Sunshine Of Your Love" by Cream was Top 10 on WCFL. The 6R-11 lives, but needs some recapping of the electrolytics.