Casey Kasem's American Top 40 - 70's Edition ~ Fidel Benitez Blog

The Casey Kasem American Top 40 is still one of the most recognizable and loved radio shows of all time.

His signature sign off: Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Since his retirement, Casey Kasem lives quietly and refuses interviews. He does, however remain politically active and took on a little voice over work for commercials and cartoons. After his Top 40 fame, Kasem was best known as the voice of Shaggy in Scooby Doo.

In 1985, he was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. The American Top 40 lives on in syndication on over 200 radio stations.

Co-creator Casey Kasem hosted the original AT40 from its inauguration on July 4, 1970 until August 6, 1988 and returned to host the revived version from March 28, 1998 to January 3, 2004 (for much of the interim, he hosted the competing Casey's Top 40). AT40's other two regular hosts have been Shadoe Stevens, who replaced Kasem on the original AT40 and hosted until its 1994 cancellation, and the aforementioned Ryan Seacrest. Currently, AT40 with Seacrest airs in two different formats, with one distributed to Contemporary Hit Radio (Top 40) stations and the other to Adult Contemporary (formerly Hot Adult Contemporary) stations (which were previously served by two different Kasem-hosted shows; see below). There is no differentiation between the Top 40 and AC versions of AT40 made on air. Kasem is still heard in two weekly replays of vintage shows from the '70s and '80s, respectively.

In its early years, the AT40 used the Billboard charts to compile the countdown, touting it as "the only source". The program subsequently switched to being based on Radio and Records airplay data upon its late 1990s return. Currently the AT40 is based on data from Mediabase, which is also published in the Tuesday Edition of USA Today.

Long time ago, when I lived in Cuba I used to listen to American Top 40. I would like to share those list with all my readers.

ENJOY!