ARCHIVES  
COUNTRY SINGLES


The Legendary Cash Box Magazine Charts
Chart data collected by Randy Price

What was tops on the record charts the day you were born? Your graduation day? Your wedding day? Pick a decade. Pick a year. Pick a week. Let the fun begin.

Select a Decade:

The ’40s: 

The ’50s: 

The ’60s: 

The ’70s: 

The ’80s: 

The ’90s: 


Also in This Archive:

• POP SINGLES

• R&B/SOUL SINGLES

• POP ALBUMS
 The original Cash Box Magazine was a weekly coin-machine and music-industry publication from July 1942 through its last issue dated November 16, 1996. Cash Box published its first Country chart, under the banner “The Nation’s Big 5 Hillbilly, Folk & Western Juke Box Tunes,” in the issue dated August 18, 1947. That week and the following week, Cash Box listed seven additional titles below the Top 5, under the sub-banner “On The Way Up.” After that, the number of additional titles was reduced to five, under the sub-banner “Additional Tunes Listed Below In Order Of Popularity” (essentially expanding the chart to a Top 10).

In the issue dated Sept. 29, 1951, Cash Box began numbering all 10 records on the chart and changed “Big 5” to “Big 10” in the main banner.

In the issue dated March 14, 1953, Cash Box introduced its Country best-sellers chart, under the banner “The 10 Top Folk & Western Best Sellers (compiled by Jack ‘One Spot’ Tunis).” Since the juke box chart was given more prominence at the time, this archive includes both the juke box and best-sellers charts from that point through the end of 1954. Beginning with 1955, the archive focuses solely on the best-sellers chart, as it was the forerunner of the Country charts in subsequent years.

In the issue dated Oct. 30, 1954, Cash Box replaced the terminology “[Hillbilly,] Folk & Western” with the word “Country” on both the juke box and best-sellers charts.

In the issue dated June 4, 1955, Cash Box appended five additional titles below the Top 10 on the best-sellers chart (sometimes with more than one title listed at #15). In the July 28, 1956, issue, the banner over the chart was changed to read “Country Best Sellers In Retail Outlets.”

In the issue dated Jan. 5, 1957, the number of additional positions was expanded to 10 (with more than one title listed at #20 most weeks). The number of additional positions below the Top 10 increased to 15 in the Feb. 15, 1958, issue; and to 20 in the March 8, 1958, issue (again, with multiple titles listed in the anchor position most weeks).

The number of additional titles below the Top 10 was increased to 25 in the issue dated August 2, 1958. In the March 21, 1959, issue, the main portion of the chart was increased from 10 positions to 20, with 15 additional titles listed below that, maintaining the total of 35 positions. In the issue dated April 18, 1959, the chart was expanded to 50 positions and the banner changed to “The Cash Box Country Top 50 Across The Nation.”

In the issue dated May 21, 1966, the chart was expanded to 60 positions. In the issue dated February 26, 1972, the chart was expanded to 75 positions, and in the issue dated June 7, 1975, it was expanded to 100 positions.

Beginning with the issue dated September 22, 1973, Cash Box also published the Country Looking Ahead chart, which listed as many as 25 up-and-coming records that showed signs of breaking into the main Country singles chart. These charts were included in the magazine up through the May 31, 1975, issue. In the issue dated March 27, 1976, Cash Box effectively reinstated the Country Looking Ahead chart when it began listing the records in the Country Singles – Active Extras list in rank order. That version of Country Looking Ahead was included through the January 1, 1977, issue. In the June 2, 1990, issue, Cash Box reinstated the Country Looking Ahead chart as a listing of up to 20 independent-label records that were most likely to reach the Top 100 chart. (In the June 30, 1990, issue, the title of that chart was changed to Country Up & Coming.) In the issue dated March 21, 1992, Cash Box discontinued the “Up & Coming” list of independent-label singles and replaced it with a list of up to five major-label records not yet on the Top 100 but “receiving reports,” reverting to the Country Looking Ahead banner. That version of the chart was included through the November 19, 1994, issue. A link at the bottom of each weekly chart page during those periods points to the Country Looking Ahead chart for that week.

(Click on the links to the left to access the Pop Singles, R&B Singles and Pop Albums sections of the archive.)


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