Everly Brothers - Bird Dog

a bit off topic here perhaps, but seems this is the best place to ask.

I have seen this track as having reached number 1, number 2 and number 3
on websites that report on 1958 Billboard charts. I am without my Whitburn
books here in Thailand, so I can not check. Many "Hot 100 number ones"
lists omit this track, yet Joel's Music Vault, which I have credits to view the
chart data, shows it as having reached #1.

Any help from the experts here? thanks.

Edited by davidclark

Here's the deal:

Bird Dog was never #1 on the new Hot 100. However, Billboard's singles sales chart ran concurrently with the Hot 100 for several months. It was on that chart that the combined sales of Bird Dog and its flip, Devoted to You, propelled it to #1 for one week. (The Billboard survey combined two hit sides of a single into one listing at the time... prior to 1955, it ranked them separately.)

Bird Dog was never #1 in Cash Box, which was a sales-based-only chart at the time and did separate sides into separate listings.

BTW, "Hound Dog" only peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 100, the precursor to the Hot 100 that was compiled exactly the same way that the early Hot 100 was -- a combination of sales, airplay, and jukebox. Its #1 listing comes from the same sales chart that combines the sides into one listing, and was listed on top as the side that was "most requested by customers."

torcan wrote: Brian W. wrote: Bird Dog was never #1 in Cash Box, which was a sales-based-only chart at the time and did separate sides into separate listings. Not meaning to nit-pick, but if CashBox was sales only, how could two sides of the same single be listed separately? Once you bought one, you bought the other...

The rankings were determined by sides "most requested by customers." For Billboard, this meant adding the sales rankings for each of those sides together.

For example, Perry Como's "Catch A Falling Star" peaked at #3 on their Bestselling Singles chart, with both sides (it was b/w "Magic Moments") added together.

However, at that moment in time, the Billboard Top 100 was also sales-only, ranked according to side most requested by customers, and "Catch a Falling Star" peaked at only NUMBER NINE, with "Magic Moments" not even making the top ten.

davidclark wrote: thanks a bunch; I appreciate the clarification. one more question (ok, two). how long did the Best Sellers chart run along side the Hot 100, and, did all other Best Seller #1s during this time also reach #1 on the Hot 100. I would think so, or else there would be another "anomaly" like with Bird Dog.

The "Best Selling Pop Singles In Stores" chart ran concurrently with the Hot 100 from the 8/11/58 issue though the 10/13/58 issue, so two months.

The only week that the #1 on the two charts did not match was the week the combo of "Bird Dog/Devoted to You" hit #1. "Little Star" was #1 on the Hot 100 that week.

A more fair comparison is between the Billboard Top 100 Sides and the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores chart during the several months that the former was sales-only and was for the same weekly survey period. (Prior to this, the Top 100 was for a four-week survey period, not a single week as the Best Sellers in Stores chart was.) The note accompanying the chart read:

Billboard wrote: "This is a tabulation of dealer individual record sales listed according to the specific side requested by customers. No attempt is made to add sides together to reflect actual record sales. This is, therefore, a tabulation of sides or songs, and not records. This is the reason for any possible variation that occurs between the top 50 sides as reflected in this chart, and the top 50 record sellers as reflected in the 'Best Sellers In Stores' chart."

Week of 2/10/58, the double-sided Elvis Hit "Don't/I Beg of You" was #1 on Best Sellers, while "At the Hop" remained at #1 on Top 100 Sides. "Don't/I Beg of You" would remain at #1 on Best Sellers for five weeks, but it would take a full four weeks for "Don't" to finally make it to #1 on its own as a customer "most requested side" on the Top 100 Sides, where it would remain at #1 for only a single week.

In the interim, The Silhouettes' "Get a Job" also hit #1 on the Top 100 [selling] Sides, which it never managed to do on the Best Sellers chart because of the double-sided hit of "Don't/I Beg of You."

"Yakety Yak" is the only other #1 on Top 100 Sides during its sales-only period in 1958 that was prevented from going to #1 on the Best Sellers chart, again by a double-sided Elvis hit, "Hard Headed Woman/Don't Ask Me Why."