12 Days of Casey - Day 1

In somewhat of a countdown fashion, HERC will be featuring a different Casey Kasem Christmas show or countdown each day from now until December 25th, in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent and ending with the very first American Top 40 Christmas countdown from 1971.

"Hi. Merry Christmas everybody and welcome to American Top 40. I'm Casey Kasem and we'd like to welcome you in fact to a very special AT40 countdown."

Day 1 of the 12 Days Of Casey is an episode of American Top 40, featuring the first half of Casey's very first "All-Time Christmas Countdown" of the Top 40 Christmas Songs.  This holiday countdown originally aired on Christmas Day 1971 but thanks to Premiere Networks, HERC has heard a replay of that show.  On the original broadcast, Casey gave listeners the details on a mail-in offer to get the Special Christmas Top 40 countdown list, as well as the 1971 Year End Countdown list (which he would count down the following week, the first week of 1972) and a groovy American Top 40 poster for their walls.  Another interesting thing about this particular show is the producers chose to play alternate versions of the charted songs in addition to the more popular charted versions.  As a countdown extra, Casey played Bing Crosby's first Christmas hit, his version of "Silent Night" from 1935.

#	title	artist	year	1973
20	I'll Be Home For Christmas	Bing Crosby	1943	20
19	You're All I Want For Christmas	Frankie Laine	1948	19
18	Nuttin' For Christmas	Barry Gordon	1955	18
17	Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree	Brenda Lee	1958	16
16	Please Come Home For Christmas	Charles Brown	1960	13
15	I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus	Jimmy Boyd	1952	17
14	Here Comes Santa Claus	Gene Autry	1947	15
13	Sleigh Ride	Leroy Anderson	1948	14
12	Frosty The Snowman	Gene Autry	1950	12
11	Jingle Bells	Bing Crosby	1943	9
10	The Chipmunk Song	Alvin & the Chipmunks	1958	11
9	Blue Christmas	Elvis Presely	1957	8
8	Santa Claus Is Coming To Town	Bing Crosby	1942	10
7	Winter Wonderland	Ray Coniff	1959	7
6	Silver Bells	Jimmy Wakely and Margaret Whiting	1950	6
5	Jingle Bell Rock	Bobby Helms	1957	5
4	The Christmas Song	Nat "King" Cole	1946	4
3	The Little Drummer Boy	Harry Simeone Chorale	1958	3
2	Rudolph The Red-Nosed Rendeer	Gene Autry	1949	2
1	White Christmas	Bing Crosby	1942	1
	Silent Night	Bing Crosby	1935	-

Alternate versions also heard on the countdown:

• Ricky Zahnd with #18
• Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans with #14
• The Ronettes with #13
• The Four Seasons with #8
• Darlene Love with #7
• Diana Ross and the Supremes with #6

With HERC SR, HERC's Mom and all them visiting, The Hideaway will be dark until Friday, January 2nd, when we return with (what else but) an episode of America's Top 10.