Cashbox

Um, they reached their commercial peak in 1963 and 1964 after they met Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.

They scored 16 top 40 hits on the Billboard and Cash Box Magazine charts, with a total of 26 chart hits over an eight-year period of 1959 to 1966.

That's seven years.

I'm very confused.

Sammy played a six-string guitar, and hoped to make it as a singer.

Hughes, on the other hand, existed outside the spotlight, in a world of numbers, working for a magazine called Cash Box.

Hughes tracked airplay and developed ratings, raw data that decided which singers hit the charts and which didn't.

Even though we lived in Music City, we were kind of naive about how the country music business worked in this town.

Money changes hands, and a song begins to rise on the charts, at least temporarily, until the promoters have taken all the singer's money and moved on.

We were very disillusioned w- when we found out how corrupt it was, and how much of it was going on, how rampant it was.

At the center of these allegations is Kevin Hughes' former employer, Cash Box Magazine.

Make no mistake, in its heyday, Cash Box Magazine was a very influential, respected trade publication.

You cannot be, uh, anti-Semitic and be a Christian, and the Vatican is anti-Semitic.

Down in the catacombs underneath the Vatican, there are tens of thousands of Jews buried, and my friend that owned Cash Box Magazine, the Pope flew him in because he want, wanted, uh, um, my friend to put him on the, uh, national charts 'cause the Pope, uh, cut a 33 1/3 RPM record, which they now call CDs.

And he wanted to wine and dine my friend so that he would, uh, put him on the charts and maybe make him number one because, uh, the Pope has a- almost the whole world fooled, and they all just go and kiss his feet and his ring, kiss his ring and everything.

And they just think it's a great honor to have, to have th- their picture taken with the Pope.

Frankie Avalon's wife was about to have another child, so he was allowed to opt out of appearing in the sequel.

According to Fabian in an interview with Todd Everett in Cash Box Magazine, published in 1971, "Jim Nicholson of AIP came to me and said, 'Frankie's having another child and he wants to stay at home, and we have this picture shooting in Italy.' He was so sweet.

I said okay.

It was Dr. Goldfoot and the Love Bombs.

Personally, I think the two of them just made really good music together.

In fact, Cashbox Magazine once said Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty may be the greatest country duo ever.

I open the set with a classic from 1957 from the immortal Patsy Cline, Walking After Midnight, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles record chart.

It was the very first hit record she had, but it wouldn't be until 1961 when she would have a string of hit records.

But yeah, that's how that came about.

And whenever I was deciding my first song to release to Cashbox Magazine, Leon Everett, who's the president of my record company, I know I'm jumping way ahead, but he said, this needs to be the first song.

He said, this is pure country right here.

He said, people will connect with that song.