Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating
Review: An amazing collection of record charts stretching from the 1890's into the mid 1950's. Lists artist, title, date charted, weeks on chart along with record (or in some very old cases, cylinder) numbers. Chart size varies from decade to decade; anything from 1890-1899 had to make the Top 3 to show up. By the late 30's, anything that made the top 30 is listed. A mind boggling amount of research must have gone into this work. Anyone interested in pop music from this period should be delighted. The book is a little pricey, but I havn't seen anything to compare to it at any price.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: An amazing collection of record charts stretching from the 1890's into the mid 1950's. Lists artist, title, date charted, weeks on chart along with record (or in some very old cases, cylinder) numbers. Chart size varies from decade to decade; anything from 1890-1899 had to make the Top 3 to show up. By the late 30's, anything that made the top 30 is listed. A mind boggling amount of research must have gone into this work. Anyone interested in pop music from this period should be delighted. The book is a little pricey, but I havn't seen anything to compare to it at any price.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, but needs serious UPDATING!
Review: As always, Whitburn gives his readers just the facts, no editorializing (thank you!), but this particular book is sorely outdated. Most of the artists listed have died, and when a reader needs to know a specific date of death for an artist, such as Lawrence Welk, the info's not there. Also, the given info has not been tweaked at all, unlike the info found in Whitburn's "1955 - present" books, which always get some improving with each edition, even if it's only listing B-sides or adding a category. This book is stale! Please update it! I promise to buy it again if you do!
Rating: 
Summary: Every music historian must read this
Review: I bought this book a year ago and this helped me learn about the popular music of one century ago. I'm glad it gives me info about artists and musicians 80% of the world has never heard of like Billy Murray, Paul Whiteman and Len Spencer. This is extremely outdated, but still useful. Record Research unfortunately said that they haven't talked about plans updating it yet. I encourage for future editions they add the features they use in current RR books like pictures of the artists that made everything happen, B-sides, price guides, and most importantly, expanded information and death dates. I encourage collectors and music enthusiasts to buy this.
Rating:
Summary: Every music historian must read this
Review: I bought this book a year ago and this helped me learn about the popular music of one century ago. I'm glad it gives me info about artists and musicians 80% of the world has never heard of like Billy Murray, Paul Whiteman and Len Spencer. This is extremely outdated, but still useful. Record Research unfortunately said that they haven't talked about plans updating it yet. I encourage for future editions they add the features they use in current RR books like pictures of the artists that made everything happen, B-sides, price guides, and most importantly, expanded information and death dates. I encourage collectors and music enthusiasts to buy this.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reference book for the serious collector.
Review: I have owned books by Joel Whitburn for over two decades now. As an avid record collector and someone who is extremely interested in the history of popular music I cannot imagine life without them. Of all of Whitburns books, this is perhaps my very favorite. This book is unique among the Whitburn offerings in that it begins with a seven page "Chronology of Milestones in Popular Music/Recording History 1877-1954." It is a fascinating look at the history of the recording industry beginning with Thomas Edisons invention of the phonograph. You will also learn about the history of the Billboard music charts as well as the beginnings of two of America's most venerable record labels Columbia and Victor.
But the main thrust of any Joel Whitburn book is the chart information. In this volume, you will find an artist by artist listing of over 12000 records that appeared on various pop music charts from 1890 through 1954. By perusing the pages of this book you will learn about some of the most popular turn of the century artists such as Henry Burr and Billy Murray. You will be amazed at how dominant such long forgotten artists as the American Quartet and Paul Whiteman were in their day. Of particular interest to me was how prolific Bing Crosby was between 1931 and 1954. During that period Crosby had an astounding 340 charted records!!! It is also fun to peruse some of the titles. You learn that things really don't change all that much. My very favorite among these is a 1915 hit by the Peerless Quartet entitled "Cows May Come, Cows May Go, But the Bull Goes On Forever."
You may be a bit put off by the price of a Joel Whitburn book. But believe me if you are a serious collector they are worth every penny. I bought my copy of this book more than fifteen years ago and still refer to it frequently.
Rating:
Summary: Essential reference book for the serious collector.
Review: I have owned books by Joel Whitburn for over two decades now. As an avid record collector and someone who is extremely interested in the history of popular music I cannot imagine life without them. Of all of Whitburns books, this is perhaps my very favorite. This book is unique among the Whitburn offerings in that it begins with a seven page "Chronology of Milestones in Popular Music/Recording History 1877-1954." It is a fascinating look at the history of the recording industry beginning with Thomas Edisons invention of the phonograph. You will also learn about the history of the Billboard music charts as well as the beginnings of two of America's most venerable record labels Columbia and Victor.
But the main thrust of any Joel Whitburn book is the chart information. In this volume, you will find an artist by artist listing of over 12000 records that appeared on various pop music charts from 1890 through 1954. By perusing the pages of this book you will learn about some of the most popular turn of the century artists such as Henry Burr and Billy Murray. You will be amazed at how dominant such long forgotten artists as the American Quartet and Paul Whiteman were in their day. Of particular interest to me was how prolific Bing Crosby was between 1931 and 1954. During that period Crosby had an astounding 340 charted records!!! It is also fun to peruse some of the titles. You learn that things really don't change all that much. My very favorite among these is a 1915 hit by the Peerless Quartet entitled "Cows May Come, Cows May Go, But the Bull Goes On Forever."
You may be a bit put off by the price of a Joel Whitburn book. But believe me if you are a serious collector they are worth every penny. I bought my copy of this book more than fifteen years ago and still refer to it frequently.
Rating:
Summary: A Musical Journey Through The Past
Review: I purchased this book through Mr.Whitburn's Record Research company in 1993-Right away,I was awestruck at the amount of artists & songs that were listed-I was happy to see that the songs that helped to launch the rock era were included,such as "Sh-Boom",& "Shake,Rattle,& Roll"-One reviewer indicated that this book should be updated,as far as listing the years when these artists died-I'm sure that Joel Whitburn would find that to be quite time consuming-Anyway,this book is terrific.
Rating:
Summary: A Musical Journey Through The Past
Review: I purchased this book through Mr.Whitburn's Record Research company in 1993-Right away,I was awestruck at the amount of artists & songs that were listed-I was happy to see that the songs that helped to launch the rock era were included,such as "Sh-Boom",& "Shake,Rattle,& Roll"-One reviewer indicated that this book should be updated,as far as listing the years when these artists died-I'm sure that Joel Whitburn would find that to be quite time consuming-Anyway,this book is terrific.
Rating:
Summary: If you're interested in pre-Elvis music, this helps a lot
Review: Music charts never tell the whole story as anybody who has followed pop charts of any era will know. They serve as an approximate guide to what music was fashionable at the time.It is particularly important to note that the economic depression of the thirties meant that a lot of singers chose to do radio broadcasts rather than make a lot of records which few could afford. This explains why Frances Langford (for example) was extremely popular yet had few hits. The other thing you notice is that then, as now, some of the songs you think would have been massive hits (like Moonlight in Vermont and Georgia on my mind) were only modest hits, while other songs which were massive hits appear to have sunk without trace. Despite all that, this is a valuable source of information for anybody seriously interested in the music of the pre-Elvis era, although very little music is currently available from the early 1920's or before. I don't think this book could be improved much. Death dates updated? Nice but hardly essential. Pictures? If you buy the music, you'll probably get a picture of the singer. As to the very early artists, photography was also primitive, so pictures may not be available, unless paintings or drawings are available. There is one improvement which would be really useful - include all the later hits from 1955 onwards for major artists who had a lot of hits up to 1954. Wouldn't it be great to have the complete hits record of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and other major artists in one volume? But that's a minor point - the information here is not available anywhere else. It's well worth the price if you're into this sort of music.
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