it was CASHBOX not Billboard!

Cashbox Magazine

It’s CASHBOX not Billboard!    (updated)

An article in Tom Taylor’s NOW (radio daily) about a guy named Joel Whitburn who is supposed to be THE authority on pop music who has based all his writings(a bunch of them) on what he’s read in Billboard.

Back in 59-60 As a jock and program director at WJJD Chicago...and WIRL Peoria and several other stations...like WPGC DC and WMEX Boston it’s a constant problem in radio history because Cashbox disappeared and Billboard stayed around.

We couldn’t wait for Cashbox and it was the bible.  Billboard was standby in the rest room for toilet paper! 

        Nobody who was anybody paid any attention to it....except maybe the stuff on Hollywood.

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While on this subject...Pete Bolger at WLS may get a bang out of this:

Back in 59-60 when I was rocking (?) away every afternoon on a powerful Chicago station...WJJD.. I was quite popular.  Well...it was way before WLS and our only competition was WIND with a signal that might get to La Grange on a good day... but we were heard all the way to Boston!

I was playing things like “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers and “Alley Opp”, “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini”...(don’t laugh it was top of the charts) “Stay” by Maurice Williams and “Are You Lonesome Tonight” by Elvis.  

FM was still a blank page...and the kids really had no one else in Chicago to listen too.

Some creep in the thief business decided he would pose as me and approach the cute little teen cashiers at businesses and pull the fast change scam.  

It appeared to work.  He said he was “Stan Major” and “on the radio” and the cashiers got a bit flustered and he gave them and $5.00 dollar bill and then claimed it had been a $20.00.  He apparently pulled this off for awhile without getting caught.  He might have gotten away with it...I never heard.

Someone at a store called me and told me what was going on.   I never heard anything from any police department but I do know one store he hit was in Mt. Prospect the suburb where our home was.

It all faded away when I left Chicago...and I’ve never mentioned it until now.

stanmajor@aol.com