This release is an adjunct to our hugely popular “America’s Greatest Hits” series which over the years has provided annual collections of the biggest hits of each year in the Billboard pop charts. It is also a companion edition to our 2013 release “The First US Top 100 November 1955” (ACQCD7062) which comprised every record in that chart from three years earlier, which went down very well with collectors, keen to have a copy of every record that appeared in that landmark chart, and we are sure that music fans will want to have this collection as well.

On June 17th 1957, Billboard stopped publishing the Most Played in Juke Boxes chart. A year later, Billboard decided that to subsume the Most Played by Jockeys airplay chart and the Top 100 chart into a new chart called The Hot 100, and the first such chart, based on the survey for the first week in August, was published in the second week of August. The Best Sellers In Stores chart was published alongside the Hot 100 for another couple of months until that too was discontinued on October 13th 1958. The Hot 100 rapidly became established and has continued to this say as the definitive weekly report on the US singles market.

This great-value 4-CD collection,comprises every record in that first Hot 100 chart from Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool”, which was the first Number One in the Hot 100 through to Frankie Vaughan’s “Judy” at No. 100. Once again, it’s a memento of another iconic chart moment. It’s an interesting and unusual chart, with multiple versions of several high profile songs, and multiple entries for several artists, some of whom charted both sides of releases separately. Alongside the big names, it includes a significant number of collectible obscurities, especially towards the bottom end of the chart, and with an in-depth 10-000+ word booklet with background notes on every record, it will be a must-have snapshot of a significant date in US chart history.