THE FIRST-EVER BILLBOARD HOT 100
chart made a relatively modest debut
on page 36 of the Aug. 4, 1958, issue,
where the magazine’s editors touted “the
fastest, most complete and most sensitive
index to the popularity of recorded music
in America.” The new tally, the story
continued, would “list the 100 most
popular recorded sides” each week and
serve as “a guide to potential as well as
the current hits.”
The chart’s architects were editors Paul
Ackerman and Tom Noonan, with an
assist from Seymour Stein, then a highschool student and an obsessive music
fan who worked at Billboard’s oices after
(and sometimes instead of ) class. He
would go on to co-found Sire Records and
rise to chairman of Warner Bros. Records.
The Hot 100 supplanted Billboard’s
Top 100, which, by the time it was
phased out, was a pure sales chart. The
new list used a formula to weight radio
and jukebox plays, as well as sales, to
determine a single’s popularity. “Record
stores reacted favorably; radio stations,
too,” Stein told Billboard in 2015.
At the top of that irst ranking:“Poor Little Fool” by then-17-year-
old Ricky Nelson, who had begun his
show- business career in 1949 in radio
and, later, on TV, playing himself in
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, a
sitcom that starred his family.
During his career, Nelson landed
43 more songs on the Hot 100, which
quickly became the most-cited pop
chart in the U.S. music industry and
gave Billboard added cachet. “Through
the success of the chart,” recalled Stein,
“more executives were drawn to the
oices, often with their artists in tow.”
Nelson died at age 45 in a plane crash
on New Year’s Eve in 1985. In 1990, 32
years after he had topped the inaugural
Hot 100, his twin sons Matthew and
Gunnar, billed as Nelson, reached No. 1
with their debut single, “(Can’t Live
Without Your) Love and Afection.”
Stein departed Sire and Warner Bros. in
July at age 76 but has hinted that he’ll be
“back in action soon.” —GARY TRUSTMICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES60 Years Ago
THE HOT 100 DEBUTED
WITH RICKY NELSON AT NO. 1
The teen idol’s “Poor Little Fool” became the first of 1,077 hits
that have topped Billboard’s trademark songs chartNelson surrounded by
fans in Los Angeles
circa 1958.CODA
REWINDING
THE
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