At the beginning of this last-known version of the syndicated “History of Rock and Roll Time Sweep”, you’ll hear narrator Bill Drake offer the above comment concerning “considerable carryover”, just before the “magic, music and memories” begin. If not offered as an apology for presenting Top 40 Radio as “Rock & Roll”, it’s certainly a partial explanation of a musical montage that was never exclusively “Rock & Roll”.

Mr. Drake offers no such explanation for the 1960’s, when that pesky “pop carryover” Frank Sinatra had a number one hit while British groups dominated rock music, or the 1970’s, when Barry Manilow and John Denver are categorized not as “pop carryover”, but “mellow rock” artists. Even the final segment of this Time Sweep (from 1981) includes “many non-rock artists continuing to do well” (like Eddie Rabbit, Kenny Rogers and Barbra Streisand). Were these also “carryovers?”

Top 40 radio was NOT “Rock & Roll” radio. Some rock music was presented in a “variety” format known as Top 40 — and that may have helped it become the dominant form of American popular music. This Time Sweep should really be titled “The History of Number One Records on Top 40 Radio” from 1956 – 1981.

Since then, diversification of formats, new and specialized outlets for recorded music, and the mass-marketing of highly-polarized musical forms (ie: suburbanites identifying with urban cowboys and inner-city hoodlums) has all but eliminated what was once the most loved and popular musical format on the radio. Top 40 was special because it was NOT just Rock ‘n’ Roll. It was NEVER just one type of popular contemporary music.

While the final “History of Rock & Roll” may never be written, the History of Top 40 Radio is “in the books.” It’s all done, if not forgotten.