In Memoriem: Casey Kasem

It is probably appropriate that I learned of Casey Kasem’s passing while I was listening to Casey Kasem on the radio.  Of course I was not listening to a live broadcast but a rerun of one of his American Top 40 episodes from 1975.  The station I listened to the rebroadcast on broke in about every half hour with news of his passing and a moment (more like 10 seconds) of silence.  He may be gone, but the show will no doubt continue on.

Kids today are probably as sick of hearing what it was like before the internet as caveman kids were sick of hearing about what it was like before fire (“We have no fire. We eat meat raw.  Ooog got sick and die because we no cook meat to kill bacteria.”).  But before the internet, we teenagers had to gather around the radio and listen to Casey Kasem tell us what was popular in music.  The music industry is now incredibly Balkanized, but at one time there was a list of single records that appealed to a wide audience.

Homer Simpson once said that music reached its peak in 1974.  I agree, down to the precise year.  I said that once and a friend challenged me, “Why 1974?” Thanks to Casey Kasem, I had an answer: in 1974 there were more different number one songs than in any other calendar year.  I think I have that factoid correct.  1974 was post British Invasion but pre-disco. No one musical genre dominated.  The Top 40 featured Motown, rock, pop, and country music that sounded like country music, not pop with a twang.  There were novelty records (Ray Stevens’ The Streak), spoken word comedy singles (Cheech and Chong’s Earache My Eye hit the top 10) and even spoken word singles (a piece called The Americans hit in two different versions).  If you listened to Casey Kasem’s AT40, you heard it all.

I have noticed two things listening to the rebroadcasts (about as avidly as I listened to the same shows 40 years ago).  One, I actually remember some of the more vivid anecdotes about the performers, the schmaltzy long distance dedications, and unusual happenstances in chart mechanics.  I not only remember the stories, but every inflection used by Casey Kasem to heighten the effect.

The second is that how much Casey Kasem and his staff documented trends.  We would call it data mining today.  Kasem was constantly noting how many foreign acts were on the charts, what countries they were from, how many female singers, how many groups/solo acts, how many songs were written by the person singing them. He noted the slow increase of disco songs on each week’s countdown; I suppose even he could do nothing to stop it.

Of course Kasem’s other eternal contribution to pop culture was performing the voice of Shaggy on Scooby Doo.  Today, everyone doing vocal work seems to have a clause in their contract that Disney or Pixar will make their character look like them (I suppose the one exception in Steve Carrell in Despicable Me).  It is hard to associate the middle-aged, nattily dressed Casey Kasem portraying the airheaded teenager who was forever crying “Zoinks!” or promising Scooby some Scooby Snacks.

As a kid I followed American Top 40 so avidly that I sent in for their list of stations they played on so I could hear the show when my family visited El Paso, Texas, on vacation.  I listen almost as avidly now, forgoing any leaving of the house for the three hours the show is on.  Often, rediscovering old favorite TV shows on DVD can be disappointing (I loved the TV show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, but when I saw the show again on DVD all the charm was gone).  When I heard the shows were being rebroadcast I eagerly awaited the first show, and I have not been disappointed.

So, Casey Kasem is gone, but not really.  He will remain on the airwaves as long as geezers like me want to hear obscure singles from the mid-1970’s, like Meri Wilson’s Telephone Man and Dean Friedman’s Ariel.  And he’ll always remain in my memory, saying “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.”