Charis Music Group Studio

07/08/2026

The story behind the long lost American Top 40 promotional tape that launched a legacy that is pure Americana in the words of the source himself, Earl Jones.

This is absolutely INCREDIBLE!

I’ve been moving this tape with me for more than 50 years, and never knew what I had. This past July 4 weekend, a never-before-heard episode of American Top 40 aired on many radio stations. It was a 3-hour show covering the top 40 hits from the Billboard Hot 100 chart from the week ending ... Read...

07/04/2026

Happy 56th birthday, American Top 40. It’s hard to comprehend that I have been working on these shows for almost 30 years now!! I’m so thankful to have played a small part in the preservation of this slice of Americana.

I’m beyond grateful for all of those who came before me as the original production team. Since my involvement we have lost Casey, Tom Rounds, Ronnie Allen (Alan Kaltman), Ron Jacobs, Don Bustany, Mike Williams, Matt Wilson and Janis Hahn. I knew all of them and they are dearly missed. Among those still with us, I am thankful for the assistance, insight and contributions of Jeffrey Leonard, Ron Shapiro, Guy Aoki, Pete Battistini, Steven Camhi, Toby Petty, Lorre Crimi Williams, Merrill Shindler, Rob Durkee, Gonzalo Venecia, William Hergonson, Shadoe Stevens and Dana Schwarzwalter. I am especially grateful for the passion and determination of Jon Zellner to keep these programs in the public eye with now two dedicated AT40 channels on iHeart’s app and streaming platforms! All Casey 24/7!!

Special credit goes to Ken Martin who came afterwards and turned mono into stereo and has always been more than willing to share tips and techniques with me. Along that same line, Marc Wielage has been selfless on all aspects remastering.

I hope you enjoy your 4th and perhaps you might just catch one of the archived broadcasts.

As evidenced earlier this year, even after all this time incredible history and artifacts surface as evidenced by the discovery of the original AT40 demonstration tape from June of 1970! Yes, 56 years later and this incredible legacy still lives on and is still thriving! — at Charis Music Group Studio.

07/03/2026

Part of the ‘magic’ we do. It’s hard to believe that’s the same tape and LP in these pics but they are.

They are hardly the most challenging recovery to date, though. That honor went to an only copy of an ACC LP split into two pieces. It took about 20 hours to work on that one to manually edit out 2 pops per revolution!

07/03/2026

I realize not everyone knows who we are or what we have done. We hardly operate in a vacuum or under the radar as posters have attempted to imply. The goal is simple - the preservation of decades of music history. This journey has now spanned AT40 where it all began, to American Country Countdown to the Bluebird Cafe and currently WSM and the Grand Ole Opry with little offshoots here and there for specialty projects.

I never would have imagined what started as just transferring an LP set or two for my daily commute to work would have evolved where it is today after 26 years!

07/03/2026

An almost chronological look back at the covers of the show’s evolution.

07/03/2026

I can’t tell you how many times I would open a box from the vaults to find this. I’d suck it up and then manually rewind the entire reel by hand. When you are dealing with one of a kind artifacts, you have no other option.

07/03/2026

Just a small example of some of the hundreds of boxes of master tapes we processed and worked through for Premiere as we remastered the vault of tapes for American Top 40 and American Country Countdown.

My only regret was not having the foresight to make copies of all of the production logs that noted what the show’s music sources were for each week. As you can see, there was a weekly array to choose from. Stock 45, edited 45, lp track, edited lp track, 12” singles and I’ve even seen cassette singles used.

Of all the ones we did think to copy, they are on our website.

07/02/2026

How it all started lol! I know some of you must have had a similar setup 😎

07/01/2026

A handful of times a year I post to see if fans may have an interest in an American Top 40 library. Many of you are familiar with this but for those who are not, I have made an external USB drive with all of the Casey years in 320 MP3 format, every show, every special, every guest host, every song, dedication, question, extra, etc. fully tagged for those players that give all of that info. There are three basic ones traditionally- 70’s, 80’s or combined. However, I’ve done custom ranges and/or you pick the 10 years. While not as popular, I have also completed Casey’s Top 40 1989-1998 and AT40 related from 1998-2004.

In addition, I have hundreds of original CD sets of American Country Countdown as well as original vinyl and sets of both ACC and AT40 and AT20 AC/HAC. The majority of these I list on eBay under charismusicgroup. The overwhelming majority of these came from ACC/AT40 staff, writers and even Bob and Casey.

If you know the story or have followed this 25+ year journey you may know what I call version 1.0 of the remastered library came from mostly the LP collection of ACC/AT40 staff writer Alan Kaltman (aka Ronnie Allen). Alan and I connected around 2000 as I was starting this ambitious goal of collecting every show. It later turned into a pipeline for Premiere to offer the show.

The original digital masters in my collection would be the original 'as-aired' versions in the original timing format that you won’t hear anywhere else. I retain network ads from the years they were done (1970, 1971 and 1982 forward. The mono years are still just that, in mono. I do have a sample I can e-mail so you can try it out.

If interested, please e-mail me at [email protected] (best way to reach me)!or you can send a note through messenger, though that’s about the worst way to contact me.