Drake-Chenault / Mark Ford / Hugo Keesing ------------ Chart Sweep / Time Sweep

The piece, now entitled 'Hugo Keesing's Chart Sweep' and packaged with a simple handwritten xerox insert, makes its way to Mark Gunderson of the Evolution Control Committee, who distributed many further copies of the piece to collage-friendly friends (including myself) through the 90's. In this pre-internet age, no further information about this mammoth work is to be found even by enthusiasts.

In 2002, the ECC uploads his cassette transfer of the work to his website as mp3's tagged simply as 'chart sweep part one' (46:03) and 'chart sweep part two' (28:11).

http://evolution-control.com/index.php/experiments/mp3s/104-chart-sweep

Beginning his review with an entire paragraph about his own solo album, Chris Ott mistakes 'Chart Sweep' for the work of the Evolution Control Committee in a Pitchfork review and uses it as an opportunity to attack Gunderson for his cowardace:

I'm unimpressed by Gunderson and Seeland's cowardice in not releasing "Chart Sweep" parts 1 & 2. This unreal sequence of brief (legally inconsequential) clips from every #1 song up to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" is a must-download, available from ECC's site. Didn't Nirvana knock Whitney's tyrannic single off the charts? What's the implication in ending just before that happened? The tracks elicit all sorts of philosophical questions and cultural memories; there's no question of their artistic worth versus any copyright claims. These guys want to sell copyright controversy, but how can they insult our intelligence by boasting about CBS lawsuits while selling only the most timid of their adventures?

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2858-plagiarhythm-nation-20/

wtf?!

but i also wanted to say, that after hearing some of this, it helped me articulate what Girl Talk (yeah, i know, sorry) reminded me of -- a radio bumper that never ends.

i didn't want this thread to go unnoticed. milton, i was actually listening to one of your podcasts on collage & sampling in 20th century music* yesterday on the bus ride home while reading my RSS feed. i noticed this article and i thought it was pretty great timing. i planned on coming back later to listen. this #1 hits thing is pretty amazing btw. it's not at all as jarring as expected. all of the songs flow from one to the next perfectly. it's sort of like that mae shi mixtape that was being passed around a few years, but more listenable. pretty cool

* people should listen to these podcasts. they're really well done and very educational. i haven't really spent much time w/20th cent classical and it's really cool to hear them along w/descriptions of what's going on
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/variations_tag/

The transition from the Mark Ford to the Hugo Keesing section at ~1977 of Chart Sweep is extremely audible, both in the quality of the audio fidelity and the artistry of the editing. I'm huge fan of the squirky sound of mechanical-pause-button edits rendered on a cassette deck, but there is no comparison to the Mark Ford stretch. Not everyone can collapse decades down to an hour with a sense of flow, and the Ford stretch contains more than a few call-and-response segueways:

'like a bridge over troubled water, whisper words of wisdom'
'everything is beautiful to the long and winding road'
'cherokee people, you've got a friend'

xpost I guess I can understand that, but the conceptual stricture of the piece is what makes it for me -- unlike the completely arbitrary yearbook flow of GT, you know that Chart Sweep is going to end. the decades are condensed in order, not traipsed through.

This is so much fun, thanks Milton. But that Salon writer:

Remember Bobby Darin? Me neither, but there he is.

The HELL?!

ya seriously

what i mean is, Chart Sweep is constructed like a radio bumper (Ford was a radio guy, wasn't he?) -- the ones where a few top songs of the day are montaged together and then punctuated with the station ID, so you get excited by hearing the hooks of these songs you ostensibly love, but then frustrated as one goes into another, and then reassured that you will hear the whole song soon by a brief tagline that seeks to associate your listening pleasure with the station's call letters. These generally last about 5-15 seconds, i think.

But Girl Talk just puts in more of each song and the whole thing goes on longer, so it's even more frustrating, and ultimately exhausting.

xpost

I guess I just melted down when I saw that Salon article. The most fascinating thing about Chart Sweep is how it manages to keep shirking its author. It's obvious why it does this -- the concept is so basic that in some ways it does seem beyond an author. But at the same time, I'm just shocked that even a water-coolerish aggregate site like Salon would casually post a 'hey look at this cool thing the internet made' headline story without any interest in the history or authorship of the piece, just casually attributing it to 'mjs538'.

And this piece, particularly the Mark Ford stretch, is a flat out masterpiece of editing that was heard in syndication by millions and millions of syndicated broadcast radio listeners. And due to copyright, there is no real official edition to speak of, it's just in the ether! It keeps getting lost.

Gunderson posted to the comments of the Salon story identifying it as Hugo Keesing's Chart Sweep. Which is true -- they posted TradeMark's digital transfer of a fourth generation cassette copy of Keesing's extension of Mark Ford's piece. But that obscures the lineage, this is the heart of it: http://www.reelradio.com/gifts/horrts2.html

xpost yeah who remembers Bobby Darin? this salon author must be in his early twenties and utterly unconcerned with, well, any kind of journalism, he's just hanging out at the water cooler gabbing

xxpost the links upthread, Mark Ford wasn't just any radio guy, he was the chief engineer at the company who pioneered the concept of automated cross-country genre/format playlists -- he was one of the most influential editors who pioneered the sound of those bumper station IDs for FM radio format stations in the 70's. listen to that interview I posted upthread where he walks you through how he constructs that Kraftwerk / Bee Gees mashup, he's a musician with flow.

he was one of the most influential editors who pioneered the sound of those bumper station IDs for FM radio format stations in the 70's

ha, so he literally created the thing that Girl Talk reminds me of!

also, sorry for polluting this thread with Girl Talk.

Haha, from the comments:

Who's Bobby Darin?
Peter...
Really? That Bobby Darin dude is no where near my generation and I know of him and his tunes.
What are you? 19 years old and just weening off the Disney teat?
—fuzzynormal

I sort of might have been okay with "Remember Ernie K-Doe?" or something (and I LOVE K-Doe, but realize he's a chart footnote) but hello Mr. Salon writer, "Mack The Knife?" There was a Kevin Spacey biopic, etc, etc...

it's ok, just y'know stop mentioning him

it's not at all as jarring as expected. all of the songs flow from one to the next perfectly. it's sort of like that mae shi mixtape that was being passed around a few years, but more listenable.

I agree, it's shockingly listenable. And it's listenable 'cause of Mark Ford.

I enjoyed that Mae Shi mixtape (thanking you Shasta). It's blunt splices, and it's less about flow than disjunction, it's more like 3-second shuffle play through a very, very interesting iPod. the only structural principle all these genres have left in common is sound. not notes, self-expression, portraiture, money... just sound

xpost

Time Sweep uploaded to ubuweb, forget when this happened. Attributed solely to Hugo Keesing.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/keesing.html

I believe it was uploaded there very recently. But in any case, it hit the blogosphere, and was reuploaded anonymously to SoundCloud by user rjs538.

Wayne and Wax follows the blog explosion.

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=5155

In the last week Chartsweep has risen to “viral” prominence after a complicated — and possibly incestuous — round of re-posting and re-blogging and re-posting and re-blogging. Although uploaded to SoundCloud just two days ago, as of this writing, the two parts have cumulatively garnered nearly 150k plays!

Milton Parker has nailed it and he is to be credited for his insight and accuracy. I worked at Drake-Chenault from 1978 through 1983 as a sound technician and format recording engineer. I watched as Mark Ford (and Bill Watson, "producer") carefully, professionally and patiently recorded and updated "The History Of Rock and Roll" as well as the final "Time Sweep", sometimes into the wee small hours. I even played guitar for the HRR background "beds" under the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary and The Beatles and others. Please note that the records and tapes in mono, stereo or "enhanced stereo" were recorded in studios and pressed in plants all over the country under various and continually advancing technical audio improvements over many years. Mark Ford had to blend and homogenize these variables into one final, flowing package and make it listen-able, accurate and historically correct. His work was cut out for him. This is a work of art, at least up to his involvement in '81. What has not yet been mentioned, is the fact that he equalized and phase-corrected many cuts to bring out the highs and lows to make the AM/FM radio listening experience "better" than the original sound, whenever possible. You may even be able to hear instruments that were buried in the original recording. Certainly noticeable, is the tempo-matching from intro to outro, even from a fast to slow song. As a musician I know that that is not easy. Studio B at Drake-Chenault was not an unprofessional or low quality studio to work in. Thanks to Hank Landesberg, it was made for radio production and an editor like Mark Ford. He could hand-que 1/4" tape decks, turntables and razor blade-edit as good as any in the business. He had a good ear for the music he grew up with and an ear for sound. The finished product, delivered to stations around the country on vinyl LP and tape, was probably better sounding than any person has ever heard on their radio, as Mr. Parker well knows. If Mark Ford was a guitar player, he would probably be Eric Clapton with a little Hendrix thrown in. It was an education and learning experience being around him as well as the Drake-Chenault team of Terry Tretta, Mike Williams and Bill Drake. As a side note, in 1980, while Ford was editing the "History of Rock And Roll", one of the writers with Gary Theroux was Laurie Kaye. She and Dave Sholin went to New York to interview John Lennon the very day hey was killed. Ford had to drop everything and produce and edit a Lennon radio special to be aired ASAP. RSR.

Thanks for signing up to post -- that's all great information, especially the context with all the other members of the Drake-Chenault team. At first I worried I was attributing perhaps too much credit to a single member of what had to have been a closely knit team, but when I heard that interview with him upthread and that Joni Mitchell crossfade & that 1981 mashup, all that work had such a recognizable signature it became clear he was the author.

You don't notice editing when it's done perfectly but it's pretty much the defining quality that seperates improvisation from composition, and Mark Ford was a composer. Not surprised to hear about all the equalizing & compression work beyond the temposhifts & crossfades -- flow like that takes more than craft, it takes inspiration

Hugo Keesing is not the only one to have updated the piece -- Bill Ingram had a version that extended Ford's edit through to 2002, and Joe Campas produced a version that goes through 2009. All three versions use blunt cuts between tracks, analog pause edits or blunt digital cuts -- no crossfades. And there's no correction for level imbalances, so it's a rocky listen when the mix swerves across R&B, country & powerballads -- you can get your ears blown out, and the tempo shifts are jarring. I'm grateful for those other versions because you still get the narrative, but they only underline the artistry of the 55-81 stretch.

Mark Ford would have loved Pro Tools.

The Time Sweep is just one of those masterpieces, and it's so interesting watching it keep getting discovered by massive new audiences, each time completely free of context even though it's been known by who knows how many millions. But the story eventually gets out on something this valuable.

and that Joni Mitchell crossfade & that 1981 mashup

were those platypus moments for you? (i.e. triumphant and joyous because they were so well done)

The origin of "platypus moment" was Bruce Conner's A Movie, when the platypus rises through the water -- it was just the perfect edit.

google reveals a frightening number of returns for 'platypus moment'

luckily for my sanity most of them do not reveal a widespread colloquial use of the term to denote non-sequituous editing inspired by bruce conner's 'a movie'

succinct version

http://www.djfood.org/djfood/chart-sweep-time-sweep

have you considered growing a mustache?

I have to say I am very plesantly surprised and delighted that so mnay people have commented so favoriably on this blog about the History of Rock 'n' Roll Timesweep. As I explained early in this blog, I came up with the idea while programming and writing the 52-hour special in 1977-8. There wasn't room in the show for so many great songs that I asked to have edited together two medleys -- one of all #1 hits, in sequence, and the other of other memorable hits of a given year that we didn't have time to play in full. (It took quite a while to develop each list and then find all the source material, but between the record libraries at Drake-Chenault and my own, we managed to pull it off.) The medleys were designed to run during the half-hour blocks I had laid out spotlighting each year starting in 1956 . I actually planned similar half hours covering 1950 through 1955 and another spotlighting roots-of-rock tracks from before 1950 (such as Wynonie Harris' "Good Rockin' Tonight" and Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right, Mama") but Bill Drake felt stations would object and those half-hours were never assembled. When I first brought up the idea of the medleys, pretty much everyone at Drake-Chenault thought they wouldn't work -- everyone, that is, except Bill Drake and Mark Ford. Both said "Let's try it" and Mark welcomed the challenge -- not really realizing just how difficult it would turn out to be. Mark dug in, though, and despite the relative crudity of his studio (quarter inch tape and mostly Radio Shack-grade electronics) he took great pains and delight in crafting all the #1 hit montages and most of the Other-Hits-Of-The-Year montages. One of the big objections voiced by most of the Drake-Chenault staff was their belief that people would get confused by the two-to-three minute montages and tune out. With that in mind, you can imagine the reaction when I later suggested we edit all the #1 hits montages together into one super montage and end the show with it. I got that idea after one our engineers, tired of hearing his girlfriend ask, "What exactly is it that's keeping you working late each night," copied the #1 hits element reel (on which all the #1 hits medley masters were stored) and took it home to his apartment. He told the girl he was going out to pick up a pizza and while he was gone she could listen to the reel. When he returned, he found her sitting crcsslegged on the floor in front of the speakers wth tears in her eyes. "What's the mater?" he said. "It can't be that bad." "Oh no," she replied. "I've just been hearing my whole life pass before my ears." When I heard that, I knew a #1 hits medley would HAVE to end the show. Both of my co-producers, Drake and Ford, agreed. What's come to be known as "The History of Rock 'n' Roll #1 Hits montage" -- which filled almost all of Hour 52 -- has become the most heavily bootlegged portion of the entire Billboard award-winning special. Pirated copies on LP, cassette, CD and MP3 files have been cirtculating now for -- wow -- 33 years! After I left Drake-Chenault, Mark lengthened the montage to bring it up to date through 1981. I've never had any contact with Hugo Keesing or Bill Ingram, know nothing abou them or what they may have done to extend the montage farther from there. I've been told, though, that my little idea in 1978 inspired the medley craze of the early '80s, which produced the Stars on 45 singles and others featuring medleys by Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, The Beatles and more. Wish I could have gotten a royalty. I could use the money!

Hi Gary, thanks for posting

If you are still reading, do you know if anyone knows where the master tape is? I know a renegade label that could be interested in releasing the 55-81 stretch, and I think it should happen. Not to sound like a broken record, but it is clearly a collective masterpiece.

I have been searching for a complete copy of The Number One Radio Show for years!

It was created and syndicated (and updated) by Drake Chenault around the same time as the celebrated History of Rock And Roll broadcast.

In fact, the same famous Chart Sweep is at the beginning of The Number One Radio Show!

What follows the Chart Sweep is a chronological countdown of every Billboard Number 1 song in order ... Hosted by Mark Elliot

Can anyone help me in this quest?