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Welcome! This is the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show, I’m your host, Christopher Verdesi. Every week on Chartcrush, we do a deep dive into a year in Pop music and culture, and count down the top 10 songs according to our exclusive recap of the weekly charts published at the time in Billboard, the music industry’s top trade mag. This week on Chartcrush, we’re counting down 1953, the year TV passed half of U.S. households and annual sales hit seven million sets.

And with networks in ’53 cranking out sitcoms like I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Abbott and Costello and variety shows like Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason (where The Honeymooners started out as a sketch), TV wasn’t just nice to have; it was must have for just basic walking around cultural literacy.

Dragnet was such a phenomenon that Stan Freberg’s “St. George and the Dragonet” became the first spoken word Comedy record to top the charts: Sgt. Friday investigating dragon sightings. Bandleader Ray Anthony’s version of the Dragnet theme, also in the top 10 for nine weeks, and Billboard in a front-page piece credited those records for lifting the show from fifth to first in the ratings.

Swanson launched the frozen TV Dinner in ’53. Cook ’em and eat ’em in the same foil package you bought ’em in: the branding because TV was a “magic” status symbol, the inventor later said. And motels: after ’53, no guest room was complete without a TV in it. “TV,” usually above “vacancy” on the sign outside.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first President whose inauguration was on TV, that was in ’53. Ike as he was called, the former Supreme Allied Commander in World War 2, beat Democrat Adlai Stevenson in a landslide, and ending the Korean War was job one, a stalemate since ’51 after China sent a half million troops across the Yalu River to save North Korea.

Instead of bombing China itself or God forbid, responding with nukes, President Truman backed off and even fired the top General Douglas MacArthur for criticizing that policy in public. The Soviets, of course, who’d been pulling the strings the whole time, also had nukes, so behind the scenes, America with its new defense/intelligence apparatus had decided to fight communism with spies and propaganda, not bombs and soldiers, and except for Vietnam, that’s how the Cold War played out for the next 45 years.

Eisenhower got a break when Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin died in March of ’53 and in July he got his armistice. So instead of fighting World War III in the ’50s America got to get on with the business of rooting out communists and spies in the U.S. (’53 was peak McCarthyism), plus building highways and houses in the ‘burbs, filling them with appliances and having, on average, 3.5 Baby Boom toddlers per nuclear family.

Finally getting serious about ending racial segregation, also high on the agenda since it was the top criticism heard by American diplomats and travelers abroad as the Cold War ramped up. Right after Ike appointed Earl Warren Chief Justice in ’53, The Supreme Court heard Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark case that in ’54 declared discrimination in public schools unconstitutional.

Marilyn Monroe became America’s new bombshell Pinup in ’53 after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire in theaters. And then in December there really was a pinup, and topless no less, in the first issue of Playboy. That hit newsstands just weeks after Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female hit book stores, and as Variety reported, all the daily papers maxed out the 5,000-word limit on excerpts! Kinsey and Playboy‘s Hugh Hefner, fathers of the sexual revolution.

So there was a lot of aggressive envelope pushing in ’53. Not on the Pop charts though! As in movies, the name of the game in music was polishing and perfecting existing paradigms, not breaking down barriers. And that meant records with bigger studio orchestras, more intricate arrangements and improved sound four years after vinyl LPs and 45s replaced noisy shellac 78s and rich folks were starting to catch the hi-fi bug.

#10 Pee Wee Hunt and His Orchestra – Oh!

OK, we’re gonna kick off our Chartcrush Top Ten for 1953 with an instrumental by the Trombonist who co-founded the very first big name Swing Band in the late ’20s, The Casa Loma Orchestra, and because of that some say it was the last #1 Swing record. Is it Swing? Well, you be the judge. At #10, Pee Wee Hunt and Orchestra, “Oh!”

Pee Wee Hunt left the Casa Loma Orchestra after 14 years in 1943 to be a radio DJ in Hollywood, then he did a stint in the Merchant Marine during the War. But in ’46 he was back in L.A. leading his own Band. In ’47 they dashed off “Twelfth Street Rag” in the studio as a parody of an amateur Dixieland Band circa 1921, not intended for release.

But the suits at Capitol Records thought it could ride the Nostalgia wave that’d just catapulted a reissue of a record from 1933 to #1, Ted Weems’ “Heartaches,” and they were right: “Twelfth Street” was the #3 song of 1948. And then Hunt struck again with another one written in the early ’20s, “Oh!,” which we just heard at #10 here on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1953.

#9 Perry Como with The Ramblers – Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes

Next up, one of the first Pop stars on TV since ’48 when NBC wheeled cameras into the studio where he’d been doing the Chesterfield Supper Club on network radio since ’44. Then ’49 was his biggest year ever with 15 charting hits including six top tens and he became a TV institution.

But his time slot, weekday evenings after the news? Well, the only way younger folks were seeing him was if Mom and Dad were watching, so in ’53 at age 42, he picked up the pace: his fastest hit tempo-wise: a Pop rendition of a Western Swing song that’d charted five different versions on the Country chart in ’52. At #9 it’s Perry Como’s “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.”

Perry Como, “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes” at #9 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1953. Since it was a Pop version of a recent Country hit, RCA rechristened the backing Vocal Group “The Ramblers” for the record. Actually though, it was the same Group that backed him on records and on TV for 35 years, The Ray Charles Singers; Ray Charles, the Arranger/Conductor, not the iconic Black Soul Pioneer, who, by the way, had just scored his first R&B hits in ’51 and ’52.

And cutting a fast Western Swing song wasn’t the only way Mr. C was wooing the soda fountain set. His previous top 10 was his first-ever Duet with a fellow Crooner, Teen Heartthrob and RCA label-mate Eddie Fisher: a cover of The Ink Spots’ hit “Maybe” from 1940. And launching off from there, RCA’s Publicity Department pushed a Buddy-Mentor narrative to fan mags and gossip columns, which was a total fabrication, but it got Como the fresh look he needed. With LPs the top earner at retail for the first time in ’53 thanks to Grownups, and jukebox use skewing ever younger, singles had to appeal to the kiddos.

#8 Eddie Fisher featuring Sally Sweetland – I’m Walking Behind You

And as for Fisher, it got him some extra gravitas with adults. He’d become a superstar while serving in the Army: nine top tens ’51 and ’52 as “PFC Eddie Fisher,” the vocal soloist for The U.S. Army Band entertaining troops, cutting records and appearing in uniform on TV: a promotional tool for the Army and the war effort in Korea, not a combat asset. Still President Truman’s “Favorite PFC,” though.

In April ’53 his two year stint was up and the night of his discharge his first gig in civilian clothes at New York’s Paramount Theater, just like Sinatra and Como in the ’40s, mobbed by Bobbysoxers. That was the media’s term for Teenaged Female Superfans. At #8, one of the songs he unveiled there, Billboard‘s #1 song of the year if you’re looking only at their year-end Jukebox chart, but it was in the top ten Sales and Airplay as well. It’s Eddie Fisher’s “I’m Walking Behind You.”

https://open.spotify.com/track/70PXozsEK1wUHXnT72Wlxh

Coke Time with Eddie Fisher debuted on TV just nine days after Fisher’s discharge-night gig at the Paramount. Just 15 minutes twice a week, but an instant ratings bonanza for NBC, and Fisher’s name became synonymous with Coca-Cola. If you were a fan at the local soda fountain, you didn’t ask for a Coke, you asked for an “Eddie Fisher.” Not sure Coke saw that coming!

Anyway, “I’m Walking Behind You” we just heard Fisher’s version of at #8 here on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1953, also notable for being Frank Sinatra’s first record on Capitol after his contract with Columbia ran out in ’52 and wasn’t renewed by A&R honcho Mitch Miller. Of Billboard‘s three separate Pop charts before the Hot100 in ’58, Sinatra’s version only appeared on the DJ chart. Not a blip on Best-Sellers or Jukeboxes.

All that changed, though, starting in August when the Pearl Harbor War Drama From Here to Eternity hit theaters. A down-on-his luck Sinatra had lobbied hard to get his role in that and it paid off when he won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. Right after that, his next hit in ’54, “Young at Heart,” shot into the top 10 on all three charts and Sinatra had a singing career again: one of the most spectacular comebacks in Pop history.

#7 Joni James – Why Don’t You Believe Me?

So while Teen Girls swooned over Eddie Fisher, what were the Boys doing? Well a lot of them were discovering Black R&B music. Dolphin’s of Hollywood was a 24-hour record store, not in Hollywood, but in South Central L.A. that specialized in Jazz and R&B, and in ’52, the owner told Billboard that 40% of his customers were White: Teens from throughout the L.A. region drawn by DJs like Hunter Hancock beaming out Black R&B records citywide on the radio from a booth in the store’s window.

Those included a version of “Crying in the Chapel” by a previously-unknown Baltimore Doo-Wop group, The Orioles, that made the national top 20, setting the table for The Crows’ “Gee” and The Chords “Sh-Boom” in ’54.

Another harbinger of things to come in ’53: Bill Haley & The Comets’ “Crazy Man, Crazy,” the first Rock ‘n Roll record to crack the top 20. Haley & Comets were White, of course, with roots in Pop’s other musical ghetto, Country/Western. But their beat was all R&B, and in ’54 they scored Rock’s first top 10 Pop hit too: their cover of Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” Then, of course, “Rock Around the Clock,” the first Rock ‘n Roll #1 in ’55.

But the Rock Era was about more than just the merger of R&B and Country. Teens in the early ’50s were seeking out other oddities. “Oh, Happy Day” was a crude Doo Woppy recording of an original by a White High School Junior in Cleveland, Don Howard, who must’ve been one of Alan Freed‘s late night “Moondog Rock ‘n Roll Party” listeners on WJW.

After it sold 21,000 locally and got picked by Essex Records, the same label as “Crazy Man, Crazy,” it made the top 10 nationally for 11 weeks, despite slicked-up versions of the song by The Four Knights and The Lawrence Welk Orchestra out within a month. One DJ in New York promised listeners he’d eat the record if it was a hit, and the cover of the February 14 issue of Billboard competitor Cashbox magazine is him doing just that, with a smiling Don Howard standing by with salt and pepper!

Oddities aside, though, as John Gilliland said in the early ’70s on his show Pop Chronicles, mainstream Pop in ’53 “still had stars in its eyes and moon June and spoon in its heart.” And even inside that box the Silent Generation was imprinting itself on the pop culture. Male Teen Idols, of course, but that wasn’t new. Eddie Fisher, just the latest in a string going all the way back to Rudy Vallée in the ’20s.

What was new in ’53: a Female Singer with songs and a style that appealed directly to Teens. Connie Francis’ breakthrough, the Revenge Ballad “Who’s Sorry Now” in ’58, considered the first hit in that mold, and Francis leaned in. But our 21 year-old petite, raven-haired Beauty at #7, not so much. “Sing for the 20-year-olds, the 30-year-olds and the 50-year-olds,” she told an Interviewer, “and forget the 12-year-olds because they’ll soon forget you.”

So after her romantic, expressive style cut straight through to Teenagers on her first three hits in early ’53, it got buried under layers of lush orchestration on subsequent releases, and her last top ten was in ’55, just before “Rock Around the Clock.” It’s on full display here though, the biggest of those three top tens in early ’53. At #7 it’s Joni James, “Why Don’t You Believe Me?”

Joni James’ “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” the first of three Females in a row here on our 1953 edition of Chartcrush. Numbers 7, 6 and 5: all ladies! James’ big break came when she was tapped as a last-minute substitute on Male Teen Idol Johnnie Ray’s TV show, and her appearance generated a flood of fan mail that got her a deal with MGM Records, the same label that signed Connie Francis a few years later. Her first record was a dud, but “Why Don’t You Believe Me?” shot into the top 10 in only its third week and was #1 for five weeks right as Teens were also flexing their purchasing muscles on “Oh Happy Day.”

Then as now, Billboard‘s year-end recaps only count weeks within their “chart year,” and “Why Don’t You Believe Me’s” chart run went from ’52 into ’53 so of Billboard‘s three 1953 chart recaps, it was only in the top ten on Jukeboxes. Now at Chartcrush we count every song’s full chart run: no year-splitting, so we have it at #7 on our ranking that sums all three Billboard pre-Hot100 charts into a combined weekly chart, and then based on that we rank the songs same as Hot100 years.

Another of Joni James’ trio of smashes in early ’53 was a Pop cover of “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” Hank Williams’ song he recorded in his final session before his sudden death on New Years Day 1953 in a car en route to a gig. The original topped the Country chart and James’ got to #2 on the Pop Jukebox chart, both in the Spring of ’53, and interestingly, both records were on the same label, MGM. With almost no crossover between the genre and Pop charts, no reason for a label not to target different versions of the same song to each.

#6 Patti Page – The Doggie in the Window

Now with “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” there was a competing Pop version from a different label by a Singer who was much more famous than Joni James, but it didn’t do nearly as well because her mellow, sentimental style wasn’t really a fit for the song, and with Joni’s version out there, that was painfully apparent.

But it was perfectly suited for our #6 song: the second of our trio of back-to-back-to-back Ladies in the countdown, a light-hearted Novelty that’s often cited as “exhibit A” of everything that was wrong with Pop in the years before Rock ‘n Roll. Yet it’s one of the Singer’s best-remembered hits. #1 in the Spring for five weeks on all three Billboard Pop charts, and one of the 16 top tens that made her the ’50’s top-charting Female, it’s Patti Page with “Doggie in the Window.”

“Doggie in the Window” hit right in the middle of Norman Vincent Peale’s 48-week run atop The New York Times’ Nonfiction Bestseller list with The Power of Positive Thinking. Just those two data points say an awful lot about the mid-’50s! Peale, the Pastor at the church in Manhattan that Donald Trump attended with his family. There’s another data point!

The barking dogs, credited as Joe and Mac, but in fact they were Patti Page’s longtime Arranger/Conductor Joe Reisman and his Violin player Mac Ceppos. And the record also features Page’s signature overdubbed tight-harmonies.

Hillbilly satirists Homer & Jethro’s sendup, “How Much ls That Hound Dog in the Window,” was their biggest hit, #2 on the Country chart.

#5 Teresa Brewer – Till I Waltz Again with You

At #5, the third of our three Female Singers in a row in our 1953 Chartcrush Top Ten countdown, and the youngest, beating Joni James by about a year. And she was three years younger than James when she scored her first #1 “Music! Music! Music!” in 1950 at just 18. It was a fluke of a hit first issued as a B-side of an unremarkable Dixieland cover, but morning New York DJ and future Match Game Host Gene Rayburn and his buddy, fellow DJ Dee Finch, plugged it hard so off it went.

Subsequent Novelty records and a Duet with Crooner Don Cornell only dented the charts, but in late ’52, this one caught on, reportedly handed to her in the lobby of New York’s Brill Building by the Songwriter Sidney Prosen, who later started an indie label and was first to sign Simon & Garfunkel. At #5 it’s Teresa Brewer, “Till I Waltz Again with You.”

A song in 4/4 shuffle time with Waltz in the title. Hmmph. I guess no rule that a song about waltzing has to be a waltz. Teresa Brewer’s “Till I Waltz Again with You,” #5 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1953. The best selling single of her career, and before the year was out, Brewer was back in the top 5 with “Ricochet,” then two more top tens before Rock ‘n Roll squeezed her and most other Traditional Pop Acts out of the top 10 for good.

#4 Tony Bennett – Rags to Riches

OK, back to the Guys for our #4 song: one of the Crooners the aforementioned Mitch Miller cultivated at Columbia as his relationship with Sinatra deteriorated, who made bank right off the bat with two hits that swapped the #1 and #2 spots on the charts back and forth for eight weeks in ’51: “Because of You,” and what seemed to everyone at the time like Mitch Miller throwing a Hail Mary: a cover of Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart.” No one had ever repurposed a Country hit like that before: Crooner backed by a full Orchestra.

But by ’53 every Pop A&R man was plundering the Country charts for material, even Hank’s own label, MGM, giving “Your Cheatin’ Heart” to Joni James as I mentioned earlier. And with White Teens digging Black music, by ’54 labels were turning to the R&B charts and plundering those.

Anyway, back to our Crooner. After that spectacular start in ’51 he cooled off a little, but roared back in late ’53 with another pair of simultaneous top tens, “Stranger in Paradise” and this one, which Martin Scorsese later used for the opening sequence of his 1990 Mob epic Goodfellas. At #4 it’s Tony Bennett, “Rags to Riches.”

“Rags to Riches,” Tony Bennett, #4 on our Chartcrush countdown of 1953’s top ten hits, but like Joni James’ “Why Don’t You Believe Me?,” its chart run was over the holidays into the next year, in this case ’53 into ’54, so Billboard didn’t factor its full chart run and it’s not in the top 10 on any of their year-end recaps. But counting songs’ full chart runs as we do at Chartcrush, year-straddling hits never fall through the cracks like that. All Tony Bennett’s hits up to 1956, backed by Percy Faith, Columbia Records house Bandleader/Conductor recruited by Mitch Miller when he came on board there in 1950.

Percy Faith and His Orchestra featuring Felicia Sanders – The Song from Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)

And Faith got to cut and release his own records too. In ’52, his instrumental “Delicado” was a top 10 Best-Seller for 16 weeks, but in ’53, his hit up next at #3 was Billboard‘s #1 Best-Selling single of the year. Only reason it’s not #1 on our Chartcrush ranking? Well, again, we factor the DJ and Jukebox charts as well as Sales. Plus, our #1 and 2 hits we’ll be hearing here shortly were still on the charts at the end of Billboard‘s 1953 chart year, so they outrank it when you count their full runs. Still a massive hit at #3 though.

It’s Faith’s version of the theme from John Huston’s 1952 movie about Paris’ Bohemian subculture in the 1890s, centered around Painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the burlesque cabaret that’s the film’s title. The same front-page article in Billboard that credits the “Dragnet” records for the TV show’s soaring ratings also singles this out for boosting the movie’s box office receipts. At #3, Percy Faith’s “Song from Moulin Rouge.”

Percy Faith’s “Song from Moulin Rouge” at #3 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown of 1953’s biggest hits. Felicia Sanders on the vocal, for which she received only a one-time payment at union scale: for a #1 hit! No royalties. Mitch Miller and Percy Faith both did their best to get her a hit under her own name over the next couple years though: 11 singles on Columbia from ’52 to ’56, six backed by Percy Faith. But the closest any of them got was #30 for a single week.

As for Percy Faith, he kept his streak going as Americans bought stacks of Easy Listening records to soundtrack their happy hours, and in 1960 as the fallout from the Payola scandal suffocated Top40 radio, his “Theme from ‘A Summer Place’,” also known as the “Technical Difficulties Song” on TV from the ’60s to ’80s, made him the only recording artist to score #1 hits both before and during the Rock Era.

#2 The Ames Brothers – You, You, You

Well we’re down to the top two, both of which as I said were still on the charts at the end of Billboard‘s 1953 chart year, so counting full runs gets them more ranking points than Billboard‘s recaps.

Now clean-cut White Male Vocal Groups inundated the Pop charts in the ’50s: Four Aces, Four Freshmen, Four Coins, Four Lads, Four Preps, Crew Cuts. But these four siblings from Malden, Massachusetts were the O.G. ’50s clean-cut White Male Vocal Group, having scored their first hits in 1950: the one-two punch of “Rag Mop” and “Sentimental Me” on Decca’s Coral subsidiary.

RCA wooed them with better royalties in ’53, and their first release with them was their biggest hit since 1950, backed by Percy Faith’s counterpart at RCA, house Arranger/Conductor Hugo Winterhalter. At #2, The Ames Brothers’ “You, You, You.”

Ames Brothers with “You, You, You” at #2 on our Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown for 1953. All the Vocal Group competition after 1953 didn’t slow them down much and neither did the initial burst of Rock ‘n Roll in ’56. They captured the changing Zeitgeist better than most and continued charting hits all the way ’til 1960. Then in the ’60s deep-voiced Lead Singer Ed Ames went solo and found a lane, both on the charts and as an Actor. From ’64 to ’70 he played Daniel Boone’s sidekick Mingo on the Daniel Boone TV series.

#1 Les Paul and Mary Ford – Vaya Con Dios

At #1, another hit that spilled over into ’54. The last six of its 32 weeks were after the December 12 cutoff for Billboard‘s 1953 year-end charts. So on their year-end Sales recap it’s #2 behind “Moulin Rouge;” Airplay, #3 behind “Moulin Rouge” and The Ames Brothers’ “You, You, You;” and Jukebox Plays, #2 behind Eddie Fisher’s “I’m Walking Beside You.” But adding those six weeks back in and counting its full chart run, it’s our #1 hit of the year.

The song, first cut for Mercury Records in late ’52 by veteran Jazz Singer Anita O’Day, who’d sung on Big Band hits by Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton in the ’40s, but right before her scheduled appearance to unveil it on CBS’s celebrity rate-a-record show Juke Box Jury, she got busted for heroin possession.

Meanwhile, our husband and wife act at #1 had heard O’Day’s version on the radio, liked it, and recorded it, and their version was the #1 record of 1953. They were the #3 chart act of the first half of the ’50s overall, behind only Patti Page and Eddie Fisher, which makes them the top Duo or Group. At #1, Les Paul and Mary Ford with “Vaya con Dios.”

Les Paul and Mary Ford, “Vaya con Dios,” #1 here on our 1953 edition of The Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. They got a TV show on NBC and scored two more top tens in ’54 and ’55, but after that their chart action fell off a cliff. Rock ‘n Roll and more guitars on the radio had a lot to do with that, sure. Les was a Jazz and Pop guy, not a Rocker. But the “New Sound” he’d pioneered with custom gear in his garage on hits like “How High the Moon” in ’51 wasn’t so new anymore with labels upgrading their studios with his innovations, often with his consulting help.

Also, the marriage was on the rocks: his workaholism, her possibly related alcoholism, a separation in ’56 and a nasty divorce in ’64 after years of escalating tensions: an unseemly end to a spectacular partnership. But Ford remarried, and Les Paul kept working, inventing, prospering and adding to his legend ’til his death in 2009, aged 94.

Bonus

So that’s our top ten, but we’re not quite done yet because we still have three records that made the top ten on two of Billboard‘s published year-end charts for 1953 (Sales, Airplay and Jukebox Plays), yet missed our Chartcrush Top Ten. Not by much, mind you, but thanks to those placements on Billboard‘s charts, we think they rate a spin and a shout-out.

#13 Les Baxter and His Orchestra – April in Portugal

First up, an Easy Listening instrumental that Billboard has as 1953’s #7 Best-Seller and #8 Jukebox hit (and #12 Airplay). “The lush sound of violins came into real vogue,” they noted in ’53. Here’s yet another example: Les Baxter’s “April in Portugal.”

Les Baxter, Capitol Records’ top Arranger/Conductor for a while in ’50 and ’51 after Paul Weston jumped ship to Columbia, but before he was eclipsed by his protégé Nelson Riddle, who went on to back Frank Sinatra and many others. Still, Baxter continued charting instrumentals on Capitol under his own name for years. “April in Portugal,” one of the biggest.

#12 Frankie Laine – I Believe

Up next a Crooner who charted higher in ’53 than he had since his breakthrough in 1949, when he scored his back-to-back #1s “That Lucky Old Sun” and “Mule Train.” This one got to #2 in the middle of an 18-week run in the top 10, making it #10 on both Billboard‘s year-end Sales and Airplay charts, and #14 Jukeboxes. It notches in at #12 on our Chartcrush ranking we counted down the top ten from earlier. It’s Frankie Laine, “I Believe.”

As big as Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” was Stateside, in the U.K. it was the #1 song of the year with 18 weeks at #1 on the U.K. chart.

#11 Perry Como – No Other Love

And finally on our bonus segment of records that made the top ten on Billboard‘s 1953 year-end charts but not our Chartcrush Top Ten we counted down earlier, Billboard‘s #8 Best-Seller of the year and #6 with DJs, but just #17 on Jukeboxes; hence just missing the top ten on our Chartcrush ranking that factors all three of those. We have it at #11. After “Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes” which we heard at #9, it’s Perry Como’s second biggest hit of 1953, “No Other Love.”

“No Other Love,” Richard Rodgers’ melody from the score of NBC TV’s Victory at Sea, later given lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II for their Broadway musical Me and Juliet, and ‘ol Perry Como notched the chart hit.

Well that’s gonna have to be a wrap for our 1953 edition of the Chartcrush Top Ten Countdown Show. Thanks for listening, I’ve been your host, Christopher Verdesi. Hey, if you like what you heard, there’s much more on our website, chartcrush.com: written transcripts, links to podcast versions and peachy extras like our full top 100 charts and interactive chart run line graphs, which we do for every year, ’40s to the present. And it’s all on the website, again, chartcrush.com. So check it out, and be sure and tune in again next week, same station and time, for another year, and another edition of Chartcrush.

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