countdown was: "As If"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:47:27 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
<bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:

>On Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:00:32 -0400, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>wrote:
>
>>Right, that's the one I was noting below, along with the lack of any
>>entry or documentation for the pop music "countdown".  Does anyone
>>have a date for that?  As I mentioned, I remember the music
>>countdowns themselves from the mid-1950s (top 40 of the week, top 400
>>of the year, even one for the decade--probably on 12/12/59), but I
>>can't remember when the word itself was introduced.
>
>Surprisingly, I can't find any examples predating the British Invasion--
>the earliest "countdowns" I've come across are from 1965.  WCFL in
>Chicago had a "British Countdown" on the Jim Stagg show that year
>(featuring a real live British DJ, Paul Michael), and KYW/WKYC in
>Cleveland had a similarly titled feature on the Jerry G. show.  You can
>hear an aircheck for the latter on this site:
>
>http://www.reelradio.com/bt/index.html#jgkyw65
>
>The Reel Radio site and several others have many airchecks from Top 40
>shows, so an earlier "countdown" can likely be found in one of the audio
>archives.

Aha, sure enough... here's a "countdown show" from The Real Don Steele
(later a prominent Los Angeles DJ) on KIMA Yakima, Mar. 12, 1961:

http://www.reelradio.com/rdsc/airchecks.html

You can hear on the audio that the sound of a rocket blast accompanies the
word "countdown".


--Ben Zimmer