Billboard
December 13, 1980
p.21
Wings’ ‘Coming Up’ Heads Drake-Chenault 1980 List
LOS ANGELES Bill Watson, producer of Drake-Chenault's “Weekly Top 30” show, reports that Paul McCartney and Wings' “Coming Up” will lead off the list in the end-of-year special countdown for the show
Watson says the record was selected with the assistance of his “countdown computer.” He sass a close second will be Blondie’s “Call Me.”
Kenny Rogers comes out as the year’s top male performer and Barbra Streisand suns as top female performer, edging out last year’s winner Olivia Newton-John. Runnersup among the men were Hills Joel and Christopher Cross. The top group for 1980 is Queen
The special end-of-year show will air on 300 stations Dec. 27 or 28. Watson is a member of Bill Drake's “History Of Rock 'n' Roll” production team He’s been producing the
“Weekly Top 30” since it began and is assisted by production engineer Mark Ford
Meanwhile Bobby Rich, the new director of specialized programming consultation for Drake-Chenault, has extended the deadline for his “Top Five Talent Search» from Nov. 28 to Dec 28.
“Response has been good and has been increasing in the last several weeks,” Rich says. “Therefore, we don’t want to miss some of those tapes that might not have been sent quite as promptly as others.”
Rich also says he is looking for more entries in the country and AOR categories, areas where response has been low
Drake-Chenault plans to issue an album containing the top five air-checks in each of five format categories. This record will be available, free, upon request earls in 1981.