American Gold

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American Gold is a syndicated weekly, four-hour, hit-packed, oldies countdown program which is written, produced and hosted by Radio Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Dick Bartley.

[edit] Concept

The concept of American Gold is loosely based upon the formats of other ABC shows, American Top 40 and American Country Countdown, although Casey Kasem (who created those shows) was never involved in the creation of Gold (Kasem had left ABC by the time Bartley had joined). The show had been created (in a sense) in 1985 as the daily feature "Solid Gold Scrapbook" but restructured in 1991 as its current form when Bartley joined ABC.

The featured songs (there are usually about 10 to 15 of them) are ranked from the smallest to the biggest hits in a particular show. The Billboard Hot 100 chart is the standard for this ranking. The featured songs usually follow a category; a featured band is usually the focus, but occasionally Bartley makes an exception for a special holiday. In addition, on the first weekend of every month, Gold has a "yearbook special" highlighting the top hits of a given year.

The Quiz Man feature was discontinued in 2007, and the monthly countdowns were changed to quarterly countdowns. For example, it might be Spring 1966, instead of April 1966.