Cashbox (magazine)

Cashbox (or Cash Box) is a defunct music magazine that was a weekly publication devoted to the music and culture and coin-operated machine industries in the United States which was published from July 1942, to November 16, 1996. It has since been revived as an online-only weekly that occasionally publishes special issues.^[1][2]

History

It was one of several magazines that published charts of song popularity in the United States. Cashbox's most prominent competitors included Billboard and Record World (known as Music Vendor prior to the April 18, 1964, issue). Unlike Billboard, Cashbox initially combined all currently available recordings of a song into one chart position with artist and label information shown for each version, alphabetized by label. Originally, no indication of which version was the biggest seller was given, but from October 25, 1952, a star was placed next to the names of the most important artists. Cashbox also printed shorter jukebox charts which included specific artist data beginning in the spring of 1950. Separate charts were presented for juke box popularity, record sales, and radio airplay, similar to Billboard's methodology prior to August 1958, when Billboard debuted its "Hot 100," which attempted to combine all measures of popularity into one all-encompassing chart. In addition, Cashbox published chart data for specific genres, such as country music and R&B music.

Cashbox was revived as an Internet-only magazine in 2006 with the consent and cooperation of the family of George Albert, the late president and publisher of the original edition. Cashbox has occasionally issued special print editions.

Documents filed with the Secretary of the State of South Carolina, where the publication and company are located, shows Cashbox's incorporation and current magazine ownership.

As of April 2015, Cashbox Magazine has added the following music charts: Roots Music, Bluegrass Singles, Bluegrass Gospel Singles, Beach Music Top 40, Roadhouse Blues and Boogie Top 40, Country Christian Top 100 Singles, Southern Gospel Singles. The online magazine also relaunched the Looking Ahead Charts on March 1, 2015, covering all genres of music. And the Cashbox Top 100 has been expanded to the Top 200. All chart data for the main Cashbox Charts is provided by Digital Radio Tracker.

The current leadership of Cashbox includes Doug Stroud, Harold Miller, Christopher Elrod, John Hook, Tommy Smith, David Bowling, Randy Price, Father Jim Drucker, and Lee Vyborny. Featured columnists include Jim Rose and nationally syndicated music columnist, Jerry Osborne. The Cashbox legal advisor is Mike Duncan.

Sandy Graham is CEO of Cashbox Canada. Shane and Robert Bartosh control the Roots Data.

In 2013, Joel Whitburn's Record Research published a history of "classic" Cashbox pop chart data, covering October 1952 through the 1996 demise of the original magazine, following its 2012 publication covering the historic chart data of Cashbox's online sister magazine Music Vendor/Record World. Randy Price maintains the original Cashbox data for the online Archives.

The Swem Library at William and Mary College^[3] maintains the archive of the original print editions of Cash Box Magazine.

Bruce Elrod is semi-retired but remains the registered agent for Cashbox.

The Chicago blues band The Cash Box Kings credit the magazine for their name.

References

External links

Look up cashbox in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Cashbox Magazine, Inc. Current publishers' official site
• Cashboxmagazine.com (Archive)
• Sos.sc.gov
• Cash Box from the College of William and Mary's Earl Gregg Swem Library