Events
- January 8 — Billboard publishes its first "Most Played Juke Box Folk Records" chart, the first widespread method of tracking the nationwide popularity of current country music songs. The first No. 1 song is "Pistol Packin' Mama" by Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters. The new chart is the predecessor to today's Hot Country Songs chart.
- February 26 — Less than two months after the chart's inception, jazz and rhythm & blues performer Louis Jordan becomes the first African-American performer to top the Most Played Juke Box Folk chart (with "Ration Blues"). It is a big year for African-American performers: Jordan has a second No. 1 hit later in the year with "Is You Is or Is You Ain't (Ma' Baby)," while the Nat King Cole-led trio reach the top with "Straighten Up and Fly Right." Jordan and Cole are the only black performers to have a No. 1 hit until 1969, when Charley Pride breaks the streak.
Read more about this topic: 1944 In Country Music
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“As I look at the human story I see two stories. They run parallel and never meet. One is of people who live, as they can or must, the events that arrive; the other is of people who live, as they intend, the events they create.”
—Margaret Anderson (1886–1973)
“The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when one thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)