Record World Annual Award - 1970

The 1970 Record World Award for #1 Top Female Vocalist was awarded to Dionne Warwick. Does anyone recall this Award, or what the criteria was?

In 1969, Dionne released 5 singles, 2 that reached Top 10. 1 that didn't even reach Top 40.

In 1970, 4 more singles, reaching #32, #43, #37, and #43.

On the flipside, in 1969, DRATS released 4 singles, 1 reaching Top 10, and 1 reaching #1. In 1970, 3 singles, reaching #20, #1, and #16.

Based on charts alone, seems to me that award should have gone to Diana? Who else was that big in 1970? No other single female hit #1 in 1969 or 1970.

my guess is this is just industry politics. whatever label she was on probably had a healthy advertising budget that supported RW.

Billboard often would do big "dedication" style issues with all sorts of praise lavished on some star's anniversary or a label. it was never something motown related. and my guess is motown was like "why the F pay for all that crap when we're hitting #1 nearly every other week is some single and our artists are selling like crazy"

Sup is probably right. Without checking for accuracy and going off of memory, I'm almost positive that Aretha beat all those 1970 numbers for Dionne.

As for Diana, if true that she was the only woman solo to hit #1 in 1970, I guess the case could be made for her to have the award. But does one number one song make for a top year award? Of the other female soloists, who else had hits that year? Was there someone without a number one, but instead had a few top 10s or million sellers? If so, that would beat one number one, and two top 20s, perhaps.

As far as 1969 goes, anything Diana did was credited as a group so it would not count toward her solo career, even though we know that studio wise, the music was Diana solo.

I remember reading that Diana was Billboard's Number One Female Vocalist for 1970 but I can't recall where.

One of Dionne's Facebook groups just posted a Cashbox ad from 1970 saying Dionne was Cashbox's Top Female Artist in their Best of 1970 poll. There was also another Cashbox ad that said that she was the most programmed female vocalist of 1970 in the disc jockeys' poll.

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Originally Posted by reese

I remember reading that Diana was Billboard's Number One Female Vocalist for 1970 but I can't recall where.

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Diana was Billboards #1 Female Vocalist of the year in their year end tabulations for 1970.

I’ll have to go looking but I also thought she was Cashbox’s #1 Female Vocalist of the year as well

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Originally Posted by reese

I remember reading that Diana was Billboard's Number One Female Vocalist for 1970 but I can't recall where.

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I referenced my Billboard Top Pop Singles 1955-1999:

Aretha was #1 Top Female Artist 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971.
Diana was #1 in 1976 & 1981.

For the 70s decade, Diana was #13, overall; #2 female, behind Olivia; #20 R&B/Soul;
Aretha was #24, overall; #6 female.
For the 80s, Diana was #17, overall; #3 female, behind Madonna and Whitney; #13 R&B/Soul.
For the 60s, The Supremes were #5 overall; #2 group, behind The Beatles; #7 R&B/Soul.

Referencing Billboard Top Pop Albums 1955-2001

70s decade, Diana was #24; #13 R&B/Soul.
80s decade, Diana was #18; #8 R&B/Soul.
60s decade The Supremes were #14; #2 R&B/Soul, behind The Temptations.

Interesting that Diana's ranking by decade is higher in the 80s, than the 70s!

Dionne had a huge back catalogue of hits by 1970 - many more than Aretha or that new solo act Diana.

I'm not surprised if she was rated #1 then even if her career was about to go downhill [[mainly due to Bacharach/David breaking up).

https://vocal.media/beat/20-most-pop...s-of-the-1970s

Here’s a fun list

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Originally Posted by jobeterob

Diana was Billboards #1 Female Vocalist of the year in their year end tabulations for 1970.

I’ll have to go looking but I also thought she was Cashbox’s #1 Female Vocalist of the year as well

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I did find a pdf of the 12/26/70 issue of Billboard and on page TA-20, it lists Diana as #1 Female Vocalist in the Top Singles Artist category, with three charted singles. Behind her rounding out the top five were Freda Payne, Aretha, Dionne, and Melanie.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Ar...1970-12-26.pdf

Since Record World was a music magazine competitor of Billboard and Cashbox, they probably gave out the award based on their own charts. As mentioned above, these awards are mostly promotional awards, given by the trade magazines for thanks for their advertising, or encouraged by labels to give an award to their artist for future advertising

Diana Ross was given an award by Billboard in 1975 as BEST FEMALE ENTERTAINER OF THE CENTURY. Most of that week's Billboard Magazine was devoted to her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2aHy5e_5SQ

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Originally Posted by reese

I did find a pdf of the 12/26/70 issue of Billboard and on page TA-20, it lists Diana as #1 Female Vocalist in the Top Singles Artist category, with three charted singles. Behind her rounding out the top five were Freda Payne, Aretha, Dionne, and Melanie.

https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Ar...1970-12-26.pdf

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I was wondering why the discrepancy from the 1970 publication showing Diana as #1 Female vocalist for 1970 and the Billboard Singles book published in 2000 showing Aretha as #1.

Most likely their point system changed. Diana had 3 releases and a #1 hit in 1970, her 3 releases were on the charts for a total of 33 weeks. Freda had 2 releases and a #3 hit, her singles charting for a total of 31 weeks; Aretha had 4 releases but none in the Top 10, her singles charting for a total of 37 weeks.

So it seems the ranking in 1970 was based on the highest chart number achieved followed by number of weeks all records charted. The 2000 publication states that ranking was based solely on points for highest charted position. In the case of a tie then ranking was based on: most charted singles, followed by most Top 40 hits, followed by most Top 10 hits. So Diana and Aretha possibly tied and Aretha having 4 singles to Diana's 3 broke the tie. [I did not try to figure out the point values and just reached a conclusion based on the information. No deep dive here. The 2000 publication only provides the #1 artist so I'm guessing Diana was possibly #2.]

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Originally Posted by johnjeb

I was wondering why the discrepancy from the 1970 publication showing Diana as #1 Female vocalist for 1970 and the Billboard Singles book published in 2000 showing Aretha as #1.

Most likely their point system changed. Diana had 3 releases and a #1 hit in 1970, her 3 releases were on the charts for a total of 33 weeks. Freda had 2 releases and a #3 hit, her singles charting for a total of 31 weeks; Aretha had 4 releases but none in the Top 10, her singles charting for a total of 37 weeks.

So it seems the ranking in 1970 was based on the highest chart number achieved followed by number of weeks all records charted. The 2000 publication states that ranking was based solely on points for highest charted position. In the case of a tie then ranking was based on: most charted singles, followed by most Top 40 hits, followed by most Top 10 hits. So Diana and Aretha possibly tied and Aretha having 4 singles to Diana's 3 broke the tie. [I did not try to figure out the point values and just reached a conclusion based on the information. No deep dive here. The 2000 publication only provides the #1 artist so I'm guessing Diana was possibly #2.]

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I’m not an expert and have not researched this again.

But they formerly used a reverse system where #100 got one point and #1 gets 100 points plus I believe #1 got a 100 point bonus

Also for the year end issue, there was a cut off date of about the end of November, and for the books, they could use the whole year

That may account for some of the differences

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Originally Posted by jobeterob

I’m not an expert and have not researched this again.

But they formerly used a reverse system where #100 got one point and #1 gets 100 points plus I believe #1 got a 100 point bonus

Also for the year end issue, there was a cut off date of about the end of November, and for the books, they could use the whole year

That may account for some of the differences

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Yes, I remember that point system. I used to get annoyed when the year-end rankings were based on an early cut-off date. I understood they wanted to have a year-end issue, but I would have preferred they waited until the end of January to tally and rank. However, I suppose songs released in December would suffer the same fate of not having a true reporting of charting.

The point system for the Billboard Singles book that I have is not as straightforward as you mention. For instance a song at #1 gets 100 points and then an additional 10 points for each week at that position. Similar for songs at #2 and #3, with 9 and 8 points, respectively. If I have time later today I will try to list the point system used in that book and maybe compare it to the point sytems used in similar Billboard books from earlier years.

I imagine some liberties are taken for songs that are released near the end of the year and have favorable charting positions into the next year. One example I noticed is that my Billboard Pop Annual lists Come See About Me as #1 for 2 weeks in 1964 at #13, rather than 1 week, which probably would have had it ranked in the high teens or low twenties, and no mention of it at #1 for 1 week in 1965 [January 16th issue].