Later that same day-my birthday-I received the sad news that Joel Whitburn had died hours earlier of undisclosed causes. The last thing I did before leaving the house was removing WhitburnвЂ™s вЂњTop R&B SinglesвЂќ book from my bed and putting it back with the latest editions of his other books I had accumulated over the years. One was Joel WhitburnвЂ™s вЂњTop R&B Singles 1942-2016вЂќ the other was his вЂњTop Pop Singles 1955-2015.вЂќ Both books document the entire history of their respective namesake Billboard charts, with a combined 2000+ pages of facts and data from BillboardвЂ™s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and the Hot 100 (and their various predecessors).Д®arly Tuesday morning, June 14, with the final draft of the Jam/Lewis article complete and my research done, I put away the Whitburn books and loaded the car that morning for the weekly trek to DC for my вЂњpayingвЂќ job. This Joel Whitburn book has been a constant companion for the past several weeks as I completed my most recent article

For the past several weeks as I wrote one of this blogвЂ™s most intense articles yet- a 100-song tribute to super producers Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis-there were two source books that I regularly had by my side and, after hours of grueling research and writing, often found myself waking up with the pages still opened to where my last look-up had been before nodding off hours before.

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