Brian Ler on WNYC.

And now back to our WNYC Centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things.

We did 100 years of the New Yorker earlier in the show, and now ahead of the

Grammy Awards, which will be presented Sunday night, it's thing number 64, 100 years of the

Billboard music charts. According to the Library of Congress, it was exactly 100 years ago, 1925,

that electrical recording was successfully implemented and introduced by both Columbia

and Victor Records. And in 1926, in the era that became known as the Jazz Age, there were things

like this, Red Hot Peppers by Jelly Roll Morton.

Music Roll Morton.

Just a little taste of a red hot pepper by Jelly Roll Morton from 1926.

We'll sample from each decade in this 100-year segment should be a lot of fun.

And actually, in those days, the Billboard music charts were sheet music charts, not yet rankings of recorded music sales.

So let's talk about this history.

We're very happy to have as our guide and as our guest, Gary Trust, Billboards New York-based managing director of

charts and data operations. Gary, thanks a lot for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Thank you so much, Brian. Honor to be here. And listeners, we'll try to make this some participatory

fun, too. We'll take your oral history calls in a few chronological chunks on this

question. What do you remember as the biggest hit song from when you were in high school?

We'll take calls first from anyone who went to high school in the 1950s or earlier.

212-433 WNYC. Again, what do you remember as the biggest hit song from when you

were in high school? We'll take calls first from anyone who went to high school in the 1950s or

earlier. 212-433 W-N-YC, 212-433-9-6-9-2.

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