Adult Contemporary is a chart published by Billboard ranking the top-performing songs in the United States in the adult contemporary music (AC) genre. First published in 1961, the listing was compiled until 1965 by simply extracting from the magazine's all-genre chart, the Hot 100, those songs which were deemed of an appropriate style and ranking them according to their placings on the Hot 100.^[1] In 1963, during which the chart was published under the title Middle-Road Singles, 14 different songs topped the chart in 52 issues of the magazine.

At the start of the year, Steve Lawrence held the number one position with "Go Away Little Girl", which stayed in the top spot through the issue of Billboard dated January 19. Only one act had more than one number one hit during the year: folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary spent two weeks at the top of the chart in May with "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and a further five weeks at number one in August with "Blowin' in the Wind". The latter song was replaced in the top spot by the longest-running Middle Road chart-topper of the year, "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, which spent eight consecutive weeks at number one. Vinton thus also had the highest total number of weeks at number one by any artist.

A number of acts who topped the Middle Road chart in 1963 never reached number one on the Hot 100, including The Cascades and Skeeter Davis. The final Middle Road number one of the year was "Dominique" by Belgian vocalist The Singing Nun.

Chart history

References

See also

• 1963 in music
• List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart