• Track Listing

We continue our popular and successful series devoted to the biggest chart records of each calendar year in the early chart era as we focus on 1945, the fifth full calendar year of the Billboard Best Sellers chart - the chart was launched in July 1940 - and the first year to feature a Most Played by Disc Jockeys chart. This great value 94-track 4-CD set comprises every record which peaked in the Top 10 of the Best Sellers chart during the year, plus those which entered the Top 10 in the final weeks of the year. For reasons of space, it excludes those records were still in the chart at the start of the year, but which peaked in the Top 10 in 1944, and so are included in our existing 1944 collection. It was another vintage year for Bing Crosby, who had 9 hits during the year, while Dick Haymes and Harry James with Kitty Kallen had six. Johnny Mercer had three No. 1s, one with Jo Stafford, and Doris Day made her chart debut with two No. 1s. Others who featured at No.1 were The Andrews Sisters, Vaughn Monroe, Perry Como, Harry James, Sammy Kaye and Freddy Martin, while there were also many highly collectable lesser-known records by some artists we don't hear too much about these days. It makes for an intriguing and very entertaining musical snapshot of a year when WWII came to a close, celebrated by a number of both sentimental and celebratory hits. It includes a 12,000+ word booklet with a commentary on every record as well as full discographical and chart information.