Harry Belafonte, who died on Tuesday (April 25) at age 96, made history in March 1956, becoming the first artist to top Billboard’s weekly album chart, now known as the Billboard 200. He achieved the feat with his sophomore album Belafonte, which held the top spot for six consecutive weeks.
With Belafonte’s death, just four Billboard 200-topping artists from the years before The Beatles’ explosive arrival in 1964 are still living.
In addition, a handful of artists who were featured on Billboard 200-topping original cast albums and soundtracks between 1956 and 1964 are still living, but those albums weren’t credited to them individually. Most notably, the legendary Julie Andrews, 87, was featured on the cast albums to My Fair Lady, which topped the chart for 15 nonconsecutive weeks starting in July 1956, and Camelot, which topped the chart for six consecutive weeks in June and July 1961. Andrews, of course, was also featured on two Billboard 200-topping soundtracks, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, which were released after The Beatles arrived.
Mitzi Gaynor, 91, was featured on the South Pacific soundtrack, which topped the chart for 31 nonconsecutive weeks starting in May 1958. Future EGOT recipient Rita Moreno, 91, was featured on the West Side Story soundtrack, which topped the chart for 54 nonconsecutive weeks starting in May 1962. And Anna Maria Alberghetti, 86, was featured on the cast album to Carnival, which topped the chart for a single week in July 1961.
For the record, Billboard published album charts starting in 1945, but the chart didn’t become a regular, weekly feature until March 1956. A total of 31 different credited artists landed No. 1 albums between Belafonte and The Singing Nun’s The Singing Nun, the final No. 1 of the pre-Beatles era. (Those years officially ended when Meet the Beatles! hit No. 1 on Feb. 15, 1964.)
Here are the four artists who hit No. 1 before that date who are still living:
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Johnny Mathis
Image Credit: Richard C. Miller/Donaldson Collection/GI Age: 87
Notes: Mathis’s Johnny’s Greatest Hits reached No 1 in June 1958, becoming the first greatest hits album to top the chart. It remained on top for three nonconsecutive weeks and remained on the Billboard 200 for a then-record 490 weeks. The album featured songs that have made listeners swoon ever since, including “Chances Are,” “It’s Not for Me to Say,” “The Twelfth of Never” and “Wonderful! Wonderful!.” Mathis’ Heavenly first hit No. 1 in November 1959 and remained on top for five consecutive weeks. That album featured Mathis’ exquisite reading of “Misty.” One listen to that track and you’ll agree, the album title was no hype.
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Bob Newhart
Age: 93
Notes: Newhart is best known as a legendary TV star, one of the few to star in multiple long-running and much-admired series (The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart). But in the early 1960s he was a hit recording act, with back-to-back No. 1 albums, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (which first hit No. 1 in July 1960 and remained on top for 14 non-consecutive weeks) and The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! (which had a single week on top in January 1961). These were the first two comedy albums to reach No. 1. Both albums won Grammys. The former was the first comedy album to win album of the year.
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Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul & Mary)
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Ages: 84 (Yarrow); 85 (Stookey)
Notes: The folk-pop trio had a pair of No. 1 albums in 1962-63, Peter, Paul & Mary and In the Wind. The former album topped the chart for seven non-consecutive weeks beginning in October 1962. The latter topped the chart for five consecutive weeks in November 1963. Peter, Paul & Mary included “Lemon Tree,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” In the Wind drew its title from the trio’s hit version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” The album also included “Tell It on the Mountain!” and Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” (In case you’re wondering why Dylan isn’t on this list, he didn’t land a No. 1 album until 1974’s Planet Waves, a collaboration with The Band.) Mary Travers, the third member of the legendary trio, died in 2009 at age 72.
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Little Stevie Wonder
Age: 72
Notes: Wonder was just 13 when he landed his first No. 1 album in August 1963 with Little Stevie Wonder/The 12-Year Old Genius. It was the first album to ascend to No. 1 since Billboard combined its separate mono and stereo album charts in the previous issue (where Andy Williams’ Days of Wine and Roses logged a 16th and final week on top). The two stars shared a long history: Williams hosted all three Grammy telecasts on which Wonder became the first (and still the only) artist to win album of the year with three consecutive studio albums — Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life. Wonder’s 1963 album included “Fingertips – Pt 2,” which was his first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition to singing, Wonder played bongos and harmonica on the explosive track.