List of Most Played Juke Box Folk Records number ones of 1946

From 1944 until 1957, Billboard magazine published a chart that ranked the top-performing country music songs in the United States, based on the number of times a song had been played in jukeboxes; until 1948 it was the magazine's only country music chart. In 1946, nine different songs topped the chart, which was published under the title Most Played Juke Box Folk Records. The chart was compiled based on a survey of jukebox operators nationwide, and its methodology allowed for the possibility of records tying for a position. On several occasions during 1946 two or more songs tied for the number-one spot, including the issue of Billboard dated February 2, when four songs tied for the peak position. The Juke Box Folk chart is considered part of the lineage of the current Hot Country Songs chart, which was first published in 1958.

In 1946 the top spot was dominated by two songs which each spent 16 weeks at number one and which between them topped the chart from February to September. In the issue of Billboard dated February 2, "Guitar Polka" by Al Dexter reached number one for the first time, albeit jointly with three other songs. After one week out of the top spot it returned to number one, where it spent fifteen consecutive weeks, one of them jointly with "New Spanish Two Step" by Bob Wills, widely known as the "King of Western swing". After Dexter's run at number one ended, Wills's song returned to the top spot and also spent fifteen consecutive weeks atop the chart. Wills had topped the chart earlier in the year with "Silver Dew on the Blue Grass Tonight" and "White Cross on Okinawa" and was the only artist to take three different songs to number one in 1946. Dexter, however, had the highest number of total weeks at number one, spending 21 weeks in total (including two tied weeks) atop the chart with "Guitar Polka" and "Wine Women and Song". Wills and Dexter were the only acts with more than one chart-topper during the year.

In October, Merle Travis achieved his first number one with "Divorce Me C.O.D.", which spent 11 non-consecutive weeks in the top spot in 1946 and was at number one at the end of the year. Although Travis would only experience a short spell of chart success, achieving only one further chart-topping single, he would remain active until his death in 1983 and come to be regarded as one of the most influential guitarists in the country genre. Two singers who had each topped the chart several times in its first three years of publication did so for the last time in 1946. Al Dexter's second chart-topper of the year, "Wine Women and Song", would prove to be his final appearance in the top spot. After 1948 he did not appear in the chart at all and concentrated on running his club in Dallas. Tex Ritter also topped the chart for the last time in 1946. He would be absent from the country chart altogether for more than a decade after 1950 but experience something of a career revival in the 1960s when he appeared regularly at the Grand Ole Opry.

Chart history


a. Multiple songs tied for the number one position.