The grass was still green for Tom Jones as ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’ enjoyed a 3rd week at the top of the charts. This put Jones out in front for weeks at 1 by an artist as he moved 1 clear of The Beach Boys. Jones had now spent a total of 8 weeks at the top of the charts (2 with ‘It’s Not Unusual’, 3 with ‘What’s New Pussycat’ and now 3 with ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’). Previous chart topper, The New Vaudeville Band’s ‘Winchester Cathedral’, had dropped to 4 last week, but was now moving back up the charts as it jumped up 2 to 2.

There was only 1 star rater this week and it was therefore obviously our biggest climber and that was Bobby Darin’s ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ which moved up 4 from 18 to 14.

This week’s faller was The Dream Merchant’s ‘Land Of Milk And Honey’ which dropped 4 places from 13 to 17. This was the 20th time a local song had taken the biggest faller award, but it was the first time for The Dream Merchants.

Tommy Roe’s ‘Sweet Pea’ enjoyed its 6th week as the oldest on the charts as it moved on to 18 weeks. More importantly thought was that it now joined Roger Williams’ ‘Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)’ as the second highest number of weeks spent on the charts by a song. Only The Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’ and Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ were ahead of them on 19 weeks.

We lost 2 song off the chart this week, the first was David Garrick’s ‘Mrs Applebee’ which lasted just 3 weeks and only peaked at 19. This would be his only SA Chart hit. In the UK he would manage one other minor hit with ‘Lady Jane’ which went to 28 there.

We also said goodbye to The Sandpipers’ ‘Guantanamera’ which stayed with us for 14 weeks and peaked at 2. They would go on to have further SA Chart success.

We had recently seen a number of 50’s stars having hits on our charts. Artists such as Bobby Darin, Eddie Fisher and Connie Francis had all had much success in the 50s and were coming to the end of their careers, but still managed to have the odd hit reach our top 20. To this list we added Max Bygraves this week. Bygraves had 12 UK hits in the 50s (well the last of those would have spilled over into the 60s) and only 6 thereafter. ‘Remember When’ was our newcomer this week and it was not one of his UK hits. The song included Bert Kaempfert in the writing credits and he recorded a version in 1965. The most successful recording of this song on the global front appears to be Wayne Newton’s version which went to 69 in the US.

The other new entry came from country singer Bobby Bare. ‘Streets Of Baltimore’ was written by another country singer, Tompall Glaser, but Bare beat him in recording it by about 3 months. Bare’s version would go to number 5 on the US country singles charts. The song has been covered by a good number of artists but none have made the main US charts. Gram Parsons’ cover featured in the TV series ‘The Wire’.

Des Lindberg became the 4th local artist to reach the 20 weeks on the chart milestone. Herman’s Hermits moved ahead of The Beatles for weeks on the chart as they were now on 43, compared to the Fab Four’s 42. The Hermits sat 6th overall for weeks. Tommy Roe joined the top 20 acts for weeks on the chart as he now had 24 to his name and sat tied 17th overall. He was also enjoying his 6th week with 2 in the charts and was the 5th act to reach this number of weeks with more than 1 hit in the chart.

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