‘Sundown’ by Gordon Lightfoot enjoyed it’s 5^th week at the top of the charts while Wings’ ‘Band On The Run’ sat stuck in second place for the 3^rd week running. The Rubettes’ ‘Sugar Baby Love’ was unmoved at 3.

Having had 3 weeks in a row where the climber of the week managed an 8 place jump, this week we just missed out on seeing a 4^th week in this sequence as the climber award went to George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’ which managed a 7 place climb from 19 to 12.

Other star raters this week were Paper Lace’s ‘The Night Chicago Died’ which moved up 4 from 8 to 4 and Dennis East’s ‘A Rose Has To Die’ which climbed 6 from 20 to 14.

The faller of the week award was shared between 3 songs which all dropped 4 places. The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’ fell to 17, Charlie Rich’s ‘There Won’t Be Anymore’ dropped to 15 while Lena Zavaroni’s ‘Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me)’ moved down to 9. It was The Hollies’ 7^th time with the award and they were the 12^th act to accumulate this many fallers. While having a faller of the week, The Hollies could take some comfort from the fact that ‘The Air That I Breathe’ was the oldest on the charts on 16 weeks. It happened to be the 16^th week that The Hollies had had the oldest song in the charts and they were the 6^th act to manage this many weeks with the oldest.

The previous oldest in the top 20 was one of three songs that left the charts this week and that was Andy Williams’ ‘Solitaire’. The song lasted 20 weeks in the top 20 and spent 4 weeks at 1. This was by far his best performer to date with his next best peak (of his 3 other hits to date) was 9 which ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ managed.

Jody Wayne’s ‘Heartbeat’ dropped out of the charts after 5 weeks and a peak of 15. Wayne had seen 9 chart hits to date with only 2 have lower weeks and peaks figures.

Last to go was Dan Hill’s version of ‘The Birdie Song’ which he called ‘Tchip Tchip’. It spent 11 weeks in the charts and peaked at 4. Of the 5 local instrumental hits we had seen to date, only 1 (Omega Limited’s ‘Tchaikovsky One’) had a better weeks and peak figure having lasted 12 weeks and peaked at 3. There was still more to come from Hill.

Kris Kristofferson had hit our charts 3 times as a songwriter, twice with ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ (Sammi Smith’s and Percy Sledge’s versions) and once with Gordon Lightfoot’s version of ‘Me And Bobby McGee. This week he finally made it in his own right as ‘Why Me’ entered the charts and did so in style, becoming the 13th song to enter the charts at 10 or higher. The song made it to the top of the US Country Singles charts and also made 16 on the main Hot 100 as well as getting to 31 in Holland. The song is sometimes referred to as ‘Why Me Lord’, but the single label only lists it as ‘Why Me’ which made it the 7th song to chart in SA that did not contain any of the letters from the phrase ‘Springbok Radio’.

Another country singer, local lad Tommy Oliver was also amongst the new entries. He followed up his 1973 number 3 hit ‘I Wanna Live’ with ‘Just An Ever Lovin’ Woman’ for his 2nd SA chart entry. The song was written by Norman Cousins and won the Sarie for song of the year.

Geli & Billy become the second duet to have a second song chart as their hit ‘Hazy Hazy (Crazy Crazy)’ entered at 20. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood led the way for duets with 3 hits to their name. There would be a total of 8 duets who would manage 2 or more hits and 1 more of these would go on to score 3. Geli & Billy were Angelika Illman and Billy Forrest and this, Forrest’s 11th hit, made him the 11^th act to reach this many. Billy’s 11 were made up of 4 as Quentin E Klopjaeger, 2 as William E., 1 as Dennis, 1 as part of a duet with Sharon Tandy, 1 as Billy Forrest and now 2 as part of the duet with Geli. ‘Hazy Hazy (Crazy Crazy)’ was the 11th song to chart which listed Chris Andrews as songwriter. It was also recorded by a band called Bubbles. Forrest produced the single alongside Lofty Shultz who also arranged it. Shultz’s name appears on a good number of South African releases with production and arranger credits as well as being noted for playing various instruments. He was also responsible for the arrangement of the aforementioned hit Forrest had with Sharon Tandy, ‘Hello-A’.

Wings enjoyed their 20^th week in the charts. Having 2 in the chart meant that they were adding 2 to their total each week now.

Billy Forrest’s new entry meant his weeks count moved on to 78 which put him tied 20^th with Four Jacks & A Jill and The Archies on the overall weeks count list. He and Four Jacks & A Jill sat tied 3^rd on the local list with Alan Garrity in second place and The Staccatos at the top of the list being above them.

For the first time in 16 weeks we saw the average number of weeks the top 20 songs had been with us fall below 6 as it dropped to 5.9.

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