Percy Sledge’s ‘Come Softly To Me’ lasted 2 weeks at the top of the charts before Christie’s ‘Yellow River’ came along this week and ousted it from the number 1 spot. Local act, The Outlet, moved into second place with ‘Working On A Good Thing’.

Mr Bloe’s ‘Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe’ became the 13th instrumental song to take climber of the week as it moved up 5 from 19 to 14.

Last week’s biggest climber, The Beach Boys’ ‘Cotton Fields (The Cotton Song)’, was 1 of 3 other songs that made a star rater climb as it moved up 4 from 9 to 5. The other 2 that managed a 4 place jump were Mungo Jerry’s ‘In The Summertime’ and Elvis Presley’s ‘The Wonder Of You’ which moved up to 4 and 11 respectively. For both The Beach Boys and Elvis Presley it was a 10th time with a star rater and they were the 17th and 18th acts to reach this total.

Tom Jones brought us the faller of the week with ‘Daughter Of Darkness’ dropping 5 from 5 to 10. This was his 9th time with the faller of the week award and he was the second act to have this many. He sat 1 behind The Bee Gees for this record with the latter being on 10.

Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan’s ‘Tennessee Bird Walk’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the top 20 this week. The song had lasted 5 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 14. This would be the only SA chart action Blanchard or Morgan would see.

The other 2 songs to leave were the 2 songs from the Eurovision Song Contest that had been gracing our charts. The winner of that event, Dana’s ‘All Kinds Of Everything’  did not fare as well on our charts as the song that came second, Mary Hopkin’s ‘Knock Knock Who’s There’. The former spent 8 weeks in the charts and peaked 7 while the latter, which spent 9 weeks in the charts ended up with a peak of 2, a peak which matched its top position it managed on the UK charts and with it coming second at Eurovision it was definitely a case of always the bridesmaid, never the bride. For Dana, ‘All Kinds Of Everything’ would be her only SA chart hit while Mary Hopkin, whose SA chart career also came to an end, had managed 2 hits, both of which peaked at 2 (the other being ‘Those Were The Days’). She spent a total of 20 weeks in the charts and this meant she was the 10th highest female on the weeks count list sitting tied 64th overall.

The departure of the 3 songs mentioned above meant that we had no duets/collaborations on the charts and no solo female artists. We had seen a duet in the top 20 for the past 11weeks and at least 1 song by a solo female artist for the past 9 weeks. This was the tied second lowest total consecutive weeks we had had a woman on the charts, having seen a 9 week run once before and two 7 week runs previously.

We also saw 2 songs take over as the oldest on the charts as ‘Knock Knock Who’s There’ had been the granddaddy of last week’s chart. This week Tom Jones’ ‘Daughter Of Darkness’ and Percy Sledge’s ‘Come Softly To Me’ shared the title, both songs being on 9 weeks. They were the 12th and 13th songs to become the oldest on a lowest to date weeks count of 9 (excluding the songs on the very first top 20).

We welcomed The Moody Blues to our charts for the first time. Their hit, ‘Question’ was a number 2 hit for them in the UK and it managed to get to number 21 in the US. This song was written by band member Justin Hayward and it was originally entitled ‘A Question Of Balance’. Hayward, who contributed to Jeff Wayne’s musical ‘The War Of The Worlds’, would be the only person with the first name Justin to have song writing credits on a song charting on our charts.

Sean Rennie also made his SA chart debut with a song called ‘I’ll Walk With You’. Rennie was born in Ireland. He had auditioned for the Vienna Boys Choir but unfortunately for him and fortunately for us he was not accepted and as he made his way to South Africa in 1964, so I have claimed him as one of us for statistical purposes. Once he got to SA he formed a group called Purple Haze which got him noticed as a singer. ‘I’ll Walk With You’ lists G Garzouzie as a song writer alongside a certain David Gresham. Gruesome Gresh, who used to present the top 20 on Springbok Radio (as if I have to remind you of this) also produce the song.

The final new entry was also by a local act and was McCully Workshop’s ‘Why Can’t It Rain’. This, alongside the Sean Rennie hit above, boosted the local content of the charts back up to 5 and with Jody Wayne’s new entry from last week sitting at 18, we saw the 7th occasion where the bottom 3 songs on the chart were local (2 of those 7 had had the bottom 4 songs being local). ‘Why Can’t It Rain’ was written by Tully McCully in the middle of the night and features Falling Mirror’s ‘Allan Faull on guitar. A certain Billy Forrest produced the song.

The gap between the total number of hits to date by US and UK acts fell to its lowest level in nearly half a year. The Americans were still out in front with 258 so far, but the Brits were now 18 behind them with their total being 240. The last time the gap was 18 was 24 weeks previously. In the interim, the Americans had at best been 23 hits ahead.

Jody Wayne was enjoying his 20th week on the charts, but was unmoved at 15 on the local weeks count list, still 2 behind tied 13th placed Carike Keuzenkamp and Hilary who were on 22. On the overall list, The Beach Boys drew level 6th with The Rolling Stones as both acts were on 91 weeks while Percy Sledge took 11th place to himself as his 77 to date placed him 1 ahead of Engelbert Humperdinck whom he shared 11th place with last week.

Sledge was also celebrating moving past the 800 points mark as his total ticked over to 809.

Youtube playlist: