We have now come to the end of our first full year of charts. During 1966 we saw 136 songs spend at least a week on the charts (118 new ones and 18 brought that came across from 1965) and these were brought to us by 98 different artists (duets/collaborations counting as a separate acts to the individuals making them up).

30 of the 136 were by local artists.

TOP HITS

Based on a points system of 20 points for a number 1 position, 19 for number 2 etc down to 1 for position 20, the following are the top 20 chart performers for the year (Note: this does not reflect sales):

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)	Roger Williams	238
2	Sweet Pea	Tommy Roe	233
3	With a Girl Like You	Troggs	232
4	Yesterday Man	Chris Andrews	221
5	The Ballad of the Green Berets	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler	206
6	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	Cliff Richard	197
6	The Sounds of Silence	Simon & Garfunkel	197
8	Get Off My Cloud	Rolling Stones	193
9	These Boots are Made for Walking	Nancy Sinatra	187
10	We Can Work it Out	Beatles	184
11	Sloop John B	Beach Boys	183
12	Pretty Flamingo	Manfred Mann	182
12	Distant Drums	Jim Reeves	182
14	Monday Monday	Mamas and The Papas	181
15	Somewhere My Love	Ray Conniff Singers	178
16	Guantanamera	Sandpipers	176
17	Die Gezoem van die Bye	Des Lindberg	175
18	Pied Piper	Crispian St Peters	169
19	Strangers in the Night	Frank Sinatra	166
20	Wild Thing	Troggs	161
21	Barbara Ann	Beach Boys	157
22	The More I See You	Chris Montez	152
23	Jimmy Come Lately	Four Jacks & a Jill	149
23	Bend It	Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich	149
25	19th Nervous Breakdown	Rolling Stones	148
26	Red Rubber Ball	Cyrkle	145
27	To Whom it Concerns	Chris Andrews	144
28	Hanky Panky	Tommy James & The Shondells	142
29	The Carnival is Over	Seekers	141
30	Tippy Toeing	Harden Trio	140
31	Tell ’em I’m Surfin’	Fantastic Baggys	136
32	I Saw Her Again	Mamas and The Papas	128
33	Born Free	Matt Monro	125
34	Sixteen Candles	Jody Wayne	120
34	No Milk Today	Herman’s Hermits	120
36	Winchester Cathedral	New Vaudeville Band	119
37	Paint it, Black	Rolling Stones	118
38	Hungry for Love	A-Cads	117
38	Black is Black	Los Bravos	117
40	Darling it’s Wonderful	Virginia Lee	109

You can compare this to the list published in Top 40 magazine in 1989 which can be found here:
http://www.rock.co.za/files/sahits_1966.html

The cumulative points from the start of the charts in 1965 to the end of 1966 gave the following top 10:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	California Girls	Beach Boys	286
2	Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)	Roger Williams	238
3	Goodbye My Love	Murray Campbell	235
4	Sweet Pea	Tommy Roe	233
5	With A Girl Like You	Troggs	232
6	Yesterday Man	Chris Andrews	221
7	(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction	Rolling Stones	216
8	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	Cliff Richard	214
9	Get Off My Cloud	Rolling Stones	213
10	What’s New Pussycat	Tom Jones	211

The top songs pointswise on the local front for 1966 were as follows:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Die Gezoem van die Bye	Des Lindberg	175
2	Jimmy Come Lately	Four Jacks & a Jill	149
3	Sixteen Candles	Jody Wayne	120
4	Hungry for Love	A-Cads	117
5	Darling it’s Wonderful	Virginia Lee	109

And cumulatively from the start of the charts in 1965:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Goodbye My Love	Murray Campbell	235
2	Hungry for Love	A-Cads	183
3	Come Back Silly Girl	Staccatos	180
4	Die Gezoem van die Bye	Des Lindberg	175
5	Jimmy Come Lately	Four Jacks & a Jill	149

NUMBER OF HITS

The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Manfred Mann all had 4 of their songs spend time in the chart this year. They were followed by The Seekers, Cliff Richard, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra and Jim Reeves who all had 3 (2 of Sinatra’s being as one half of a duet). A further 22 acts managed 2 while all the rest only managed 1.

To date, The Rolling Stones led the way with a total of 6 The Seekers, Manfred Mann, Herman’s Hermits, Tom Jones and Cliff Richard were all on 5.

6 local acts managed to have 2 hits spend time in the chart in the year. These were Four Jacks & A Jill, Group 66, Des Lindberg, Virginia Lee, Jody Wayne and The Dream Merchants. On a cumulative basis to date Virginia Lee and Gene Rockwell led the way with 4 each. Murray Campbell was the only one 3 while 7 others had managed 2 to date.

WEEKS ON THE CHART

The Beach Boys spent the most weeks on our chart this week, totalling 39 in all. The Rolling Stones were second highest with 33 and Manfred Mann was in 3rd place with 30.

On the local front it was Four Jacks & A Jill who took top honours enjoying 18 weeks in the top 20. Des Lindberg was close behind on 17 and Virginia Lee came in 3rd on 16.

The Rolling Stones led the way overall and by some margin. Their 71 weeks to date was 20 more than second placed Beach Boys who were on 51. Tom Jones was on 48 and The Seekers on 43.

Murray Campbell still led the way on the local front with 33 to his name, 9 of which he had shared with the second placed local act Virginia Lee who was on 32 (Lee and Campbell charted with a duet version of ‘Goodbye My Love’). Gene Rockwell was in 3rd place with 31 so, as the saying goes, it was tight at the top.

NUMBER 1’s

We saw 18 songs top our chart this year, but no act would manage more than 1 chart topper.

Tommy Roe’s ‘Sweet Pea’ would spend the most number of weeks at the top spot as it enjoyed a record to date equalling 6 week stint there. The Beach Boy’s ‘California Girls’ was the previous one to manage 6 straight weeks which it did in 1965. Murray Campbell’s solo version of ‘Goodbye My Love’ also managed 6 weeks, but in 2 run of 3 weeks each, with a 1 week break in between.

Local songs ‘Hungry For Love’ by The A-Cads and ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’ by Des Lindberg were the only 2 to get to number 1 this year. They spent 2 and 3 weeks at the top respectively.

To date The Rolling Stones had been in pole position 3 times while The Beach Boys, Tom Jones and Elvis Presley had all graced the number 1 spot twice.

Another notable achievement this year was that ‘Lara’s Theme’ from the film ‘Dr Zhivago’ spent a total of 8 weeks at the top of our charts, 4 of which were the vocal version of the song by The Ray Conniff Singers (going under the title ‘Somewhere My Love’) and the other 4 were by Roger Williams’ instrumental version.

Also of note was that the Sinatra’s managed 2 chart toppers as father Frank spent 4 weeks at 1 with ‘Strangers In The Night’ while daughter Nancy also spent 4 weeks at the top woith her hit ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’.

FEMALE ACTS

We saw 10 woman feature in our charts this year with Nancy Sinatra being the most successful, enjoying 3 hits (1 solo and 2 as a part of a duet). Petula Clark and Virginia Lee both managed 2, while the rest managed 1. The observant amongst would be able to deduce from that that Virginia Lee was the most successful local woman. To date though it was Virginia Lee who led the way with 4 hits in total. Petula Clark and Nancy Sinatra were second on 3.

Nancy Sinatra also won the weeks count for the year as she spent a total of 24 weeks in the charts. Again Petula Clark and Virginia Lee were tied second as they both enjoyed 16 weeks in the charts. Mimi Roman (who charted with a duet with Steve Karliski) was in 4th place with 10. Again though, on a cumulative basis, it was Virginia Lee in front with 32 weeks. Nancy Sinatra was second on 24 and Petula Clark 3rd on 21.

As mentioned above, Nancy Sinatra topped the charts with ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ which would be the only song by a woman to top the charts. The only other woman to have topped the charts so far was Connie Francis who’s ‘Forget Domani’ did so on the 3rd chart ever published.

The top solo female songs for 1966 based on the points system described above were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	These Boots are Made for Walking	Nancy Sinatra	187
2	Darling it’s Wonderful	Virginia Lee	109
3	For You Babe	June Muscat	82
4	Where Did We Go Wrong	Petula Clark	75
5	My Love	Petula Clark	75

To date, the top 5 songs by females based on the points system were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	These Boots are Made for Walking	Nancy Sinatra	187
2	Long Live Love	Sandie Shaw	131
3	Darling it’s Wonderful	Virginia Lee	109
4	Forget Domani	Connie Francis	101
5	For You Babe	June Muscat	82

REST OF THE WORLD

Aside from artists from the UK and US (who tend to dominate most charts worldwide), and local acts the following are the top hits from other nationalities:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	The Carnival is Over	Seekers	141	Australia
2	Black is Black	Los Bravos	117	Spain
3	Walk with Me	Seekers	92	Australia
4	Can I Trust You	Bachelors	58	Ireland
5	Morningtown Ride	Seekers	19	Australia

These were the only 5 hits to chart that were not by artists from the UK, US or SA. This meant that Australian acts had the most hits of the other nations this year with 3 (all by The Seekers) with Spain and Ireland having one each.

To date the rest of the world top hits were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	World Of Our Own	Seekers	192	Australia
2	The Carnival is Over	Seekers	160	Australia
3	Black is Black	Los Bravos	117	Spain
4	Walk with Me	Seekers	92	Australia
5	Tea And Trumpets	Norman Ruby Orchestra	81	France

Apart from the UK, US and SA we had seen acts from Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Spain chart so far. The Aussies had had 5 hits (all by The Seekers) while all the other nations had only seen 1 apiece.

WHAT DIDN’T CHART

The following songs topped either the UK or US charts (or both) during 1966, but did not make our charts. Those marked with an * would, however, make the SA top 20 in 1967 or later:

96 Tears	? And The Mysterions
Cherish	Association
Get Away	Georgie Fame
Good Lovin’	Young Rascals
I’m A Believer*	Monkees
Lightnin’ Strikes	Lou Christie
Poor Side Of Town	Johnny Rivers
Reach Out I’ll Be There	Four Tops
Somebody Help Me	Spencer Davis Group
The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore	Walker Brothers
When A Man Loves A Woman*	Percy Sledge
Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby	Beatles
You Can’t Hurry Love	Supremes
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me	Dusty Springfield
You Keep Me Hanging’ On	Supremes

It should also be noted that we had Pamela Dean’s  version of ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ rather than Dusty Springfield’s chart. Also we would see versions of ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’, ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ and ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ chart, but that would be later on and by different artists.

CHARTING IN CONSECUTIVE YEARS

28 artists who had spent at least 1 week in the charts in 1965 also spent at least a week in the charts in 1966. It should be remembered that the charts only started halfway through 1965. Of those 28 acts 8 were local and 2 were female.

I WRITE THE SONGS

There were 163 different song writers who had their names appear on the hits that charted in 1966 (including a person called ‘Traditional’).  Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were the 2 that appeared the most times on labels of the songs that charted as they had 5 hits as song writers. Paul McCartney & John Lennon managed 4 hits as did Brian Wilson, Lee Hazlewood, P.F. Sloan and Paul Simon.

To date, the Rolling Stones pair of Jagger & Richard had had 7 hits with The Beatles’ Lennon & McCartney in second place with 6 each.

On the weeks front Paul Simon was the winner in 1966 with song penned by him spending a total of 46 weeks on the chart. Maurice Jarre’s song writing credit on all the different versions of ‘Lara’s Theme’ from ‘Dr Zhivago’ would garner him second place with 40 weeks. Jagger & Richards would only make 3rd place with 38 weeks.

However, on the cumulative to date list, Jagger & Richards were out front with 62 and Lennon & McCartney were second on 59. The guy called Traditional had managed 49 and Paul Simon came next on 46.

Apart from 2 ‘Traditional’ songs topping the charts, the only song writer to get 2 chart toppers this year was Maurice Jarre who did so with the 2 versions of ‘Lara’s Theme’ by The Ray Conniff Singers and Roger Williams which together spent 8 weeks at 1, the highest for a song writer this year.

Overall, Brian Wilson, Gordon Mills, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had also had 2 chart toppers alongside Maurice Jarre and Traditional. Jarre’s 8 weeks placed him top of the list for weeks at 1 to date by a song writer. Brian Wilson was second on 7 while Gugliemo Brezzo, Nini Rossi, Mike Love and Tommy Roe were all on 6.

Finally, I would like to thank all those who have helped with the blog as we have gone through 1966, especially Peet van Staaden and Ian McLean for supplying valuable information.

Well, that wraps up 1966, so onwards now to 1967.