‘Green Green Grass Of Home’ ticked over to 4 weeks at the top of our charts and Tom Jones extended his lead at the top of the list of weeks spent at 1 by an artist as he now had 9 weeks under his belt, 2 more than nearest rival, The Beach Boys. Nancy Ames moved up 2 into second spot with ‘Cry Softly (Liebertraum)’. We had to go back to the April of 1966 for the last time we had a solo female artist this high in the charts when Nancy Sinatra was at 1 with ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’.

Gary Lewis & The Playboys picked up their first biggest climber award as ‘(You Don’t Have To) Paint Me a Picture’ moved up 7 from 15 to 8. Bobby Darin’s ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ and Connie Francis’ ‘All The Love In The World’ were the other climbers, both moving up a star rater 4 positions with Darin’s hit ending up at 10 and Francis’ at 14.

Herman’s Hermits’ ‘No Milk Today’ was the one dropping down the charts the quickest as it fell 5 spots from 8 to 13. This was their 4th time with the biggest faller, a total which they shared with Elvis Presley and Glenn Yarbrough. Only The Rolling Stones, who had suffered 5 such falls, had a higher total.

Tommy Roe’s ‘Sweet Pea’ now equalled The Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’ and Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ for most weeks in the charts by a song as it moved on to 19 weeks. Of these 19 weeks, 7 (including this week) had been spent as the oldest on the chart.

Bobby Bare’s ‘Streets Of Baltimore’ became the first song to spend just 1 week at the bottom of the charts as it departed from the top 20 after being a new entry at 20 last week. In total there would be 43 songs that would spend just 1 week at the lowest position on the charts (35 of them in a top 20 and the other 8 at 30 when the charts were extended). For 13 of the acts who achieved this, it would be their only SA Chart action and this was the case for Bobby Bare.

Also leaving the top 20 was Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s ‘Bend It’. The song had enjoyed 12 weeks in the charts, of which 2 were spent at the number 1 spot. The fivesome would return to our charts fairly soon after this.

Both the new entries this week were second hits for the artists involved. The first of these was The Monkees whose ‘I’m A Believer’ arrived at 18 this week. The song, a Neil Diamond composition (his second as song writer to chart, the other being Cliff Richard’s ‘Just Another Guy’), would knock The Beach Boys’ ‘Good Vibrations’ off the top spot in the US and would go on to enjoy a 7 week run at the top of the Hot 100. In the UK it would knock our current number 1 from the top spot before spending 4 weeks at 1 there. The song would also top the charts in Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Norway and Rhodesia. Diamond himself recorded a version of the song before the Monkees, but his version would only be a minor hit in 1971 when it went to 59 in the US, 23 in Germany and 29 in Holland.

Our other new entry was the 80th song by a UK act to chart and it was The Spencer Davis Group with their hit ‘Gimme Some Lovin’. The song made it to number 2 in the UK and 7 in the US. The writing credits only list Steve Winwood but, according to the Wikipedia entry for the song, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood also had a hand in writing it. ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ has appeared in numerous films including, ‘Notting Hill’, ‘The Big Chill’ and ‘Good Morning Vietnam’. It was also covered by The Blues Brothers in the film ‘The Blues Brothers’. Amongst the production credits on the song is the name Chris Blackwell. Blackwell started up Island records and has been responsible for bringing acts such as Bob Marley, Grace Jones and U2 to the public’s attention.

The Fantastic Baggys celebrated their 20th week in our charts. Jim Reeves moved into tied 13th spot on the weeks count list as his 28 to date equalled that of The Troggs. Tommy Roe was now 16th on the list with 26. The Dream Merchants moved tied 8th with Emil Dean on the local list as they clocked up their 15th week.

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