After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ became the 16^th song to regain the top slot after having fallen from it previously. The song had only been absent from the number 1 position for 1 week while Gwynneth Ashley-Robin’s ‘Little Jimmy’ had occupied pole position. The latter dropped to number 3. So far 63 of the 150 chart toppers had dropped to 3 or lower from the top spot which works out at 42%.

Dr. Marigold’s followed up their biggest climber award last week with another one this week as ‘Hello Girl’ moved up a further 7 places from 16 to 9. There were 3 other songs that managed star rater climbs and they were Crocodile Harris’ ‘Miss Eva Goodnight’ which climbed 6 from 12 to 6, Ringo Starr’s ‘You’re Sixteen’ which moved up 4 from 11 to 7 and Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’ which jumped 4 from 18 to 14.

While having a star rater, Ringo Starr was also collecting a biggest faller as his ‘Photograph’ fell 6 from 7 to 13 to take the award.

There were 3 songs that left the charts this week, 2 of which were by local males. The first of the latter was Jody Wayne’s ‘The Wonder Of Your Love’ which spent 15 weeks in the charts and peaked at 4, Wayne’s 3^rd highest peak and tied best weeks of the 8 hits he had had to date. We were not yet done with him though.

The second leaver was also by a local male, Peter Vee’s ‘The Tips Of My Fingers’. It had been with us for 11 weeks and saw a highest placing of 8. Vee had seen 3 hits make the charts so far and this was his best peak of the 3, but only the second best weeks.

Last of the leavers was the oldest song on last week’s chart, David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’. It spent 17 weeks in the top 20, 5 of which were spent at number 1. The new oldest on the chart was the song that had knocked ‘Sorrow’ off the top spot and that was Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’ which sat on 15 weeks.

Maria, helped stem the decrease in local acts on the charts by having her 3rd top 20 hit ‘Hurry On Home’ enter at 17. The song appears to be a cover of an obscure 1970 hit by a group called The Feminine Touch. Maria’s version list the songwriter as Kilbourne while the Feminine Touch’s song of the same title was written by Janet Kilburn. I have not been able to confirm that these are the same songs, so anyone out there know?

We now had 3 collaborations on the charts as Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye’s ‘Pledging My Love’ entered at 19. They joined Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner and Ike & Tina Turner. Ross and Gaye teamed up for a single album project (“Diana & Marvin”) which spawned 3 Hot 100 hits in the US, but none of them was ‘Pledging My Love’ which was either not released as a single in the US, or failed to chart there. The gap between this and Gaye’s previous (solo) hit, ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ was 256 weeks, the 7 biggest gap we had seen to date, while Diana Ross had been absent from the charts for 207 weeks which was the 11^th biggest gap to date and the tied biggest for a woman, joining Nancy Sinatra on this figure. In total only 12 acts had seen a gap of 200 weeks or more.

Last of the new entries was Dolly Parton’s second solo hit and 3rd overall when you include her duet  with Porter Wagoner mentioned above. With the latter still being in the charts, Parton became the 46^th act and 6^th woman to see 2 or more in the charts in the same week. ‘Jolene’ has become a bit of a signature tune for Parton and it topped the Country Singles charts in both the US and Canada. On the main pop charts it got to 60 and 74 respectively in those countries as well as scoring a number 7 peak in the UK. Amongst the many and varied cover versions of this is a rather unexpected one by The White Stripes.

The gap between the number of hits by American acts and those by British acts climbed to 6 with the Yanks have given us 361 hits compared to the 355 from the Poms. It had been 110 weeks since the gap was this large and it was also the Americans that time who held the lead.

Ringo Starr clocked up his 30^th week in the chart and was the first ex-Beatle to do this. John Lennon on 25 weeks was second of the Fab Four with George Harrison on 23 and Paul McCartney lagging behind on 11.

Alan Garrity now had 4^th place to himself on the local weeks count list as his 74 weeks to date put him 1 ahead of Dave Mills who dropped into 5^th place.

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