23 February 1973

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Pos LW Weeks Song Artist
1 1 6 I Don’t Wanna Play House  – Barbara Ray
2 3 11 Woman (Beautiful Woman)  – Don Gibson
3 2 11 I’d Love You to Want Me  – Lobo
4 4 7 Dreams are Ten a Penny  – Kincade
5 5 8 Home Isn’t Home Anymore  – Alan Garrity
6 7 6 Crocodile Rock  – Elton John
7 14 3 We Believe in Tomorrow  – Freddy Breck
8 8 14 I Need Your Love  – Letta Mbulu
9 10 4 You’ll Always be a Friend  – Hot Chocolate
10 6 25 I Can See Clearly Now  – Johnny Nash
11 13 2 You’re so Vain  – Carly Simon
12 11 7 Locomotive Breath  – Rabbitt
13 12 12 Clair  – Gilbert O’ Sullivan
14 9 15 Garden Party  – Rick Nelson
15 18 10 Ben  – Michael Jackson
16 20 2 Blockbuster!  – Sweet
17 16 3 I’m on Fire  – Maria
18 New 1 Two of Us  – Dealians
19 New 1 There are More Questions Than Answers  – Johnny Nash
20 New 1 Candlelight  – Richard Jon Smith

Having grabbed the top spot last week, Barbra Ray’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Play House’ held on to it to clock up its 2nd week at 1. Don Gibson’s ‘Woman (Beautiful Woman)’ which had dropped to 3 from 2 last week, regained its ground as it climbed back to 2.

Freddie Breck’s ‘We Believe In Tomorrow’ which had shared the biggest climber award with Rabbitt last week, was the climber of the week on its own this week as it moved up 7 from 14 to 7. This was the 10th time a song by a German act had taken the award.

One of last week’s new entries, The Sweet’s ‘Blockbuster!’ made a star rater climb of 4 places from 20 to 16 to give them their 9th star rater. 26 acts so far had managed this many star raters with 22 of them going on to 10 or more.

The faller award went to Rick Nelson’s ‘Garden Party’ which dropped 5 from 9 to 14.

Johnny Nash’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ was the grandpa of the chart for a 3rd week as it moved on to 25 weeks with us. This was the 6th highest number of weeks a song had managed so far.

Keith Hampshire’s ‘Daytime Night-Time’ became the 13th song to have a total chart run of 1 week spent at 19. There would only be 5 more songs to manage this in the top 20 era and 10 overall where positions 21 to 30 are ignored. This would be Hampshire’s only SA chart hit.

‘Signorina Concertina’ by Shuki and Aviva ended its second run in the charts. After an initial run of just 1 week at 19, it managed a run of 3 weeks, 2 of which were spent at 17 with a highest placing of 13 sandwiched in between them. Like Hampshire, this would be their only SA chart hit and they would be the only Israeli act to chart.

Last to go was Jessica Jones’ ‘Wake Up, Wake Up’ which had the distinction of being the 3rd so to have a weeks and peak figure that matched the rounded overall average that we would see by the time the charts ended (this includes positions 21 to 30). Those average figures were 11 weeks and a peak of 9. The previous 2 ‘average’ songs were The Seekers’ ‘Morningtown Ride’ and The Sweet’s ‘Little Willy’. Jessica had been in the charts for 33 straight weeks (22 with just ‘Sunday Monday Tuesday’ then 4 with ‘Sunday Monday Tuesday’ and ‘Wake Up, Wake Up’ and finally 7 with just ‘Wake Up, Wake Up). This would be the all-time record for consecutive weeks by a local woman with only 2 other woman (non-South Africans) doing better when looking only at the top 20.

The first of the new entries was a cover of The Beatles track ‘Two Of Us’ which appeared on their ‘Let It Be’ album. It was the 4th song by The Dealians and the 184th local song to grace our charts. An interesting anomaly was that the label of the single listed Bernstein and Krentzman instead of Lennon & McCartney as songwriters. It was Lennon’s 10th hit as songwriter (which includes 2 where he was also the artist) and McCartney’s 8th. It had been 35 weeks since we last saw any involvement by any of the Fab Four in our charts and that was when George Harrison was noted as the producer on Badfinger’s ‘Day After Day’. So far we had seen 2 acts having spent at least 1 week in the charts since 1970 with The Bee Gees run going back to 1967 (a run of 7 straight years) and Giorgio going back to 1970 ( a run of 4 years). The Dealians were now the 3rd act to have a run going back to at least 1970.

Johnny Nash became the 43rd act to have more than 1 hit on the chart in a week as ‘There Are More Questions Than Answers’ entered at number 19 to join ‘I Can See Clearly. As with ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, the song was penned by Nash. He reached number 9 in the UK with this, but it did not make the US charts.

The last of the new entries was the 185th local song to chart and it was ‘Candlelight’ by Richard Jon Smith. This was Smith’s first song to chart in SA. It was written by Jack Goldberg and produced by Clive Calder and appeared on the album ‘Richard Jon Smith 1’. Smith would go on to have some success in the UK with 2 of his singles ‘She’s The Master Of The Game’ and ‘The ABC Of Kissing’ scraping the lower reaches of the charts there (peaks of 63 and 73 in 1983 and 1985 respectively). This came on the back of him doing backing vocals for Tight Fit’s 1982 number 1 hit in the UK with ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’.

The solo male artists once more provided us with at least half the hits in the top 20 as there were 10 by them in the charts. This was the 56th week where they had given us 50% or more of the hits in the charts.

Lobo reached the 20 weeks in the charts milestone. 9 of the 20 had been accumulated by ‘Me And You And A Dog Named Boo’ and now 11 with ‘I’d Love You To Want me’.

With Jessica Jones falling out the charts, we saw Barbara Ray take the outright lead for weeks in the charts by a local solo woman as her total moved on to 38. She sat 11th on the local weeks count list while Jones dropped to 12th. The Dealians moved up the local weeks count list as their 33 put them tied 16th with Murray Campbell.

Alan Garrity set a new record for consecutive weeks featuring in the charts as he had now been with us with at least 1 song for 37 straight weeks, beating Dave Mills record of 36.

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