9 December 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Barracuda	–	Heart
2	3	5	Buccaneer	–	McCully Workshop
3	2	8	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
4	4	7	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
5	5	13	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
6	10	4	From New York to L.A.	–	Patsy Gallant
7	6	10	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
8	7	14	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
9	9	7	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
10	15	2	Thunder in My Heart	–	Leo Sayer
11	17	2	Go Your Own Way	–	Fleetwood Mac
12	8	8	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
13	14	4	Kelly’s Song	–	Bobby Angel
14	16	2	Sorry, I’m a Lady	–	Baccara
15	11	10	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
16	New	1	Run to Me	–	Kelly Marie
17	12	11	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
18	13	5	San Francisco ’69	–	Love Generation
19	New	1	I’m Here Again	–	Thelma Houston
20	18	23	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers

‘Barracuda’ by Heart, saw off the challenge from McCully Workshop’s ‘Buccaneer’ and spent a 3^rd week at 1 while the latter moved up 1 from 3 to 2. The Americans now held the outright lead for weeks at 1 as their 226 to date put them 1 ahead of the Brits. It had been 126 weeks (back to 11 July 1975) since the Americans were the outright leaders on this list.

Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go You Own Way’ was going up the charts at pace, climbing 6 from 17 to 11 to take the climber of the week award. Patsy Gallant’s ‘From New York To L.A.’ was a star rater for the 3^rd week running as it climbed 4 from 10 to 6. Also a star rater this week was Leo Sayer’s ‘Thunder In Your Heart’ which moved up 5 from 15 to 10. This was his 6^th time with a star rater.

Falling honours went to Love Generation’s ‘San Francisco ‘69’ which fell 5 from 13 to 18 and Reg de Beer’s ‘We Salute You (Scotland)’ which fell 5 from 12 to 17.

Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ was still the oldest in the top 20. It was on 23 weeks and had been the oldest for 5 weeks. It was the 15^th song so far to accumulate this many week and the last time we had seen a song reach 23 weeks was on 24 January 1975 when George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’ managed it.

There were 2 songs which left the charts this week, the first of which was Roy Bulkin’s ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ which had lasted 5 weeks and peaked at 16. This was the first of his 4 hits to date that did not make the top 10. He did have a couple more hits to come.

Also going was Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ which managed 16 weeks and spent 4 of those at the top spot of the charts. This would be McCann’s only SA chart hit.

The first of our new entries, Kelly Marie’s ‘Run To Me’, was her 6th release, but to this point she had not managed to crack the charts in her native UK (she was born Jacqueline McKinnon on 16 October 1957 in Paisley, Scotland). Her only successes before this were 2 hits in France and a number 2 in Ireland with ‘Sister Mary’ which was a duet with Joe Dolan. ‘Run To Me’ found her also making the Dutch charts, but she only managed to get to 22 there. However, with perseverance, she eventually made it to the top of the UK charts with a re-release of ‘Feels Like I’m In Love’ which spent 2 weeks there in 1980.

Thelma Houston’s ‘I’m Here Again’ aptly described her position as she was back in the charts with a second hit, following up the chart topping success of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. The song was written by Brenda Sutton and Kathy Wakefield, the latter of whom also had song writing credits on The Supremes hit, ‘Nathan Jones’ (which Bananarama covered). ‘I’m Here Again’ would give Houston a number 21 hit on the US R&B charts and it would reach 18 on the US Dance charts but wouldn’t trouble the main Hot 100. It would also manage a number 34 peak in France.

Canada caught up with The Netherlands for weeks in the charts. Both nations had seen their acts accumulate 255 weeks and they sat tied 4^th overall with the big 3, the US (4,397), the UK (4,196) and

SA (2,808) ahead of them.

Dobie Gray celebrated reaching 30 weeks in the charts and was the 117^th act to manage this.

Barbara Ray caught up with Percy Sledge for weeks in the charts. She was the leading local act and now had 105 weeks to her name. She sat tied 11^th with Sledge. It was 298 weeks since we last had a local act sitting this high on the weeks count list and that was when The Staccatos were at 11.

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2 December 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Barracuda	–	Heart
2	2	7	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
3	6	4	Buccaneer	–	McCully Workshop
4	4	6	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
5	3	12	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
6	5	9	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
7	7	13	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
8	9	7	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
9	14	6	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
10	15	3	From New York to L.A.	–	Patsy Gallant
11	10	9	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
12	8	10	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
13	13	4	San Francisco ’69	–	Love Generation
14	19	3	Kelly’s Song	–	Bobby Angel
15	New	1	Thunder in My Heart	–	Leo Sayer
16	New	1	Sorry, I’m a Lady	–	Baccara
17	New	1	Go Your Own Way	–	Fleetwood Mac
18	11	22	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
19	12	16	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
20	16	5	Soldier of Fortune	–	Roy Bulkin

Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ spent a second week at number 1 with the previous chart topper, Joe Dolan’s ‘I Need You’ sitting unmoved at 2. The American’s had spent a total of 225 weeks at 1 and were now equal with the Brits for this stat. The challenge to the top 2 songs came from local group McCully Workshop’s ‘Buccaneer’ which moved up 3 from 6 to 3.

There were 3 songs which shared the climber of the week award and they were Clive Risko’s ‘Face Of An Angel’ (up 5 from 14 to 9), Patsy Gallant’s ‘From New York To L.A.’ (up 5 from 15 to 10) and Bobby Angel’s ‘Kelly’s Song’ (up 5 from 19 to 14). This meant that we had now seen 4 weeks running with a local act as the biggest climber with McCully Workshop’s ‘Buccaneer’ having taken the award for the previous 2 weeks and Margaret Singana’s ‘I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)’ having done so the week before that. The 3 biggest climbers were also the only star raters.

And like the climber award, the faller of the week award was also shared, but this was shared between 2 US acts, both of which were previous chart toppers. Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ and Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ both fell 7 places to take the award and landed at 19 and 18 respectively.

‘Lucille’ had been in the charts for 22 weeks and was the oldest for a 4^th week and it was the first faller for Rogers. This was the 29^th time an act had been on 22 or more weeks in the charts before seeing their first biggest faller.

Last week’s biggest faller, Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s ‘C’Est La Vie’, was the first of 3 songs to depart the chart this week. It had lasted 4 weeks and peaked at 14. It would be the trio’s only SA chart hit.

We took the title of Vicky du Preez’s hit literally as we said ‘Totsiens Aufwiedersehen’ to it. It had been with us for 7 weeks and peaked at 12. Like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, this would be her only SA chart hit.

Last to go was another song with an apt title as it was Bubbley’s ‘Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye’. We said goodbye to it after it had spent 11 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 4. Unlike our the 2 other departees this week, we would see Bubbley (or Champagne as they were known elsewhere) on our charts again.

And talking of returning, Leo Sayer was back for a 7^th ride on our charts as ‘Thunder In My Heart’ entered at 15. The song did not fare all that well on its first release, only getting to 22 in the UK and 38 in the US and while charting in Austria, Holland, Belgium and New Zealand it did not make top 10 in any of those countries peaking at 17, 12, 11 and 21 respectively. However, in 2006 a DJ called Craig Dimech who went under the name Meck, remixed the song and, with the title ‘Thunder In My Heart Again’ took it to the top of UK charts for 2 weeks.

Also returning to the charts were Baccara who had recently entertained us with their hit, ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’. Their new one was called ‘Sorry, I’m A Lady’. As with their previous hit, this was written by Rolf Soja and Frank Dorstal but unlike ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ which topped the charts in the UK, it only made 8. Elsewhere though it did still have chart topping success such as in Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Norway. It did make 2 in Switzerland, 3 in Sweden and 4 in Ireland.

The last time we saw Fleetwood Mac on our charts was when Peter Green was still with the band. In a post Green era they returned with the 6^th biggest gap between hits to date (382 weeks). Their previous offering to chart, ‘The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown)’ was last in the charts 7 years, 3 months and 25 days previously. ‘Go Your Own Way’ was their new chart entry and it was the first single to be taken from their album ‘Rumours’ and gave the band their first US top 10 hit (just) as it peaked at 10 there. Conversely, in the UK it would be their second lowest peak of their 8 hits that they had had up to then. The song was written by Lindsey Buckingham and it did top the charts in Holland and Belgium. In 2011 The Glee Cast took a cover of the song to 51 in the UK and the following year, Lissie made 54 with her version. The album ‘Rumours’ has one of the highest number of weeks on the UK album charts having spent in excess of 700 weeks on those charts. Its total is exceeded only by Bob Marley’s Legend’, Abba’s ‘Gold -Greatest Hits’ and Queen’s ‘Greatest Hits’ albums for top spot for weeks on the UK album charts, making it the highest weeks for a non-greatest hits album.

Bobby Angel became the 35^th act overall and the 10^th local act to reach the 60 weeks mark while Roy Bulkin became the 34^th local act to reach 30 weeks. Bobby Angel was still 8 weeks behind the 9^th highest local act, Lionel Petersen.

There were 7 local songs on the charts and this was more than any other nation in this top 20. It marked the 100^th occasion where the local acts had more hits in the chart than those from any other nation.

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25 November 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	5	Barracuda	–	Heart
2	1	6	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
3	3	11	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
4	4	5	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
5	5	8	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
6	11	3	Buccaneer	–	McCully Workshop
7	7	12	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
8	6	9	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
9	10	6	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
10	12	8	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
11	8	21	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
12	9	15	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
13	15	3	San Francisco ’69	–	Love Generation
14	17	5	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
15	19	2	From New York to L.A.	–	Patsy Gallant
16	16	4	Soldier of Fortune	–	Roy Bulkin
17	18	11	Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye	–	Bubbley
18	13	7	Totsiens Aufwiedersehen	–	Vicky du Preez
19	20	2	Kelly’s Song	–	Bobby Angel
20	14	4	C’est La Vie	–	Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Joe Dolan’s ‘I Need You’ lasted just 2 weeks at 1 before it was ousted from the top spot this week by Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ with the 2 songs swapping positions between the number 1 and 2 slots. This put the Americans just 1 behind the Brits for weeks at 1. The 2 nations had been level 5 weeks back, but then the British claimed the top spot again meaning that the tied or outright leaders for weeks at 1 for 125 consecutive weeks now. The Americans were on 224 compared to the Brits 225.

The climber of the week was McCully Workshop’s ‘Buccaneer’ which took the award for a second week running as it moved up 5 from 11 to 6. This gave us 3 weeks in a row with a local act taking the biggest climber as before the 2 weeks that ‘Buccaneer’ had taken the award, it was Margaret Singana’s ‘I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)’ which was the climber.

The only other star rater this week was Patsy Gallant’s ‘From New York To L.A.’ which moved up 4 from 19 to 15. This was the 36^th time a Canadian act had seen a star rater and the 8^th time it had been a Canadian woman. 5 of the previous times it had been Lucille Starr and the other 2 had been Odia Coates who managed it as part of a duet with Paul Anka.

Falling honours went to Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s ‘C’est La Vie’ which dropped 6 from 14 to 20. Well, such is life I guess.

This week was the 17^th time we saw no movement on or off the charts so we were stuck with the same 20 songs we had last week, although they were in a different order.

Kenny Roger’s ‘Lucille’ moved on to 21 weeks in the charts and enjoyed a 3^rd week as the oldest in the top 20.

Frank Valdor’s ‘Massa Massa’ had been in the charts 6 weeks now and as Valdor was the only Swiss act to chart so far, the Swiss week count was also 6 and this put them level with Norway for weeks in the charts. Norway’s weeks so far had all come from Titanic and their hit ‘Sultana’.

We had 8 songs by local acts in the top 20 (Margaret Singana, McCully Workshop, Lance James & Barbara Ray (duet), Reg de Beer, Clive Risko, Roy Bulkin, Vicky du Preez and Bobby Angel), but sadly this would be the last time we saw this many in the charts (including when they were extended to be a top 30.

Joe Dolan saw his points tally move past the 700 mark as it jumped on to 718. He sat 33^rd overall and was the highest place Irish act on the list. There were just 3 act who were not from the UK, the US or SA who were above him and they were Greece’s Vicky Leandros on 727 (and just 1 place above him), The Netherlands’ Pussycat on 819 (overall 27^th) and Sweden’s Abba on 1,765 (overall 2^nd place).

Youtube playlist:

18 November 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	5	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
2	3	4	Barracuda	–	Heart
3	2	10	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
4	9	4	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
5	8	7	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
6	4	8	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
7	5	11	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
8	7	20	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
9	6	14	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
10	12	5	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
11	17	2	Buccaneer	–	McCully Workshop
12	10	7	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
13	13	6	Totsiens Aufwiedersehen	–	Vicky du Preez
14	15	3	C’est La Vie	–	Emerson, Lake & Palmer
15	14	2	San Francisco ’69	–	Love Generation
16	18	3	Soldier of Fortune	–	Roy Bulkin
17	19	4	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
18	11	10	Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye	–	Bubbley
19	New	1	From New York to L.A.	–	Patsy Gallant
20	New	1	Kelly’s Song	–	Bobby Angel

Having gained the top spot last week, Joe Dolan’s ‘I Need You’ enjoyed a second week at 1, holding off the challenge from Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ which moved up from 3 to 2.

McCully Workshop’s ‘Buccaneer’ was the climber of the week with a 6 place jump from 17 to 11. They had managed a climber of the week award with their previous hit, ‘Why Can’t It Rain’ which had managed to get the award 379 weeks previously. This was the 4^th biggest gap to date between biggest climbers with Gene Rockwell’s 544 week gap between climbers being the record to date.

‘I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)’ by Margaret Singana was the only other star rater this week. It managed a 5 place climb from 9 to 4. This was her 3^rd time with a star rater and this equalled the number of times the only other local black woman to chart (Letta Mbulu) had managed.

Falling honours went to Bubbley’s ‘Oh Me Oh My Goodbye’ which fell 7 from 11 to 18. It was the second time the song had taken the award.

Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ was the oldest on the chart for a second week running as its weeks total ticked over to 20. It was the 42^nd song to reach this total and the 3^rd to do so in 1977. It sat at number 8 on the charts and the last time a song was this high in the top 20 when it reached 20 weeks was back in the June of 1973 when Freddy Breck’s ‘We Believe In Tomorrow’ was also at 8 when it reached 20 weeks.

‘I Can’t Help Myself (Here Comes The Feeling)’ by Eddie Rabbitt was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had been with us for 10 weeks and peaked at 12. This would be his only SA chart hit although he would score a number 1 hit on the Radio 5 charts in 1981 with his duet with Crystal Gayle, ‘You And I’.

Also going was John Paul Young’s ‘I Wanna do it with You’ which lasted 8 weeks and peaked at 8, making it the 44^th song to have an equal weeks and peak. This was Young’s lowest weeks count for the 4 hits he had had so far, but the second worst peak with ‘Keep On Smilin’ being his lowest peak, only making 10. He still had a few more hits to come

Our first new entry was ‘From New York To L.A.’ by Patsy Gallant and its arrival meant we now had 3 US cities named in the titles of songs on the top 20 (the 2 in this song and Love Generation’s ‘San Francisco ’69). Despite namechecking these 2 US cities, Gallant was actually a Canadian (born August 15, 1948, Campbellton, New Brunswick, Canada) and this was the 28^th song by a Canadian to hit our charts. The song made it to number 6 in both her native Canada and The UK but failed to chart in the US. In Europe it went to 7 in Norway, 15 in Holland, 17 in Sweden and 19 in Belgium. The tune of the song was from the French song ‘Mon Pays C’est L’Hiver’ (translates as ‘My Country, It’s Winter’) written by Gilles Vigneault in 1964.

Our second new entry was a 7th hit for Bobby Angel (real name Robert Engelsman). ‘Kelly’s Song’ was the theme tune to the TV series ‘Call Me Kelly’ which starred John Parsonson as Kelvin ‘Kelly’ Ross and Victor Melleney as The Botanist. Another music connection was classical guitarist Tessa Ziegler who starred as Jeannie Marais in the series. The theme music was written by Angel and Hennie Bekker and the two produced the single which, interestingly lists ‘We Should Be Together’ as the a-side while ‘Kelly’s Song’ was relegated to the b-side, yet the latter was the one that became the hit. ‘Call Me Kelly’ beat a number of US TV shows (including The Mary Tyler Moore Show) in the ratings when it was aired and featured an orange Chevrolet Nomad which Parsonson accidently flipped while filming.

Ireland went 1 ahead of Sweden for weeks in the charts by acts from a nation. They had clocked up 137 and sat 8^th overall while Sweden dropped into 9^th place.

Barbara Ray reached the 1,100 point mark and sat 14 overall for points.

Youtube playlist:

11 November 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	3	4	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
2	1	9	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
3	6	3	Barracuda	–	Heart
4	5	7	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
5	7	10	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
6	2	13	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
7	4	19	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
8	8	6	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
9	14	3	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
10	10	6	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
11	9	9	Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye	–	Bubbley
12	11	4	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
13	12	5	Totsiens Aufwiedersehen	–	Vicky du Preez
14	New	1	San Francisco ’69	–	Love Generation
15	19	2	C’est La Vie	–	Emerson, Lake & Palmer
16	13	8	I Wanna do it with You	–	John Paul Young
17	New	1	Buccaneer	–	McCully Workshop
18	20	2	Soldier of Fortune	–	Roy Bulkin
19	18	3	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
20	17	10	I Can’t Help Myself (Here Comes The Feeling)	–	Eddie Rabbitt

Joe Dolan became the second act to have 3 chart toppers in a row as ‘I Need You’ took over the number 1 spot from Brotherhood Of Man’s ‘Angelo’ this week. Dolan’s previous 2 hits, ‘Lady In Blue’ and ‘Hush Hush Maria’ had both peaked at 1. Abba was the only other act so far to see 3 number 1s in a row. The only other act who had managed 3 peaks at the same position in a row was Lionel Petersen who managed 3 songs peaking at 9 one after the other. Irish acts had now spent 10 weeks at 1 and all of these coming from Dolan’s aforementioned 3 hits and Dolan sat tied 8^th for weeks at 1 alongside 6 other acts. ‘Angelo’, which had spent 2 weeks at 1, dropped into second place.

Margaret Singana picked up her second biggest climber award with a 5 place jump from 14 to 9 by ‘I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)’. Her previous climber award had been with ‘Mama Tembu’s Wedding’. She was also celebrating her 20^th week in the charts and was the 15^th of the 29 local women so far to reach this total.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s ‘C’Est La Vie’ was the only other star rater which climbed 4 from 19 to 15.

A former number 1, Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ was the faller of the week as it dropped 4 from 2 to 6.

We saw 2 songs leave the chart, the first of which was Shabby Tiger’s ‘Lovely Lady’ which lasted 11 weeks and peaked at 5. This ended their SA chart career which consisted of 2 hits (the other being ‘Slow Down’) and lasted a total of 24 weeks. ‘Slow Down’ had the better peak of the 2 songs getting to number 3.

We also bid farewell to 5000 Volts’ ‘(Walkin’ On A) Love Cloud’ which managed 20 weeks in the charts and managed to spend 1 of those at number 1. There was still one more hit to come from them. ‘(Walkin’ On A) Love Cloud’ had been the oldest on last week’s chart and that mantle now fell to Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ which was on 19 weeks. This was the 15^th time a song had been on 19 weeks or more when first becoming the oldest on the chart.

Our first new entry was by a German band called The Love Generation with their song, ‘San Francisco ‘69’. This was the 19^th song by a German act to chart in SA. Germany sat 6^th overall for number of hits, 3 behind The Netherlands who were in 5^th place. In 1974 The Love Generation had recorded a cover of the song ‘Johnny & Louise’ which Reparata renamed ‘Shoes’ and took to number 6 in our charts in 1976. Neither ‘San Francisco ‘69’ nor ‘Johnny & Louise’ made any impact on any of the world’s major charts.

The second new entry accounted for the 6^th biggest gap between hits to date for an artist. McCully Workshop were last on the charts 378 weeks previously when ‘Why Can’t It Rain’ spent its last week in the top 20. With ‘Buccaneer’ entering the chart this week, this put them second for gaps between hits by a local act with Gene Rockwell’s 411 weeks being the only bigger one. Unlike their earlier hit which was written by Tully McCullagh (aka Tully McCully), McCully Workshop’s new one was written by Tully’s brother Mike. The local hit count moved up to 7 and it had been just over a year (54 weeks) since it had last been this high.

Ireland moved into tied 8^th place alongside Sweden on the weeks by acts from a nation list with both countries having clocked up 136 weeks.

Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ became the 29^th song to accumulate at least 300 points. It now had 309 to its name and sat 17^th overall.

Youtube playlist:

4 November 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
2	2	12	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
3	8	3	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
4	4	18	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
5	3	6	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
6	17	2	Barracuda	–	Heart
7	6	9	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
8	9	5	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
9	5	8	Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye	–	Bubbley
10	7	5	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
11	11	3	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
12	13	4	Totsiens Aufwiedersehen	–	Vicky du Preez
13	10	7	I Wanna do it with You	–	John Paul Young
14	16	2	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
15	12	20	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
16	14	11	Lovely Lady	–	Shabby Tiger
17	15	9	I Can’t Help Myself (Here Comes The Feeling)	–	Eddie Rabbitt
18	19	2	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
19	New	1	C’est La Vie	–	Emerson, Lake & Palmer
20	New	1	Soldier of Fortune	–	Roy Bulkin

‘Angelo’ by Brotherhood Of Man managed a second week at number 1 while the previous chart topper, Peter McCann’s ‘Do you Wanna Make Love’ was unmoved at 2. The biggest threat to these 2 came in the form of Joe Dolan’s ‘I Need You’ which made a star rater climb of 5 places from 8 to 3.

The climber of the week award, however, went to Heart’s ‘Barracuda’ which made a huge jump of 11 places from 17 to 6. This was just the 31^st time a song had climbed 11 or more in a week with 12 of those occasions now being by US acts. There were no other star raters.

Bubbley’s ‘Oh Me Oh My Goodbye’ was the faller of the week with a 4 place drop from 5 to 9. This was the 15^th time that a group from The Netherlands had taken the award. So far only 1 of the Dutch acts that had seen biggest fallers had only seen 1, all the others had managed 2 or more. Bubbley joined After All for the moment as only having 1 biggest faller, but the 4 other Dutch acts who had seen fallers were making a compelling case for Bubbley to have at least one more. Stay tuned to find out if they did or not.

5000 Volts’ ‘(Walkin’ On A) Love Cloud’ enjoyed a 5^th week as the oldest in the charts and in doing so became only the second song to reach 20 weeks in the top 20 in 1977. The previous one had been Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’.

The two songs that had been the faller of the week last week were the two songs that left the chart this week. Supertramp’s ‘Give A Little Bit’ lasted 13 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at number 4 in that time. There were still a few more hits to come from them.

Boney M’s ‘Ma Baker’ lasted 13 weeks and peaked at 2. Their only other hit to date, ‘Daddy Cool’ had also peaked at 2, but had managed a 19 week run. They became the 3^rd act so far to see their first 2 hits just miss out on a number 1 peak by peaking at 2. The previous acts to see this were Mary Hopkins (who only had 2 hits overall) and Perry Como (who only managed 3 hits). Boney M would have a good many more hits.

The first of our new entries was by British Prog Rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Keith, Greg and Karl as their respective mothers would have known them). ‘C’est La Vie’ was penned by Greg Lake with the help of King Crimson band member Pete Sinfield and appeared on the trio’s ‘Works, Volume 1’ album. It was apparently inspired by a barrel organ and Edith Piaf (go figure), both of which Lake heard while wondering around Paris one day when he was living there. The song didn’t trouble any of the major charts worldwide but was covered by Johnny Hallyday (sometimes referred to as The French Elvis) which Lake seems to think made number 1 in France, but I haven’t seen anything to back up this claim. ‘C’est La Vie’ had the honour of being the 1,400^th song to make our charts.

Roy Bulkin returned for a 4th outing in our charts as ‘Soldier Of Fortune’ entered at 20 this week. His previous 3 had all gone top 10, so there was a lot to live up to. The song was an Ernie & Robert Schroeder composition, giving Ernie his 8th hit as song writer while for Robert (who was more a producer than a writer), this was a 4th hit with writing credits. Robert did take production credits on this one as well.

The male artists now had 10 hits in the charts and the last time they had taken up at least half the charts was 21 weeks previously.

The Netherlands became the leading non-big 3 nation for weeks in the charts as acts from there had clocked up 252 weeks to take them 1 ahead of Canada who had been the leading non-big 3 nation for 472 weeks.

The local hit count was now 6 and this was the highest it had been for 44 weeks.

We saw 4 acts reach milestones in their weeks counts. Brotherhood Of Man became the 194^th act to reach 20 weeks, 5000 Volts were the 81^st act to reach 40, Joe Dolan the 55^th to reach 50 and Barbara Ray became the 12^th act overall and first South African to reach 100 weeks. There would be 33 acts in total who would reach triple figures for weeks.

Youtube playlist:

28 October 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	Angelo	–	Brotherhood of Man
2	1	11	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
3	3	5	We Salute You (Scotland)	–	Reg de Beer
4	4	17	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
5	6	7	Oh Me, Oh My, Goodbye	–	Bubbley
6	5	8	After the Fire is Gone	–	Barbara Ray & Lance James
7	7	4	Let Go	–	Dobie Gray
8	15	2	I Need You	–	Joe Dolan
9	9	4	Star Wars Title Theme	–	Meco
10	8	6	I Wanna do it with You	–	John Paul Young
11	20	2	Massa Massa	–	Frank Valdor, his orchestra & chorus
12	10	19	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
13	16	3	Totsiens Aufwiedersehen	–	Vicky du Preez
14	12	10	Lovely Lady	–	Shabby Tiger
15	14	8	I Can’t Help Myself (Here Comes The Feeling)	–	Eddie Rabbitt
16	New	1	I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)	–	Margaret Singana
17	New	1	Barracuda	–	Heart
18	11	13	Ma Baker	–	Boney M
19	New	1	Face of an Angel	–	Clive Risko
20	13	13	Give a Little Bit	–	Supertramp

The Brits obviously did not like the Americans drawing level with them for weeks at one last week so they staged a coup and ousted Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ from the top spot and replaced it with their very own Brotherhood of Man and their hit ‘Angelo’. McCann’s hit had spent 4 weeks at 1 and the Brits were now on 224 weeks at 1 compared to the American’s 223.

Frank Valdor’s ‘Massa Massa’ was the climber of the week, moving up 9 from 20 to 11. This was the first of only 2 occasions where we had a Swiss act taking the biggest climber award.

Joe Dolan’s ‘I Need You’ was the only other star rater this week. It climb 7 from 15 to 8 to give him his 8^th star rater. He was the 38^th act to reach this many.

Boney M’s ‘Ma Baker’ dropped a further 7 places this week to be the biggest faller for 2 weeks running. It dropped from 11 to 18 and shared the faller of the week award with Supertramp’s ‘Give A Little Bit’ which fell from 13 to 20.

5000 Volts’ ‘(Walkin’ On A) Love Cloud’ was still the oldest on the charts it had been with us for 19 weeks and been the oldest for 4 weeks. So far in 1977 we had only seen 1 song reach 20 weeks in the chart. This was still better than 1976 when we did not see a single song reach this total.

Cliff Richard’s return to the chart with ‘When Two Worlds Drift Apart’ did not last long as the song only added 2 weeks to its total. This run was slightly better than its previous run in the charts as it double the weeks of the previous one (from 1 to 2, giving a total of 3), but it did only equal the peak of 19 that the previous run had featured.

Baccara’s ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ was the second one to go, managing 15 weeks and a peak of 3. This was the best weeks count of the 3 songs by Spanish acts that had made the chart so far, but only equalled the peak that Miguel Rios’ ‘A Song Of Joy’ managed and was beaten by the peak of 2 that Los Bravos’ ‘Black Is Black’ managed.

Also going was Veronica Unlimited’s ‘What Kind of Dance is This?’ which only managed 4 weeks and a peak of 16. Both Cliff Richard and Baccara would see further chart action, but for Veronica Unlimited this would be their only SA chart showing.

The first new entry saw the return of Margaret Singana to the charts having been absent from them for 141 weeks, the 4th biggest gap between hits to date for a local female act. ‘I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)’ was her new hit and, despite sharing a title with an Aretha Franklin song, was not a cover version thereof. The song appeared on her ‘Tribal Fence’ album (the title track of which was a cover of the old Freedom’s Children number) which featured the names Julian Laxton, Patric van Blerk and Trevor Rabin in the production credits. The song would make it to number 5 in Rhodesia.

The Wilson sisters, Ann and Nancy, better known as Heart brought us the second new entry this week, ‘Barracuda’. The song was apparently written by Ann in anger at their record label Mushroom who had put out an advert in Rolling Stone which suggested that she and her sister were lovers. The song went to number 11 in the US and in Canada it made it to number 2. Elsewhere it charted in Rhodesia (#3), Germany (#8), Sweden (#14), Australia (#15), Austria (#16), Holland (#29), Belgium (#30) and New Zealand (#37). Heart were the 7^th act to chart so far who would share a name with the title of a song that would chart. Of those 7 so far 4 (Waterloo, Sunny, Sailor and Moody Blue/s) had charted as both a song and an act.

The final new entry was another by a local act, Clive Risko and his hit ‘Face Of An Angel’. Risko was one time manager of SA bands Stingray and Feather Control. Based on a song writing credit on the b-side of the single (called ‘In The Morning’), I am guessing that Risko’s full surname was Riskowitz, other than that, there is scant information about the guy. Risko’s and Margaret Singana’s hit mentioned above took the local hit count to 5 in the top 20. It had been 40 weeks since this figure was this high.

Canada had been the leading non-big 3 nation for weeks on the charts since it took over from Australia in October 1968. This week, the Dutch acts drew level with them as acts from The Netherlands had now clocked up 251 weeks. They sat tied 4^th with Canada behind SA on 2,766, the UK on 4,181 and the US on 4,363.

Barbara Ray saw her weeks count move to within 1 of a century and her 99 weeks put her in 12^th place on her own on the overall weeks count list with Neil Diamond on 98 dropping into 13^th spot.

Youtube playlist: