22 April 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
2	2	7	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
3	9	2	Distant Drums	-	Jim Reeves
4	4	7	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
5	10	4	Barbara Ann	-	Beach Boys
6	3	8	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
7	5	10	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
8	8	6	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
9	6	6	My Love	-	Petula Clark
10	12	4	A Well Respected Man	-	Kinks
11	7	8	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
12	16	2	Flowers on the Wall	-	Statler Brothers
13	11	5	One by One	-	Group 66
14	14	4	A Must to Avoid	-	Herman’s Hermits
15	13	15	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
16	New	1	Lies and Kisses	-	Cliff Richard
17	15	10	Michelle	-	Overlanders
18	New	1	Die Gezoem van die Bye	-	Des Lindberg
19	17	8	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
20	New	1	Elusive Butterfly	-	Judy Page

Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler was holding his position at number 1 as ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ enjoyed a second week there, still keeping The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, which spent a second week at 3, at bay.

Jim Reeves’ ‘Distant Drums’ came crashing into the charts at 9 last week and this week it was the biggest climber as moved up 6 to 3. Also moving up was The Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’ which bagged them a 3rd star rater performance (2 with ‘Barbara Ann’ and 1 with ‘California Girls’) as it moved up 5 from 10 to 5. Also enjoying star rater status was The Statler Brothers’ ‘Flowers On The Wall’ which climbed 4 from 16 to 12.

The duet between Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman, ‘Yes Mr. Peters’, was the faller of the week. It dropped 4 from 7 to 11.

Three songs left the top 20 this week, the first of which was The Turtles ‘Let Me Be’ which enjoyed an 11 week run and a peak of 6. They still had a few more hits to come.

The oldest song on last week’s chart, Cliff Richards’ ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’ followed the fate of The Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’ and left the charts 1 week short of the 20 week milestone. We were yet to see a song mange to break through this barrier. Cliff’s hit peaked at 4 during its 19 week run. This was the best peak of his 3 hits to date.

Last to go was Four Jacks And A Jill’s ‘Jimmy Come Lately’ which peaked at 2 during its 12 week run on the charts. Like the Turtles and Cliff Richard, they also had more hits in the tank.

Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’ handed over the oldest song on the chart baton to Chris Andrews’ ‘Yesterday Man’ which sat on 15 weeks. However, Cliff would not have been too upset as his ‘Lies And Kisses’ was one of the new entries this week. Interestingly the song was released on a 4 track EP called ‘Take Four’ in the UK and I have not been able to find a reference to the song being released as a single anywhere. Perhaps they chose to just list 1 track from the EP for the chart, or there was an actual single release in South Africa (anybody out there know?). The song would give Cliff his 4th chart hit in SA and put him tied second for number of hits, joining Gene Rockwell, Tom Jones and Herman’s Hermits on that total. They were all 1 short of The Rolling Stones’ 5. This new entry meant 2 things for Cliff, firstly he celebrated 20 consecutive weeks with at least 1 song in the top 20 (as mentioned above, the previous 19 were with ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’) and secondly, he became the 3rd act to replace themselves on the charts. Murray Campbell and Tom Jones were the previous 2 to have a new entry the same week as one of their songs left the charts.

The second new entry was by one half of a well-known South African couple. Des Lindberg (of Des & Dawn fame) entered at 18 with a take on ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’. He provided us with some Afrikaans lyrics to the song and called it ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’. Although it starts off in English the lyrics change into Afrikaans for the majority of the song, so I have regarded this as the first ever Afrikaans song to chart.

The last of the new entries was also by a local act and was the 4th by a local woman to chart. ‘Elusive Butterfly’ by Judy Page was a cover of a song by Bob Lind which had given Lind a number 5 peak on both sides of the Atlantic earlier in the year. Judy had released a number of duets with Peter Lotis (mostly before the chats started) and her daughter, Kim Kallie, would have a few hits under the name Margino.

Gene Rockwell shook off The Seekers to occupy 5th place on his own on the list of weeks on the chart by an artists. On 31 weeks, he was now just 2 behind the local leader Murray Campbell. Chris Andrews moved into 11th place on his own, leaving The Hollies and The Ivy League behind on 20 weeks as he jumped up to 22 weeks having 2 on the charts this week.

Youtube playlist:

15 April 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
2	5	6	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
3	1	7	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
4	4	6	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
5	3	9	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
6	8	5	My Love	-	Petula Clark
7	6	7	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
8	10	5	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
9	New	1	Distant Drums	-	Jim Reeves
10	17	3	Barbara Ann	-	Beach Boys
11	13	4	One by One	-	Group 66
12	19	3	A Well Respected Man	-	Kinks
13	7	14	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
14	15	3	A Must to Avoid	-	Herman’s Hermits
15	9	9	Michelle	-	Overlanders
16	New	1	Flowers on the Wall	-	Statler Brothers
17	14	7	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
18	11	12	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
19	12	19	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
20	18	11	Let Me Be	-	Turtles

After the Easter break, the charts were back and there was a new number one as Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ emulated its US success by knocking Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’ off the top spot. Nancy’s hit dropped to 3 while The Rolling Stones moved into second place with ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ and were looking set to make it 4 number 1’s out of 5 hits.

The 2 biggest climbers this week were The Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’ and The Kinks’ ‘A Well Respected Man’ which both moved up 7 to land at 10 and 12 respectively. Interestingly there were no other star raters with the next highest climb being the 3 places The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ managed.

On the falling front it was also a 7 place move that took top honours and there were also 2 songs that managed this, the first being Cliff Richards’ ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’ which fell to 19 and the other was Four Jacks And A Jill’s ‘Jimmy Come Lately’ which fell to 18. Cliff would not have been too disappointed as his song, which was still the oldest on the charts, joined The Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’ for the best run on the charts to date as it clocked up its 19th week in the top 20. The song had now also been the longest running oldest song on the chart since the last of those on the first ever chart left the top 20 as it had been the oldest for 7 weeks.

Last week’s number 20 song was no longer with us this week and that was The Animals’ ‘It’s My Life’ which had enjoyed a run of 9 weeks and peaked at 11 during that time. The band would return to our charts at a later date.

The Beatles’ ‘We Can Work It Out’ was the other song to leave the top 20 this week. It had lasted 14 weeks with a highest placing of 2. The peaks of their 3 hits to date read 2-1-2, so were they due a number 1 after this?

We had a new highest debut spot for a song as Jim Reeves’ ‘Distant Drums’ rocketed into the charts at number 9, 1 place higher than previous best for a new entry which Nancy Sinatra had managed when ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ entered at 10 just 6 weeks previously.  ‘Distant Drums’ had originally been recorded by Roy Orbison in 1963 when he managed to have a number 3 hit with it in Australia. Reeves recorded a version which was meant to be for the song writer, Cindy Walker’s, private use and was not regarded as good enough for general release, but after his death in a plane crash on 31 July 1964 (aged 40), an orchestral backing was added to the original recording and released as a single. It went to the top of the US Country Charts and unusually for the UK where Country & Western music has never really been very popular, it topped the charts for 5 weeks.

Our other new entry this week was almost as successful on the US Country Singles charts as Reeves’ hit as it peaked at 2 there, however, The Statler Brothers’ ‘Flowers On The Wall’ fell way short of Reeves’ chart topping efforts in the UK as the songs only managed to get to number 38. On the main Billboard Hot 100, though, The Statler Brothers’ hit got to 4 while ‘Distant Drums’ only managed to get to 45. ‘Flowers On The Wall’ was also a number 2 hit in New Zealand and would be used in the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film ‘Pulp Fiction’. Only 2 members of The Statler Brothers were brothers (Don and Harold Reid) and the ‘Statler’ in their name came from a brand of tissues they saw in a hotel room when they felt it necessary to change their name from the Kingsmen following the success of ‘Louie Louie’ by a band of that name.

Gene Rockwell celebrated reaching the 30 weeks on the chart mark while Chris Andrews was enjoying his 20th. Rockwell moved into 5 place overall for weeks, joining The Seekers in that position while Andrews joined The Hollies and The Ivy League at 11 on that list.

Youtube playlist:

8 April 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
2	2	6	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
3	3	8	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
4	4	5	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
5	5	5	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
6	6	6	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
7	7	13	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
8	8	4	My Love	-	Petula Clark
9	9	8	Michelle	-	Overlanders
10	10	4	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
11	11	11	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
12	12	18	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
13	13	3	One by One	-	Group 66
14	14	6	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
15	15	2	A Must to Avoid	-	Herman’s Hermits
16	16	14	We Can Work it Out	-	Beatles
17	17	2	Barbara Ann	-	Beach Boys
18	18	10	Let Me Be	-	Turtles
19	19	2	A Well Respected Man	-	Kinks
20	20	9	It’s My Life	-	Animals

I am not sure if there was no chart this week or if they just re-ran the previous week’s chart as there was no movement on the top 20 this week. Either way, the lack of a new chart was due to this being the Easter weekend in 1966. There are two ways we can handle the statistics here. Either one ignores the week completely or one treats it as a normal chart, except that there is no movement. I have opted for the latter because it would be unfair on those songs which would have been on the chart for the 8 April had they had one as they (and their artists) would miss out on weeks and points to their name. I believe that this is less prejudicial than ignoring the week. Feel free to treat it how you wish, there is no right and wrong way.

On the basis I have chosen, Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ clocked up a 4th week at 1 and sat tied third with Chris Andrews’ ‘Yesterday Man’ for weeks at 1, 2 behind The Beach Boys’ ‘California Girls’ and Murray Campbell’s ‘Goodbye My Love’ which were both on 6.

Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’ moved into second place on its own for most weeks on the chart by a song, pulling 1 clear of Rick Nelsons’ ‘I Need You’ and The Staccatos’ ‘Come Back Silly Girl’ and was just 1 behind ‘California Girls’ by The Beach Boys which led the way with 19. Cliff now sat equal with Elvis on 23 weeks on the chart and they shared 8th place on the weeks on the charts by an artist list.

Youtube playlist:

1 April 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	5	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
2	3	5	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
3	2	7	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
4	5	4	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
5	7	4	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
6	8	5	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
7	4	12	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
8	12	3	My Love	-	Petula Clark
9	6	7	Michelle	-	Overlanders
10	13	3	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
11	9	10	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
12	10	17	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
13	17	2	One by One	-	Group 66
14	14	5	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
15	New	1	A Must to Avoid	-	Herman’s Hermits
16	11	13	We Can Work it Out	-	Beatles
17	New	1	Barbara Ann	-	Beach Boys
18	15	9	Let Me Be	-	Turtles
19	New	1	A Well Respected Man	-	Kinks
20	19	8	It’s My Life	-	Animals

Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ spent a 3rd straight week at the top of the charts, keeping Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ at bay as the latter moved up into second place, sending the previous number 1, Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds Of Silence’ into 3rd place.

Last week’s biggest climber, Petula Clark’s ‘My Love’, managed to claim the title again with a 4 place climb from 12 to 8. This week it shared the title with Group 66’s ‘One by One’ which accounted for the 13th time a local song had been the biggest climber. ‘One by One’ moved up 4 from 17 to 13.

The Beatles experienced their 3rd biggest faller in a week as ‘We Can Work It Out’ fell 5 places from 11 to 16.

Both Ronnie Wilson and Tony Wells had been saying that they would step aside for a number of weeks now and this week they both finally did as their versions of the song ‘I’ll Step Aside’ were 2 of the 3 songs to leave the chart this week. Wilson’s version had managed 6 weeks and peaked at 16 while Wells was slightly more successful managing 7 weeks and a peak of 9, giving the song a total of 13 weeks and a highest position of 9. This fell way short of the 29 weeks the only other song to chart with different versions so far had managed, the other being ‘Goodbye My Love’ where Murray Campbell’s solo version had been the most successful, topping the chart for 6 weeks.

The other song to go was The Rolling Stones’ ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’ which got off of the charts. It had spent 15 weeks on the charts, 3 of which were at the top spot. To date, The Stones had had 5 songs chart, 3 of which had gone to number 1 and the 4th which was still in the top 20 (‘19th Nervous Breakdown’) and was heading towards the top moving up 2 to 5 this week. The departure of ‘Get Off My Cloud’ ended a run of 3 weeks where The Stones had 2 in the chart. They topped the list for total weeks with 2 in the top 20, having managed this 13 times, the next highest being 8 which Tom Jones and Herman’s Hermits had managed. The bad news for The Stones was that they would not manage to have 2 in the charts at the same time again. Chris Andrews who still had 2 in the charts this week was enjoying his 3rd week with 2.

And talking of Herman’s Hermits, they had the highest of the new entries this week as we ignored the advice on the record label of their single ‘A Must to Avoid’ and propelled it to number 15 on the charts. They joined Tom Jones and Gene Rockwell in second place on the list of number of hits by an artist as they now all had 4 to their name, 1 less than the 5 The Stones had clocked up. ‘A Must To Avoid’ was written by P.F. Sloan (who had brought us The Turtles ‘Let Me Be’) and Steve Barri and would go to number 6 in the UK and 8 in the US, their first single to have a higher peak in the UK than in the US since 5 hits previously when ‘Silhouettes’ went to 3 in the UK and 5 in the US (2 of those 5 hits only charted in the US). The song was produced by Mickie Most, a British born chap who had lived in South Africa for a while, having some success with his band Mickie Most & The Playboys.

The Beach Boys returned to the charts with their second hit ‘Barbara Ann’ which followed up the success of chart topper, ‘California Girls’ which departed from the chart just 6 weeks previously, but this was the biggest gap between hits to date for an American act. To date there were only 3 other US acts that had managed 2 hits (Elvis Presley, Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs and Glenn Yarbrough) all of which had ended up with 2 in the charts in the same week and none of which had gone on to have 3 hits yet. ‘Barbara Ann’ was a cover of 1961 hit by The Regents (#13 hit in the US) and would be The Beach Boys 23rd US Hot 100 hit where it would peak at number 2. In the UK it would manage a highest position of 3. It would top the chart in Austria, Germany, Norway and Switzerland.

The final new entry was The Kinks’ ‘A Well Respected Man’. It was the band’s 2nd song to chart in SA and as it had been 41 weeks since their previous hit, ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’, had last seen chart action this beat Petula Clark’s record of a 36 week gap between hits that she set up 2 weeks back. ‘A Well Respected Man’, written by Ray Davies, was not given a single release in the UK, but was included on the EP ‘Kwyet Kinks’. In the US, where it was released as a single, it would be their 6th song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 and would peak at number 13 there. It would also chart in Holland and Belgium peaking at 6 and 20 respectively and was used as the theme tune to the UK comedy TV series ‘Mr. Sloane’ which starred Nick Frost.

‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ by Cliff Richard moved on to 17 weeks and was still the oldest on the charts. The song sat tied second now for weeks on the chart by a song, joining Rick Nelsons’ ‘I Need You’ and The Staccatos’ ‘Come Back Silly Girl’ there and was 2 behind leader, ‘California Girls’ by The Beach Boys. The latter band with their new entry this week, moved on to 20 weeks in the charts and sat tied 10th overall for weeks on the charts by an artist. Chris Andrews moved into the top 20 of that list as his 16 weeks to date put him tied 18th. Four Jacks And A Jill clocked up their 10th week and now sat 8th on the list for local acts.

Youtube playlist:

26 March 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	4	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
2	2	6	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
3	5	4	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
4	3	11	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
5	8	3	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
6	4	6	Michelle	-	Overlanders
7	10	3	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
8	15	4	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
9	6	9	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
10	7	16	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
11	9	12	We Can Work it Out	-	Beatles
12	20	2	My Love	-	Petula Clark
13	19	2	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
14	16	4	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
15	14	8	Let Me Be	-	Turtles
16	11	15	Get Off My Cloud	-	Rolling Stones
17	New	1	One by One	-	Group 66
18	12	7	I’ll Step Aside	-	Tony Wells
19	13	7	It’s My Life	-	Animals
20	18	6	I’ll Step Aside	-	Ronnie Wilson

Nancy Sinatra’s’ boots were still walking round the top spot in the charts as ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ enjoyed a second week there. The previous number 1, Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds of Silence’ was unmoved at 2.

Just last week we had the first occasion where an artist sat next themselves on the charts when The Rolling Stones occupied positions 10 and 11. This week we saw the second time an act sat in adjacent positions as Chris Andrews’ ‘To Whom It Concerns’ moved into 5thplace, 1 below his other hit in the charts, ‘Yesterday Man’.

Petula Clark’s ‘My Love’ clocked up the 4th biggest climber award for a female artist as it moved up 8 from 20 to 12 and in so doing equalled the biggest climb by a song by a woman to date which this week’s number 1 had managed 2 weeks previously. Sandi Shaw and Jackie Trent had brought us our other 2 biggest climbers in the week that were by solo female artists. ‘My Love’s fellow new entry last week, June Muscat’s ‘For You Babe’ and Steve Karliski & Mimi Roman’s ‘Yes Mr. Peters’ were also star raters with the latter climbing 7 to 8 while the latter moved up 6 to 13.

Tony Wells’ version of ‘I’ll Step Aside’ was the faller of the week dropping 6 places to 18. This was the 12th time the biggest faller had been by a local act. It was separated from the other version of the song (by Ronnie Wilson) by the other biggest faller of the week, The Animals’ ‘It’s My Life’, which sat at 19, while Wilson’s version was at 20.

Just 1 song left the charts this week and it was the one that had been the biggest faller in the previous 2 weeks. The leaver was Len Barry’s ‘1-2-3’ which had 6 weeks on the charts and peaked at 4. This would be the highest ever position attained by a song spending only 6 weeks on the charts, except for the song that would be at number 1 on the very last chart on February 1989 (which had spent 6 weeks in the top 20 up to the date of the last chart). ‘1-2-3’ would be Barry’s only SA chart hit.

The new entry this week was Group 66’s ‘One By One’.  The band was a local act comprising Peter Foyn, Carlos da Silva, Brian Mulder and Lou “Moose” Forer and shouldn’t be confused with a Swedish band of the same name. The song was written by and American singer/song writer Art Mann who would record his own version which would appear on the b-side of his 1969 single ‘Come Live With Me’.

The oldest song on the chart was Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ which moved on to 16 weeks. The Beatles shook off Murray Campbell to claim 3rd place on the list of week on the charts as they moved on to 34 weeks while Cliff Richard moved into 9th place, going one ahead of The Fortunes and The Hollies with his 21 to date.

Youtube playlist:

19 March 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	3	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
2	1	5	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
3	3	10	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
4	4	5	Michelle	-	Overlanders
5	10	3	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
6	5	8	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
7	6	15	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
8	13	2	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
9	7	11	We Can Work it Out	-	Beatles
10	17	2	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
11	8	14	Get Off My Cloud	-	Rolling Stones
12	9	6	I’ll Step Aside	-	Tony Wells
13	12	6	It’s My Life	-	Animals
14	14	7	Let Me Be	-	Turtles
15	18	3	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
16	19	3	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
17	11	6	1-2-3	-	Len Barry
18	16	5	I’ll Step Aside	-	Ronnie Wilson
19	New	1	For You Babe	-	June Muscat
20	New	1	My Love	-	Petula Clark

It debuted at 10 two weeks ago and was the highest debuting song to date. Last week it jumped a massive 8 places to sit at number 2, so it was no real surprise that this week Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ was our number 1 song, knocking Simon & Garfunkel from the top spot after the latter had been there for just 1 week. The 3 week climb to the top of the charts was the quickest to date (if you exclude Connie Francis’ ‘Forget Domani’ which was number 1 on the 3rd chart ever and had been on the first ever chart). ‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’ became the 5th song to top our charts that also managed to get to number 1 in the US and UK.

The Rolling Stones became the first act to have 4 biggest climber awards to their name as ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ had the biggest upward movement this week, climbing 7 from 17 to 10. This was also the biggest climb a Stones song had managed to date. This climb placed the song next to ‘Get Off My Cloud’ which sat at 11 and meant The Stones were the first act to have songs sitting at adjacent positions on the charts. They also extended their lead for most star raters as this was their 8th. The Seekers with 5 were in second place. Also making star rater status this week was Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ which climbed 5 to 5 and Chris Andrews’ ‘To Whom It May Concern’ which also moved up 5 and landed at 8.

Len Barry’s ‘1-2-3’ was the biggest faller once again. This week it dropped 6 from 11 to 17.

The Spencer Davis Group’s ‘Keep On Running’ was running in the wrong direction as it dropped off the top 20 this week. It had managed 3 weeks on the chart during which it climbed to a highest position of 14. To date this was the highest peak for a song spending only 3 weeks on the chart if one ignores the high of 3 that Emil Dean’s ‘Key To Your Heart’ managed as this was already at number 3 when the charts began. The Spencer Davis Group would return to our charts.

The carnival was over for The Seekers’ latest hit as it left the chart after a run of 13 weeks and a peak of 2. However, there was still more to come from the band. They remained the only Aussie act to chart so far.

Both the new entries this week were by solo female artists, the higher of the 2 being by local lass June Muscat with her hit ‘For You Babe’. This came hot on the heels of her 1964 hit, a cover of the Dixie Cups’ ‘Chapel Of Love’. As with ‘Chapel Of Love’, ‘For You Babe’ was produced by Dan Hill who would have a few hits of his own. ‘For You Babe’ was a cover of a b-side by a band called The Spokesman. The a-side was called ‘Dawn Of Correction’ and went to number 36 in the US. This was the 10th song by a solo female artist to chart in SA.

The other new entry was ‘My Love’ by Petula Clark. It had been 36 weeks since we last saw Petula on our charts (with ‘I Know A Place’) and this was now the new biggest gap between hits, overtaking the 23 weeks Emil Dean had had between his hits. As with her earlier hit, ‘My Love’ was written by Tony Hatch, giving him a 3rd hit as song writer (the other being ‘Where Are You Now’ which he co-wrote with Jackie Trent who was the artist on that song). It would top the US charts, making Clark the first British woman to have 2 US number 1’s to her name, her previous chart topper there being ‘Downtown’. ‘My Love’ would also top the Canadian and Rhodesian (as they were then) charts. In the UK it would only manage to reach number 4. Apparently Clark did not like the song very much and begged her record company not to release it as a single.

Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ moved on to 15 weeks and remained the oldest on the chart and Cliff celebrated a total of 20 weeks on the charts overall. The Stones, however, were celebrating a bigger milestone as they passed the 50 weeks mark. The Beatles moved into tied 3rd place for weeks on the charts, joining Murray Campbell on 33 while Gene Rockwell, the second highest placed local artist moved into 6th place on his own on 26 weeks, going 1 better than Herman’s Hermits.

Youtube playlist;

11 March 1966

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	4	The Sounds of Silence	-	Simon & Garfunkel
2	10	2	These Boots are Made for Walking	-	Nancy Sinatra
3	1	9	Yesterday Man	-	Chris Andrews
4	8	4	Michelle	-	Overlanders
5	3	7	Jimmy Come Lately	-	Four Jacks & a Jill
6	5	14	Wind Me Up, Let Me Go	-	Cliff Richard
7	6	10	We Can Work it Out	-	Beatles
8	7	13	Get Off My Cloud	-	Rolling Stones
9	9	5	I’ll Step Aside	-	Tony Wells
10	18	2	The Ballad of the Green Berets	-	Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler
11	4	5	1-2-3	-	Len Barry
12	12	5	It’s My Life	-	Animals
13	New	1	To Whom it Concerns	-	Chris Andrews
14	13	6	Let Me Be	-	Turtles
15	11	13	The Carnival is Over	-	Seekers
16	16	4	I’ll Step Aside	-	Ronnie Wilson
17	New	1	19th Nervous Breakdown	-	Rolling Stones
18	19	2	Yes Mr. Peters	-	Steve Karliski and Mimi Roman
19	20	2	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	-	Gene Rockwell
20	14	3	Keep On Running	-	Spencer Davis Group

After 4 weeks with Chris Andrews at the top of our charts, we saw a change there as Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds Of Silence’ knocked ‘Yesterday Man’ from the number 1 spot. Chris Andrews fell to number 3.

The new number 2 song was one of our 2 biggest climbers this week, Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ which moved up 8 places from 10 to 2. This was the 3rd time a solo female artist had taken the biggest climber in a week award. Sinatra was joined in this big climb by another of last week’s new entries, Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ which moved up its 8 positions from 18 to 10. The only other star rater this week was The Overlanders’ Michelle which picked up a 3rd star rater climb as it moved up 4 from 8 to 4.

Len Barry’s ‘1-2-3’ was the song heading in the opposite direction in the biggest hurry as it dropped 7 placed from 4 to 11.

We lost 2 songs from the charts, the first being Roy Head & The Traits’ ‘Treat Her Right’ which had spent 10 weeks with us and peaked at 5 during that time. This would be their only SA Chart hit.

The other song to go also began with the letter ‘T’ and that was Tom Jones’ ‘Thunderball’. It became the 4th song to manage equal weeks and peaks figures as it spent 7 weeks in the charts with a highest position of 7. Of the 3 others to manage this, only Emil Dean (3 weeks with ‘Key To Your Heart’ and a peak of 3 – it was on the first ever chart) was not British, the other 2 being Petula Clark and Unit Four Plus Two. So far Tom Jones’ peak positions for his 4 hits were 1-10-1-7, so it was all eyes on his next hit, would it continue the run of every second hit being a chart topper?

It had been 14 weeks since we last saw an artist with 2 songs in the top 20 when Murray Campbell managed this. This week, both our new entries were by artist who already had a hit in the charts. Chris Andrews’ ‘To Whom it Concerns’ joined his dethroned number 1 hit, ‘Yesterday Man’ in the top 20 to become the 11th different artist to manage this. ‘To Whom It May Concern’, which came in at 13, the second highest debut position to date, would reach number 13 in the UK and would be Andrews’ second highest charting song there, 10 places lower than ‘Yesterday Man’ which got to number 3. However, in the US, the latter would be his only hit, where it scraped to number 94. ‘To Whom It May Concern’ would enjoy a number 3 peak in Holland and Germany, number 4 in Belgium and 9 in Austria.

The artist on the other new entry, The Rolling Stones, were no strangers to having 2 in the chart at the same time. This was their 3rd pairing to manage this as ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ joined  ‘Get Off My Cloud’. The Stones led the way for weeks with 2 on the charts as this was now the 11th time we had seen them manage this. Tom Jones and Herman’s Hermits came tied second on 8 weeks. ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ was kept off the top of the UK charts (Record Retailer charts – see charts for 11 February 1966 for explanation) by the song sitting at number 2 on our charts this week, Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’. It spent 3 weeks as the bridesmaid of the chart. In the US it suffered a similar fate as it sat for 3 weeks at number 2 behind our number 10 song this week, ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler. In Holland it only hung around at 2 for a week before giving up. There it was our number 4 song this week, ‘Michelle’ by The Overlanders which shared the top spot with The Beatles version of the song that prevented The Stones from topping the charts there. The Stones would have to point to the NME charts in the UK (which are not regarded as the official charts for that period) to show a number 1 success for the song.

Cliff Richard’s ‘Wind Me Up Let Me Go’ was the oldest on the charts for a second week as it moved onto 14 weeks. The Seekers celebrated their 30th week in the charts this week and sat in 5th place on the list of weeks on the charts by an artist. Gene Rockwell moved into tied 6th place alongside Herman’s Hermits who were on 25 weeks, but was still only the second highest local act on the list, 8 weeks behind Murray Campbell who sat 3rd overall.

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