26 July 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Waterloo	–	ABBA
2	2	11	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
3	10	3	Sundown	–	Gordon Lightfoot
4	4	16	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
5	5	7	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
6	7	9	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
7	3	9	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
8	6	5	Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)	–	Lena Zavaroni
9	8	10	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
10	9	7	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
11	18	2	Long Legged Woman Dressed in Black	–	Mungo Jerry
12	11	19	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
13	14	4	Baby, Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)	–	Peter Vee
14	17	2	Joey	–	Barbara Ray
15	19	2	Band on the Run	–	Wings
16	13	6	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB
17	20	2	Shlick Shlack Boom Boom	–	Lee Reed
18	12	16	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
19	New	1	Heartbeat	–	Jody Wayne
20	New	1	Sugar Baby Love	–	Rubettes

Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ enjoyed a second week at number 1 while the previous chart topper, The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’ was unmoved at 2 where it fell to after vacating the top spot.

Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Sundown’ enjoyed biggest climber status for the second week running as it followed up last week’s 9 place climb with a jump of 7 places from 10 to 3 this week. ‘Sundown’ was the 9^th song to manage to climb 16 places over 2 weeks, but we had seen 5 climb 17 places over a 2 week period and 1 (Alan Garrity’s ‘Put Your Hand In The Hand’) move up 18 in a 2 week period. ‘Sundown’ shared the biggest climber award with Mungo Jerry’s ‘Long Legged Woman Dressed in Black’ which climbed 7 from 18 to 11. This was only their second time with a biggest climber despite having had 4 hits (2 of which went top 10).

The only other star rater climb this week was by Wings’ ‘Band On The Run’ which moved up 4 from 19 to 15.

Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’ took the falling honours with a 6 place drop from 12 to 18. This was the second week running the song had taken the biggest tumble. Having waited so long to see acts from a non-big 3 nation take climber and faller in the same week, we finally saw it happen last week and as the Gordon Lightfoot and Terry Jacks hits were climber and faller respectively this week, we now had the second time this happened, just 1 week after it first happened.

‘Loving Arms’ by Dobie Gray edged closer to the 20 weeks in the chart mark as it enjoyed its 19^th week with us. It had been the oldest in the top 20 for 4 weeks now.

Our time with 2 songs by Swedish acts in the charts came to an end as Blue Swede’s ‘Hooked On A Feeling’ ended its chart run after 11 weeks with us. It peaked at 7 during that time and would be their only SA chart hit. We had seen 8 weeks with 2 songs by Swedish acts in the charts. There would be further occasions when we would have 2 Swedish songs in the top 20, but the run that had just ended would be the only time that the 2 songs were by different Swedish acts.

We also said farewell to Cher’s ‘Dark Lady’. It had spent 12 weeks in the charts and peaked at 4. This brought to an end her SA chart career. She had seen 2 solo hits make the chart which spent a total of 18 weeks in the top 20. ‘Dark Lady’s peak of 4 was the best of the 2. She also saw 2 hits chart as one half of Sonny & Cher. Adding in these 2 hits would make her hit count 4, her weeks count 30 and her best peak would still be the 4 that ‘Dark Lady’ managed.

Jody Wayne’s ‘Heartbeat’ become his 9th hit as an artist and he was the 16^th act overall to reach this many hits. The only local act above him was Billy Forrest who sat on 10. Self-produced and penned, this was his 7^th hit as songwriter and 12^th as producer (where the producer was named).

The second of the new entries was the Rubette’s ‘Sugar Baby Love’. The song would dislodge our current number 1 (Abba’s ‘Waterloo’) from the top spot in the UK charts and would go on to have a 4 week run at the top there. It made it to number 37 in the US and would top the charts in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Belgium and Australia.

There were 3 acts which celebrated reaching their 30 weeks in the charts milestones and they were Hot Chocolate, Mungo Jerry and Peter Vee. 87 acts so far had managed this many weeks of which Peter Vee was the 25^th local one to do so.

‘Seasons In The Sun’ had now spent a total of 23 weeks in the charts which was the tied 12^th best by a song charting in more than 1 version. There were 3 other songs that ‘Seasons In The Sun’ shared 12^th spot with and they were ‘Ramblin’ Boy’ (Des Lindberg & We Three), ‘The Letter’ (Boxtops & Trini Lopez) and ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love/Liefde Is My Nooi Se Naam’ (Tommy Overstreet & Billy Forrest).

Youtube playlist:

19 July 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	8	Waterloo	–	ABBA
2	1	10	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
3	3	8	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
4	4	15	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
5	5	6	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
6	10	4	Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)	–	Lena Zavaroni
7	6	8	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
8	7	9	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
9	12	6	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
10	19	2	Sundown	–	Gordon Lightfoot
11	9	18	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
12	8	15	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
13	14	5	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB
14	15	3	Baby, Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)	–	Peter Vee
15	11	12	Dark Lady	–	Cher
16	13	11	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
17	New	1	Joey	–	Barbara Ray
18	New	1	Long Legged Woman Dressed in Black	–	Mungo Jerry
19	New	1	Band on the Run	–	Wings
20	New	1	Shlick Shlack Boom Boom	–	Lee Reed

Abba saw their first SA number 1 hit as ‘Waterloo’ took over the top spot from The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’. The latter had spent 2 weeks at 1 while The Hollies total weeks at 1 was 9 which their 5 chart toppers had accumulated. Sweden were the 11^th different nation to produce and SA chart topper with the other 10 being Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, South African, The UK and The US. In total 18 different nations would see at least 1 act reach number 1.

Climber of the week was Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Sundown’ which moved up 9 from 19 to 10. This was the 100^th time we had seen a song climb 9 or more places in a week, but only the 9^th time this had been done by an act that was not from The UK, The US or SA and was only the second time for a Canadian act (the previous one being Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’).

The second biggest climber and only other star rater this week was Lena Zavaroni’s ‘Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me)’ which moved up 4 from 10 6.

Terry Jacks and Cher shared the faller of the week award as the former’s ‘Season’s In The Sun’ fell 4 from 8 to 12 and the latter’s ‘Dark Lady’ dropped from 11 to 15. With Terry Jacks taking faller and Gordon Lightfoot taking climber, this was the first time that we had seen acts from a nations that was not the UK, the US or SA taking climber and faller in the same week.

Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’ enjoyed a 3^rd week as the oldest on the chart as it entered its 18^th week with us.

Little Ronnie Joyce’s ‘Give A Little Love’ was the first of 4 songs to leave the chart this week. It had been with us for 2 weeks, both of which were spent at 20. This was the 11^th song to manage a run of 2 weeks both spent at 20 and the 6^th by a local act to do so. It’s departure from the chart ended a 2 week run with 3 songs in the top 20having the word ‘little’ in their titles. We had only seen 1 previous run with this and that time it lasted 4 weeks. We would not see this level of ‘little’ songs in the charts again. ‘Give A Little Love’ would be Joyce’s only SA chart hit.

We also bid farewell to Marvin Hamlisch’s ‘The Entertainer’. It had been with us for 15 weeks and peaked at 4. This was Hamlisch’s only SA chart hit and was the last song to chart by someone called Marvin. The only previous ‘Marvin’ hits had been the 2 Marvin Gaye had managed.

The ‘little’ hits seemed to be going for an ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ mentality as Lionel Petersen’s ‘I Need A Little Love’ also left the top 20. It had lasted 13 weeks and peaked at 5, but unlike fellow countryman, Little Ronnie Joyce, Petersen would be back.

Last to go was Leo Sayer’s ‘The Show Must Go On’ which lasted 7 weeks and peaked at 11. We would have to wait a couple of month though for the show to continue for Sayer.

Barbara Ray joined Virginia Lee at the top of the list of number of hits by a local female artist as ‘Joey’ her 6th hit entered the top 20 at 17 this week. Lee and Ray (who both had surnames that are common first names for guys and were both 3 letters long) were 1 hit below Nancy Sinatra and 5 behind Petula Clark, the only other women who had seen more hits. ‘Joey’ was a cover of a song written by Don Chapel and recorded by Tammy Wynette. It appeared on her 1969 album ‘Stand By Your Man’ but was not released as a single by Wynette. Barbara’s version was produced by Jody Wayne.

Mungo Jerry had been absent from our charts for a fair while (2 years, 10 months and 2 days to be precise, the 58^th time we had seen a gap of 100 weeks or more between hits for an artist). Their last hit had been ‘Lady Rose’ back in September 1971, but they were back this week with ‘Long Legged Woman Dressed In Black’. Written by lead singer (and a man of huge sideburns) Ray Dorset, the song gave them a number 13 hit in the UK as well as getting to 2 in Zimbabwe and 25 in Belgium.

With ‘Band On The Run’ entering the charts, Paul McCartney had now had 2 solo hits and 2 as part of Wings. This was the 11th song by an ex-Beatle to chart and McCartney now led the way in terms of hits, having had 4, Ringo was in second place on 3 while George and John only had 2 apiece.

Last of the new entries was by Lee Reed and no, that is not a typo, it was not Lou Reed, but a guy called Lee who had a hit with ‘Shlick Shlack Boom Boom’. From what I can make out, Lee was from Germany and was in a group called Thanx. The song is a cover of the one by Spick And Spahn who have even less information about them on the internet, but they did write it.

This week saw the last time we would ever see acts from SA, the UK and the US have same number of hits in the top 20 and this would be the only time it would be 5 from each nation, all the previous times they had all had 6.

The Hollies saw their weeks count reach the 130 mark and they were the second act after Tom Jones to reach this total. Also reaching a milestone was Gwynneth Ashley-Robin who hit 20 weeks. She was the 9^th local woman to reach this mark.

Barbara Ray’s new one this week moved her past the 800 points mark. She was the 24^th act overall to managed this and the 5^th local act to do so.

This week’s chart featured a record equalling 6 US number 1 hits on it with ‘Sundown’, ‘Seasons In The Sun’, ‘TSOP’, ‘Dark Lady’, ‘Hooked On A Feeling’ and ‘Band On The Run’ all making it to the top of the US charts. The last time we had seen this was for 2 weeks back in March 1966. Only 2 of this week’s top 20 had managed to get to number 1 in the UK, namely ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Seasons In The Sun’.

Mike Hazelwood & Albert Hammond reached 40 consecutive weeks in the charts as song writers. This was the new second longest run by song writers behind Terry Dempsey’s all-time record of 92 straight weeks.

Youtube playlist:

12 July 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
2	3	7	Waterloo	–	ABBA
3	4	7	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
4	2	14	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
5	7	5	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
6	5	7	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
7	10	8	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
8	6	14	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
9	8	17	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
10	16	3	Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)	–	Lena Zavaroni
11	9	11	Dark Lady	–	Cher
12	15	5	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
13	11	10	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
14	17	4	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB
15	19	2	Baby, Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)	–	Peter Vee
16	13	7	The Show Must Go On	–	Leo Sayer
17	12	13	I Need a Little Love	–	Lionel Petersen
18	14	15	The Entertainer	–	Marvin Hamlisch
19	New	1	Sundown	–	Gordon Lightfoot
20	20	2	Give a Little Love	–	Little Ronnie Joyce

‘The Air That I Breathe’ by The Hollies enjoyed a second week at the top of the charts while Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ at 2 and Hot Chocolate’s ‘Emma’ at 3 were giving those acts their highest placing to date in the charts.

Lena Zavaroni’s ‘Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)’ was the climber of the week. It moved up 6 from 16 to 10 to take the award. Little Jimmy Osmond, who was the only person younger than Lena to chart, had managed the biggest climber twice.

One of last week’s new entries, Peter Vee’s ‘Baby, Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)’, was the only other star rater this week as it moved up 4 from 19 to 15.

Lionel Petersen picked up his 3^rd biggest faller award as ‘I Need A Little Love’ dropped 5 from 12 to 17 to take the award for the second time. Petersen had also seen a biggest faller once with ‘Come Back Liza’.

Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’ was the oldest in the chart for the second week. It sat on 17 weeks.

‘Everything I Want To Do’ by Albert Hammond dropped out of the charts after a run of 11 weeks. This brought to an end Hammond’s 38 week run in the charts as an artist, the 4^th best run to date. That run had consisted of 9 weeks with ‘The Free Electric Band’ followed by 18 weeks with ‘The Peacemaker’ which entered the charts the same week that ‘The Free Electric band’ left. ‘The Peacemaker’ shared it’s 19^th week in the chart with ‘Everything I want To Do’ and the latter had then gone on to spend a further 10 weeks in the charts on its own. However, Hammond’s name still appeared on the label of 1 song on the chart and that was in the song writer’s slot on The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’. He and co-writer, Mike Hazelwood had now spent 39 consecutive weeks in the charts as song writers and this equalled the second best effort to date which Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘John Fogerty had managed. They were still a long way off the all-time record run by a song writer of 92 weeks which Terry Demsey had managed. Hazelwood and Hammond were also celebrating their 80th week in total in the charts as song writers. 27 song writers so far had managed this level of weeks.

Gordon Lightfoot set a new record for gaps between hits by Canadian male artists. He had last been seen in the top 20 in September 1971 with ‘Me And Bobby McGee’, a total of 146 weeks previous. This beat R. Dean Taylor’s record gap for a Canadian male by 38 weeks. His new one, ‘Sundown’ entered at number 19  this week and was his second hit in SA and the 21st by a Canadian artist. ‘Sundown made number 1 in the US where it ousted Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods’ ‘Billy Don’t Be A Hero’ from the top. It also made the top of the Canadian charts where, in strange twist, it was ousted from the number 1 spot by Bo Donaldsons’ ‘Billy Don’t Be A Hero’. Aside from those chart feats, it made number 4 in Australia, 14 in Ireland and Zimbabwe, 16 in Holland, 30 in Germany and 33 in the UK.

Lionel Petersen celebrated having spent a total of 20 weeks in the charts. He was the 141^st act and 37th local act to manage this.

For the first time in 16 weeks we saw the average number of weeks that the top 20 songs had been with us creep above 8 as it moved on to 8.05.

Youtube playlist:

5 July 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	8	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
2	1	13	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
3	3	6	Waterloo	–	ABBA
4	6	6	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
5	8	6	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
6	4	13	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
7	13	4	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
8	7	16	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
9	5	10	Dark Lady	–	Cher
10	9	7	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
11	10	9	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
12	12	12	I Need a Little Love	–	Lionel Petersen
13	11	6	The Show Must Go On	–	Leo Sayer
14	14	14	The Entertainer	–	Marvin Hamlisch
15	16	4	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
16	19	2	Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)	–	Lena Zavaroni
17	15	3	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB
18	17	11	Everything I Want to Do	–	Albert Hammond
19	New	1	Baby, Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)	–	Peter Vee
20	New	1	Give a Little Love	–	Little Ronnie Joyce

The Hollies’ saw ‘The Air That I Breathe’ take over the top spot from Andy Williams’ ‘Solitaire’ this week. This was their 5^th number 1 and they were only the second act to have this many so far with Tom Jones being 1 ahead of them on 6. The Hollies moved 1 clear of Chris Andrews who was on 4. ‘Solitaire’ had spent 4 weeks at number 1.

Dan Hill’s ‘Tchip Tchip’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 6 from 13 to 7. This was the 23^rd time an instrumental hit had taken the climber award and it followed up last’s week’s climber by an instrumental which MFSB’s ‘’TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia’) had managed. This was the 5^th time we had seen instrumental hits take climber of the week in consecutive weeks, but only the second time that it had been 2 different songs managing this. The only other occasion when 2 different instrumentals took the climber award in consecutive weeks was when The Pipes and Drums And The Military Band of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards’ ‘Amazing Grace’ was followed by The Moms & Dads’ ‘The Rangers Waltz’ back in the May of 1972. ‘Tchip Tchip’ was the only star rater this week.

Falling honours went to Cher’s ‘Dark Lady’ as it dropped 4 from 5 to 9. This was her first time with the award. Even the 2 hits she had had as part of Sonny & Cher had not seen a biggest faller.

The oldest song on last week’s chart, Dr Marigold’s ‘Hello Girl’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the chart this week. It had spent 16 weeks in the top 20, 2 of which were at the top spot. This would be their only SA chart hit. The new oldest on the charts was Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’ which was on 16 weeks.

We also bid farewell to ‘Mockingbird’ by Carly Simon and James Taylor. It had spent 8 weeks in the chart and peaked at 13. This would be James Taylor’s only contribution to our charts, but we would see Carly again in the top 20.

Both new entries this week were by South African artists which brought the local content of the chart up to 6. The first of these was Peter Vee’s 4th solo hit, ‘Baby Baby Answer Me (I’m Calling)’. The song was a cover of a Jack Jersey song called ‘I’m Calling’. Jersey, who composed the song, was a Dutch singer/songwriter whose real name was Jack de Nijs. He took his version to number 13 in the Dutch charts and number 9 in Belgium.

The second new entry was by Little Ronnie Joyce and was called ‘Give A Little Love’. The song was written by Richard Jon Smith (the first of 2 that he had a hand in writing that he did not chart with himself) and Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange (his second hit with a songwriting credit). Joyce would go on to join LaStique who had a hit in 1981 with ‘Hold On’ and sadly passed away on 8 January 2013.

After 7 weeks of being below 10, the number of hits by solo male artists moved back into double figures with the 2 new entries moving this total on to 11. It had also been 15 weeks since the local acts share the top spot for number of songs in the top 20 as their 6 equalled those of the acts from the US with the Brits on 5. Two Swedish acts and a Canadian act made up the rest of the numbers.

The Swedish acts caught up with those from New Zealand for weeks in the charts as they had clocked up a total of 29. Sweden and New Zealand sat tied 13^th overall for weeks by a nation.

Albert Hammond continued his run in the charts and had now seen at least 1 hit in the top 20 for 38 straight weeks now. He was the 4^th act to manage this after Creedence Clearwater Revival, Middle Of The Road and Alan Garrity.

Youtube playlist:

28 June 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
2	2	7	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
3	4	5	Waterloo	–	ABBA
4	3	12	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
5	6	9	Dark Lady	–	Cher
6	7	5	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
7	5	15	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
8	8	5	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
9	11	6	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
10	9	8	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
11	13	5	The Show Must Go On	–	Leo Sayer
12	10	11	I Need a Little Love	–	Lionel Petersen
13	17	3	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
14	12	13	The Entertainer	–	Marvin Hamlisch
15	20	2	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB
16	16	3	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
17	14	10	Everything I Want to Do	–	Albert Hammond
18	18	8	Mockingbird	–	Carly Simon & James Taylor
19	New	1	Ma! (He’s Making Eyes at Me)	–	Lena Zavaroni
20	15	16	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s

Andy Williams enjoyed a 4^th week at number 1 with ‘Solitaire’, but still had to worry about The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’ which sat at number 2 for a second week running.

MFSB took the climber of the week award with ‘TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)’ which moved up 5 from 20 to 15. This was the 22^nd time an instrumental track had been the biggest climber and of the 38 instrumental hits we had seen on the charts to date, 19 (exactly half) of them had been the biggest climber at least once in their chart career. The only other star rater climb this week was Dan Hill’s ‘Tchip Tchip’ which moved up 4 from 17 to 13.

Falling honours went to Dr Marigold’s ‘Hello Girl’ which dropped 5 from 15 to 20 which was a swap of places with the climber of the week. The song was the oldest in the top 20 sitting on 16 weeks. It had been the oldest now for 3 weeks.

Wings’ ‘Jet’ became the 31^st song to have its weeks figure match its highest position as it left the charts after 8 weeks and a peak of 8. This would be the only song by an ex-Beatle that would manage this. There was more to come from Paul McCartney’s post Beatles band.

Lena Zavaroni was a mere 10 years, 7 months and 24 days old when her song ‘Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me)’ made it on to our top 20, however she was nearly 7 months older than Little Jimmy Osmond when he first charted the previous year. Lena was the second youngest person to chart of those whose birthdates are readily available. She was just over 3 years younger than the previous second youngest, Gwynneth Ashley-Robin. Despite her Italian name, Lena was actually born in Scotland (her grandfather had emigrated to the UK from Italy). ‘Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me)’made it to number 10 in the UK, 91 in the US, 5 in Austria and 30 in Belgium. Sadly Lena died in 1999 at the age of 35.

Hot Chocolate were enjoying their highest position in the charts to date as ‘Emma’ moved into 6^th place. Their 2 previous hits had peaked at 10 and 8.

Abba joined the 20 weeks in the chart club. There were 140 members of the club so far of which 13 were not from the big 3 nations (UK, US or SA). Over on the points front, The Hollies became the 3^rd act so far to pass the 1,500 mark as their total ticked over to 1,510. Ahead of them were The Bee Gees on 1,548 and Tom Jones on 2,169.

Albert Hammond had had at least one hit in the charts for 37 consecutive weeks. He was the 5^th act to manage this with the previous one being Alan Garrity.

Ten of the top 20 songs this week had charted on both the UK and US chart while 1 had charted only on the UK charts and another one had charted only in the US. There were 8 that had not made either of those charts and of those 8 only 4 were by local acts.

Youtube playlist:

21 June 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
2	4	6	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
3	2	11	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
4	8	4	Waterloo	–	ABBA
5	3	14	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
6	5	8	Dark Lady	–	Cher
7	9	4	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
8	11	4	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
9	7	7	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
10	6	10	I Need a Little Love	–	Lionel Petersen
11	10	5	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
12	12	12	The Entertainer	–	Marvin Hamlisch
13	14	4	The Show Must Go On	–	Leo Sayer
14	13	9	Everything I Want to Do	–	Albert Hammond
15	15	15	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s
16	20	2	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
17	19	2	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
18	16	7	Mockingbird	–	Carly Simon & James Taylor
19	18	8	Jet	–	Wings
20	New	1	TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)	–	MFSB

Andy Williams’ ‘Solitaire’ enjoyed a 3^rd week at the top of the charts but had to contend with The Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’, er, breathing down its neck as the latter moved up 2 from 4 to 2. Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’, which had been at 2 for the last 2 weeks, fell to 3.

There were 2 biggest climbers this week and as that climb was 4 places, they were also the only star raters. The 2 songs that took the honours were Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ and Gwynneth Ashley-Robin’s ‘Little Soldier Blue’. The former moved up to 4 while the latter climbed to 16. It was Abba’s first time with the climber of the week while for Ashley-Robin, it was her second time.

Lionel Petersen’s ‘I Need A Little Love’ picked up the faller of the week award with a 4 place drop from 6 to 10. This was Petersen’s second time with the award having picked up one with ‘Come Back Liza’. With Gwynneth Ashley-Robin picking up the climber award, this was the 32^nd time we had seen local acts as biggest climber and faller in the same week.

Dr. Marigold’s ‘Hello Girl’ was still the oldest on the charts, enjoying its 15^th week with us and its second as the oldest.

There was only 1 song that left the charts this week and that was Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’. It had been with us for 12 weeks and peaked at 3, the best performance of her 3 hits to date with neither of her previous 2 making top 10. There was more to come from Dolly.

The new comer to the charts was the acronym crazy MFSB with their song ‘TSOP’. MFSB stood for Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, but wasn’t a family band, rather a grouping of session musicians that could number over 30 at times. ‘TSOP’ stood for ‘The Sound Of Philadelphia’ which was pretty apt as the session musos making up the band were Philly based. ‘TSOP’ was used as the theme tune for the US music show ‘Soul Train’ and it knocked Elton John’s ‘Bennie And The Jets’ (which didn’t chart in SA) off the top spot in the US and went on to spend 2 weeks there. It also made number 22 in the UK, 3 in Switzerland, 5 in Germany, 17 in Austria and 18 in Holland. This was the 38th instrumental hit to chart and as Marvin Hamlisch’s ‘The Entertainer’ and Dan Hill’s ‘Tchip Tchip’ were also on this week’s chart, this was the 9^th week where we had seen 3 or more instrumentals in the charts. Two of the previous 8 times we had seen an all-time record 4.

The Hollies were in clear second place on the weeks count list as they moved 1 ahead of The Bee Gees. The former were now on 126 weeks while the latter were on 125 and they dropped to 3^rd. The top 3 on the weeks count list were all British acts as Tom Jones sat at 1. Creedence Clearwater Revival in 4^th place was the highest ranking American act on the list while The Staccatos led the way for the locals. They sat 14^th.

‘Seasons In The Sun’ moved into the top 20 for weeks in the chart by a song charting in more than 1 version. It had seen 7 weeks with the Bobby Wright version and the Terry Jacks version had managed 11 bringing its total to 18. It shared 20^th place with ‘Tchaikovsky One’ (Second City Sound and Omega Limited) and ‘I’m A Believer’ (Neil Diamond and The Monkees).

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14 June 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Solitaire	–	Andy Williams
2	2	10	Seasons in the Sun	–	Terry Jacks
3	3	13	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
4	6	5	The Air That I Breathe	–	Hollies
5	4	7	Dark Lady	–	Cher
6	5	9	I Need a Little Love	–	Lionel Petersen
7	7	6	Hooked on a Feeling	–	Blue Swede
8	14	3	Waterloo	–	ABBA
9	17	3	Emma	–	Hot Chocolate
10	13	4	Haai Casanova	–	Glenys Lynne
11	19	3	There Won’t be Anymore	–	Charlie Rich
12	8	11	The Entertainer	–	Marvin Hamlisch
13	9	8	Everything I Want to Do	–	Albert Hammond
14	15	3	The Show Must Go On	–	Leo Sayer
15	11	14	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s
16	16	6	Mockingbird	–	Carly Simon & James Taylor
17	10	12	Jolene	–	Dolly Parton
18	12	7	Jet	–	Wings
19	New	1	Tchip Tchip	–	Dan Hill
20	New	1	Little Soldier Blue	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin

Fortunately for Andy Williams’ last week’s chart topping effort with ‘Solitaire’ would not be a solitary week at 1 as the song was unmoved in pole position giving it 2 weeks at the 1. The previous chart topper, Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’, had spent those 2 weeks sitting at number 2 and the number 1 song that broken ‘Seasons In The Sun’s run at 1 into 2, Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’, was also unmoved at 3. ‘Solitaire’ accounted for the 170^th week with an American act at number 1.

‘Emma’ was Hot Chocolate’s 3^rd SA chart hit, but it was the first to provide them with a biggest climber award as it moved up 8 from 17 to 9 to take the honours this week. This would be the biggest climb the band would ever see. Also seeing his first biggest climber award was Charlie Rich whose ‘There Won’t Be Anymore’ (his first SA chart hit) moved up 8 from 19 to 11. Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ which climbed 6 from 14 to 8 was the only other star rater this week.

Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene’ took the faller award with a 7 place drop from 10 to 17. This would be the biggest fall Parton would ever see, either as a solo artist or as part of a duet.

‘Love’s Theme’ by Love Unlimited was the first of 2 songs to leave the charts. It had enjoyed a run of 17 weeks in the charts and spent 2 of those at 1. This would be their only SA chart hit. The song had been the oldest on the chart for the past 5 weeks and the song that had taken over from it as the number 1 hit now took over as the oldest and that was Dr. Marigold’s ‘Hello Girl’ which was in its 14^th week on the charts.

We also bid farewell to Diana Ross’ ‘Behind Closed Doors’ which lasted 8 weeks in the charts and peaked at 14. This was a better performance that her duet with Marvin Gaye, but it hadn’t fared as well as the one where she had separate billing on a Supremes track. There was plenty more to come from her.

Both new entries were local this week, boosting the total number of South African artists on the chart to 4. The first was Dan Hill (not to be confused with the Canadian artist of the same name) and his version of ‘The Birdie Sing’ which he entitled ‘Tchip Tchip’. This was the 37th instrumental song to chart in SA and the first song by Dan Hill to chart. ‘The Birdie Song’ was originally called “Der Ententanz” (The Duck Dance) and was written by Swiss accordion player Werner Thomas. It has been recorded by numerous artists all over the world, but in the UK it was a band calling themselves The Tweets that took it to number 2 there. The song has been voted as the most annoying song of all time, but still fills wedding dancefloors with people waggling their elbows and wiggling their butts (you know the moves).

The second new entry was ‘Little Soldier Blue’, the second hit by Gwynneth Ashley-Robin and made her the third artist to chart with 2 different songs both containing the word ‘little’ in their title. Her previous hit had been ‘Little Jimmy’. The previous 2 acts to see 2 hits with ‘Little’ in the song title were The Troggs (‘Little Girl’ and ‘Little Red Donkey’) and Leapy Lee (‘Little Arrows’ and ‘Little Yellow Aeroplane’). ‘Little Soldier Blue’ was the 4th (and final) song to chart that was written by but not performed by Jody Wayne. Gwynneth was the 12th local female to date to have managed 2 or more hits out of a total of 22 local women who had managed to chart. Virginia Lee still led the way with 6.

Sweden pulled ahead of Spain for weeks in the charts by acts from those nations. Sweden was on 23 and Spain on 21. They sat 14^th and 15^th on the list of weeks by acts from a nation.

Carly Simon and Dolly Parton both celebrated their 20^th week in the charts. Both had accumulated some of their weeks as part of a duet (Simon with James Taylor and Parton with Porter Wagoner). They were the 20^th and 21^st women to reach this milestone.

Much higher up the weeks count list we saw The Hollies move into tied 2^nd place as their 125 weeks to date put them level with The Bee Gees. Only Tom Jones on 184 was higher. It had been 75 weeks since The Hollies were last in 2^nd place on the weeks count list.

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