26 August 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	8	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
2	1	9	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
3	5	6	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
4	8	4	Ma Baker	–	Boney M
5	3	10	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
6	6	7	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
7	4	12	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
8	10	3	I Feel Love	–	Donna Summer
9	7	8	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
10	13	4	Give a Little Bit	–	Supertramp
11	16	2	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
12	9	10	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
13	11	5	I Believe in You	–	Sharon Tandy & Graham Clarke
14	20	2	Another Funny Honeymoon	–	David Dundas
15	12	7	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
16	14	8	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
17	New	1	Lovely Lady	–	Shabby Tiger
18	15	13	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
19	17	11	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
20	New	1	Don’t Tell Me Stories	–	Saskia & Serge

Of the acts who would ultimately have 5 or more hits make our charts, 26 before this week had seen their first one top our charts. This week Kenny Rogers became the 27^th as ‘Lucille’ took over the number 1 spot from Space’s ‘Magic Flight’. The latter had been at number 1 for 2 weeks. It had been the 3^rd song by a French act to top the charts and we would only see 1 more do so. ‘Lucille’ was the 70^th song by an American act to make it to the top of our charts. The Americans were still 6 behind the Brits for number of number 1’s.

David Dundas’ ‘Another Funny Honeymoon’ did what his previous hit, ‘Jeans On’, had also managed to do and that was to pick up a biggest climber award. It jumped 6 from 20 to 14 to take the award. Other star raters this week were Boney M’s ‘Ma Baker’ which moved up 4 from 8 to 4 and Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ which climbed 5 from 16 to 11.

It was a 3 place fall that got you a faller of the week award and 4 songs were up for it. Pussycat’s ‘My Broken Souvenirs’ fell from 15 to 18, Strobe’s ‘Gimme Dat Banana’ fell from 12 to 15, The Bellamy Brother’s ‘Crossfire’ dropped from 9 to 12 and Joe Dolan’s ‘Hush Hush Maria’ moved from 4 to 7. It was Pussycat’s 6^th time with the award and they were only the second act who were not from the big 3 nations to pick up this many. The other was Abba who had already picked up 8.

Pussycat could take a little comfort from the fact that their song was the oldest on the charts. It was on 13 weeks and took over the title of oldest from John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ which left the top 20 after a run of 17 weeks, 2 of them spent at number 1. The weeks at 1 equalled that which his only other chart topper (‘I Hate The Music’) had managed, but ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ managed a better weeks tally, beating ‘I Hate The Music’s 15 by 2. There was still more to come from him.

We also bid farewell to Abba’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ which managed 16 weeks and also spent 2 weeks at the top of the charts. This had been their 6^th chart topper of their 9 hits to date. Their other 3 had peaked at 2, 3 and 7 which is not a bad record at all. There was still plenty to come from them. ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ was their 3^rd hit in a row which had topped the charts and this would be something that no other act would manage. In fact the only other act who would see 3 songs in a row peak at the same position was Lionel Petersen who had 3 number 9 hits in a row.

With both songs leaving the chart having been chart toppers, this gave us the 18^th occasion when we had 2 former number 1’s depart the chart in the same week. We would never see more than 2 former chart toppers go in the same week.

Shabby Tiger returned to the charts with their second hit, ‘Lovely Lady’ which followed up ‘Slow Down’ which had charted earlier in the year. ‘Lovely Lady’ ­– which was produced by Ben Findon who had had song writing credits on 6 songs to chart in SA so far (including on ‘Slow Down’) – does not appear to have charted anywhere else in the world. ‘Lovely Lady’ was written by Dave Almond and Henderson Gibson and would be the only hit written by them to chart. The band also recorded a song called ‘Amorous Lady’ which I have been unable to determine if it is the same song with a different lyric or not.

Our second new entry was ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’ by Dutch act Saskia & Serge. The duo were neither a Saskia nor a Serge, but were Trudy van den Berg and Ruud Schaap who had been the artists on Holland’s 1971 entry into the Eurovision Song Contest with a song called ‘Tijd’ which came joint 6th. ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’ got to 13 in Holland and 15 in Belgium and was the 20^th song by a Dutch act to make our top 20.

After a run of 11 weeks of being below 20, the gap between the number of hits that the Americans had brought us and those that the Brits had climbed back to 20 for the last 2 weeks, but it was once again below that figure as it dropped to 19, The Americans had accounted for 471 hits to date while the Brits had brought us 452.

David Dundas celebrated reaching the 20 weeks in the chart mark while 5000 Volts were enjoying their 30^th.

Youtube playlist:

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19 August 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
2	4	7	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
3	2	9	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
4	3	11	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
5	5	5	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
6	6	6	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
7	7	7	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
8	9	3	Ma Baker	–	Boney M
9	8	9	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
10	19	2	I Feel Love	–	Donna Summer
11	14	4	I Believe in You	–	Sharon Tandy & Graham Clarke
12	12	6	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
13	17	3	Give a Little Bit	–	Supertramp
14	10	7	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
15	11	12	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
16	New	1	Do You Wanna Make Love	–	Peter McCann
17	13	10	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
18	16	14	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
19	15	17	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
20	New	1	Another Funny Honeymoon	–	David Dundas

Space’s ‘Magic Flight’ enjoyed a second week at the top of the charts but was coming under pressure from Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ which moved up from 4 to 2. It did manage to clock up the 10^th week at 1 for French acts. The former number 1, 5000 Volts’ ‘(Walking On A) Love Cloud’ dropped from 2 to 3.

Donna Summer took the climber of the week award with a 9 place climb from 19 to 10 by ‘I Feel Love’. This was the 12^th time a song by a solo female artist had climbed 9 or more in a week. The record to date for a solo woman was the 14 places that Olivia Newton-John’s ‘If Not For You’ had managed. Supertramp’s ‘Give A Little Bit’ had the only other star rater climb this week as it moved up 4 from 17 to 13.

Last week’s faller of the week, Billy Ocean’s ‘Red Light (Spells Danger)’ repeated the feat this week, dropping a further 4 from 10 to 14. This week, however, it had to share the award with 3 other songs and they were John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ which fell from 15 to 19, Kenny Nolan’s ‘I Like Dreamin’ which fell from 13 to 17 and Pussycat’s ‘My Broken Souvenirs’ which dropped from 11 to 15. Both Pussycat and John Paul Young were experiencing their 5^th time with the award and joined Abba and Vicky Leandros as the only non-big 3 nation artists who had seen this many. ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ was still the oldest on the charts, clocking up its 17^th week with us. It had been the oldest for 4 weeks now. John Paul Young was now in second place for the most weeks with the oldest in the chart by a non-big 3 act, only beaten by Germany’s Peter Maffay who had 10 to his name, while this was JPY’s 9^th week. Maffay had managed all his weeks with 1 song, ‘You’, while it had taken 5 weeks with ‘I Hate The Music’ and 4 with ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ to get John Paul Young to his 9 weeks.

‘Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)’ by Bebu Silvetti was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had been with us for 10 weeks and peaked at 4. This would be his only SA chart hit. It was also the last hit by an Argentinian act that we would see make the top 20. The only other one by and Argentinian had been Waldo de Los Rios’ ‘Mozart: Symphony No. 40 In G Minor K.550 1° Movement (Allegro Molto)’ which had managed a 14 week run and a peak of 2 was the better performing of the 2 hits. In total the 2 Argentinians would clock up 24 weeks which was currently the 16^th highest of the 21 nations that had charted so far. Ultimately it would be the 21^st of 28.

Also going was ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They?’ by Racing Cars. It managed 9 weeks and peaked at 10. Like Silvetti, this would be the band’s only SA chart hit.

Peter McCann’s ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’ was the highest of the 2 new entries with week, coming in at 16. McCann was primarily a songwriter but did manage to get to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US with this song as well as bagging a number 3 hit in New Zealand and topping the charts in Rhodesia. He has written songs that have been performed by a long list of luminaries of the music biz, including Kenny Rogers, Isaac Hayes, John Travolta, Paul Anka and Julio Iglesias to name a few. It is estimated that songs he has written have sold over 100,000,000 (one hundred million) copies. However, ‘Do You Wanna Make Love’, which he penned, would be the only one of his compositions to make our charts. It was the 200^th song by a solo American male artist to make our charts and the last 50 had taken 175 weeks to make our chart which was the second slowest of the four 50s that made up the 200.

David Dundas brought us the other new entry of the week and in so doing clocked up his second hit. ‘Another Funny Honeymoon’ would fail to emulate the success of his first hit, ‘Jeans On’. While the latter made number 3 in the UK, the former would stumble at number 29 and in the US ‘Another Funny Honeymoon’ would not chart where ‘Jeans On’ had managed to get to number 17. It would also not match the chart topping ‘Jeans On’ managed in Germany, only getting to 6 there, but in Austria it did manage to replicate a peak of 3.

The departure of Bebu Silvetti from the charts meant we dropped from the record to date 11 nations represented on the charts, down to 10. We had seen 2 weeks with 11.

Abba moved into tied 3^rd place on the weeks count list. They had amassed a total of 125 weeks which put them level with Elvis Presley and The Bee Gees. Only The Hollies on 137 and Tom Jones on 185 were ahead of them now.

Youtube playlist:

12 August 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
2	1	8	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
3	3	10	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
4	4	6	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
5	9	4	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
6	10	5	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
7	8	6	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
8	6	8	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
9	17	2	Ma Baker	–	Boney M
10	5	6	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
11	7	11	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
12	14	5	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
13	11	9	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
14	16	3	I Believe in You	–	Sharon Tandy & Graham Clarke
15	12	16	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
16	13	13	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
17	19	2	Give a Little Bit	–	Supertramp
18	15	9	They Shoot Horses Don’t They?	–	Racing Cars
19	New	1	I Feel Love	–	Donna Summer
20	18	10	Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)	–	Bebu Silvetti

Space’s ‘Magic Flight’ became the 7^th instrumental hit to top the charts and the 2^nd by a French act. The previous French instrumental chart topper was The Paul Mauriat Orchestra’s ‘Love Is Blue’ which managed 3 weeks at the top of the charts. The only other song by a French act to top the charts had been Colombus’ ‘Milky Ways’. ‘Magic Flight’ took over the top spot from 5000 Volts’ ‘(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud’ which had only spent 1 week at 1. It dropped to 2 this week. Acts from France, Ireland and Australia had each managed to spend 9 weeks in total at 1 so far. The Netherlands, Sweden and Canada (in that order) were the top 3 for weeks at 1 by non-big 3 nations.

Boney M’s ‘Ma Baker’ was the climber of the week with an 8 place jump from 17 to 9. This was their first biggest climber award and with their weeks count being on 21 they had the tied 13^th highest weeks count for an act seeing their first biggest climber, sharing the spot with Mungo Jerry. Engelbert Humperdinck’s 42 weeks before having his first climber of the week award was the record to date.

There were 2 other star raters, both of which climbed 4 places. Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch’s ‘Superman’ moved up from 9 to 5 while Baccara’s ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ climbed from 10 to 6.

Billy ocean picked up his first biggest faller award with a 5 place fall from 5 to 10 with ‘Red Light (Spells Danger)’.

The oldest on the charts was still John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ which was on 16 weeks and enjoying its 3^rd as the oldest.

Pendulum’s ‘Seabird’ was the only one to leave the chart this week. It had been with us for just 3 weeks and peaked at 18 in that time. This brought the curtain down on their SA chart career. They had seen 2 hits chart (the other being ‘Take My Heart’) and spent a total of 14 weeks in the charts. ‘Take My Heart’s peak of 6 was the best of their 2 hits.

The new entry this week was the second hit to come from Donna Summer. ‘I Feel Love’ followed up the success of ‘Could It Be Magic’ which had graced our charts in 1976. Summer shared song writer credits on the song with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. This was a 4^th hit as song writer for Moroder and a 3^rd for Bellotte. Moroder had brought us his 2 hits, ‘Looky Looky’ and ‘Today’s A Tomorrow’ as well as Chicory Tip’s ‘Son Of My Father’, while Bellotte had had song writing credits on the aforementioned Chicory Tip hit as well as Tony Marshall’s ‘Pretty Maid’. ‘I Feel Love’ would give Summer a number 1 hit in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Holland and the UK. It would also top the Hot Dance Club Play charts in the US and go to 6 on the main Hot 100 charts there. In total Summer has had 41 UK hits to date and 33 Hot 100 hits in the US. ‘I Feel Love’ is her only UK chart topper so far while she has managed 4 in the US, those being ‘MacArthur Park’, ‘No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)’, ‘Hot Stuff’ and ‘Bad Girls’. In 1985 Bronski Beat teamed up with ex-Soft Cell singer, Marc Almond to take a version of ‘I Feel Love’ to number 3 in the UK. The full version of this cover was actually a medley which included Summer’s ‘Love To Love You Baby’ and Johnny Leyton’s ‘Johnny Remember Me’. Sadly Donna died on 17 May 2012.

We still had a record to date 11 nations represented in the charts and this was the second week that we had seen this. We also had an instrumental track at number 1 and at number 20 (Bebu Silvetti’s ‘Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)’) and this was the 3^rd time we had seen an instrumental at the top and bottom of the charts. It would be the final time that we would have this happen.

Joe Dolan and John Paul Young both reached the 40 weeks in the chart milestone. They were the 79^th and 80^th act to get to this total.

The average number of weeks the top 20 songs had been with us crept over the 7 mark and sat at 7.05. It had been 22 weeks since it was last over 7.

Youtube playlist:

5 August 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	3	7	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
2	2	6	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
3	1	9	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
4	7	5	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
5	5	5	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
6	6	7	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
7	4	10	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
8	8	5	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
9	12	3	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
10	13	4	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
11	11	8	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
12	9	15	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
13	10	12	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
14	16	4	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
15	14	8	They Shoot Horses Don’t They?	–	Racing Cars
16	20	2	I Believe in You	–	Sharon Tandy & Graham Clarke
17	New	1	Ma Baker	–	Boney M
18	15	9	Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)	–	Bebu Silvetti
19	New	1	Give a Little Bit	–	Supertramp
20	18	3	Seabird	–	Pendulum

Looking at last week’s chart, you would have got better odds saying that if there was going to be a new number 1 then Space’s Magic Flight’ would be more likely to be it than 5000 Volts’ ‘(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud’ as the former had climbed 2 to 2 while the latter was unmoved at 3. However, those who had bet on 5000 Volts would have been the ones smiling as the song leapfrogged the Space hit to take the top spot and Joe Dolan’s ‘Hush Hush Maria’ dropped from1 to 3 after it had been at number 1 for 3 weeks.

The duet between Sharon Tandy and Graham Clarke, ‘I Believe In You’, was the climber of the week with a 4 place jump from 20 to 16. This was also the only star rater this week.

While we only had 1 climber, we saw 4 fallers for a second week running, however, where last week required a 4 place drop to be faller of the week, this week one only needed to drop 3 places to take the award. The 4 songs that did this were Bebu Silvetti’s ‘Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)’ which fell from 15 to 18, Abba’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ which fell from 10 to 13, John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ dropped from 9 to 12 and Pussycat’s ‘My Broken Souvenirs’ fell from 4 to 7. It was Silvetti’s second time with the award, a 4^th time for both Pussycat and John Paul Young and an 8^th time for Abba and they were 12^th act to reach this many. Before this week there had been 5 times when we had seen 2 acts who were not from the UK, the US or SA take the biggest faller in the same week. We had never seen 3 manage it, but now we had a record 4 in 1 go.

John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ moved on to 15 weeks in the chart and enjoyed its 2^nd as the oldest in the top 20.

We saw 2 songs leave the top 20 this week, the first of which was Dennis East’s ‘Stone Walls’ which had managed a run of 9 weeks and a peak of 12. This was the lowest weeks and peak figures for his 3 hits to date and sadly for him, was the end of his solo SA chart career. His 3 hits had managed to spend a total of 38 weeks in the charts and the peak of 5 that ‘A Million Drums’ had managed was the best peak of the 3. East would return to the top 20 as a member of Stingray and we would see his name in the song writing credits of a couple of hits, so it was not all over for him.

Also going was Shabby Tiger’s ‘Slow Down’ which managed 13 weeks and a peak of 3. While they never managed to chart in their native UK, they could take heart from the fact that this would not be their only SA chart hit as they had one more to come.

The first of the new entries was the second hit by Boney M, ‘Ma Baker’, which followed up the previous year’s success of ‘Daddy Cool’. The song would give them a 3rd chart topper in Germany and would just miss out on topping the UK charts, peaking at 2 and kept off the number 1 spot there by Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’. That would be their best UK placing to that date. Elsewhere it topped the charts in Austria, Belgium, France, Mexico, Holland, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Norway. It also gave them their second hit on the Billboard Hot 100, but only managed to scrape a peak of 96. The words of the song were based on the true story of Arizona Donnie Barker, or Ma Barker. A slight name change and a tune based on a popular Tunisian folksong called ‘Sidi Mansour’ became ‘Ma Baker’.

The other new entry was a first hit for Supertramp (aka Bakgat Boemelaar) with their song ‘Give A Little Bit’. The song made number 29 on the charts in their native UK and its best chart performance seems to be in Holland where it made it to number 2. In 2005, the Goo Goo Dolls took a version to number 37 in the US.

The arrival of Boney M, whom I have mentioned before will be classified as Jamaican for nation purposes, meant that we now had a new record 11 nations represented in the top 20. These were the UK, the US, SA, Argentina, Australia, France, Ireland, Jamaica, The Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. Jamaica had now seen 14 hits make the charts and they sat tied 8^th with Ireland on the list of number of hits by a nation.

Both Bonnie Tyler and Boney M reached the 20 weeks in the chart milestone. 190 acts had now managed to get to this total.

Pussycat saw their points total move on to 800 exactly. They were the 28^th act to get to 800 and the second, after Abba, that were not from the UK, the US or SA.

Youtube playlist:

29 July 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
2	4	5	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
3	3	6	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
4	2	9	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
5	6	4	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
6	7	6	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
7	12	4	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
8	9	4	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
9	5	14	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
10	8	11	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
11	16	7	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
12	18	2	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
13	13	3	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
14	10	7	They Shoot Horses Don’t They?	–	Racing Cars
15	11	8	Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)	–	Bebu Silvetti
16	17	3	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
17	14	13	Slow Down	–	Shabby Tiger
18	19	2	Seabird	–	Pendulum
19	15	9	Stone Walls	–	Dennis East
20	New	1	I Believe in You	–	Sharon Tandy & Graham Clarke

‘Hush Hush Maria’ by Joe Dolan spent a 3^rd straight week at number 1, holding off the challenge of Pussycat’s ‘My Broken Souvenirs’ which dropped from 2 to 4 while Space’s ‘Magic Fly’ became the new challenger, climbing 2 from 4. Dolan moved into tied 14^th place on the weeks at 1 list, sharing the place with The Hollies with both acts having spent a total of 9 weeks at 1.

Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch’s ‘Superman’ was the climber of the week with a 6 place jump from 18 to 12. There were 2 other star raters and both were by male artists having the first name of Kenny. Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ climbed 5 from 12 to 7 and Kenny Nolan’s ‘I Like Deamin’ also moved up 5, jumping from 16 to 11.

Falling honours were shared between 4 songs which all fell 4 places. The first of these was Dennis East’s ‘Stone Wall’ which fell from 15 to 19. Bebu Silvetti’s ‘Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)’ fell from 11 to 15, Racing Cars’ ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They’ fell from 10 to 14 and John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ dropped from 5 to 9.

The oldest song on last week’s charts, Leo Sayer’s ‘When I need You’, was the only song to leave the top 20 this week. It had managed a run of 14 weeks and peaked at 2. This was his best performance to date on both the weeks and peak fronts, beating his previous best (which had been by ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’) by 1 in both categories. There was still plenty more to come from him.

The new oldest on the charts was John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ which sat on 14 weeks. This was the 5^th song by an Aussie act to be the oldest on the charts with 2 of them being by The Seekers, 2 now by John Paul Young and 1 by Sherbet.

Sharon Tandy, who had last appeared on our charts in January 1973 as part of a duet with Billy Forrest with the hit, Hello-A’, was back on the charts, once again as part of a duet as her hit with Graham Clarke, ‘I Believe In You’ was our only new entry this week. The gap of 236 weeks was the 24^th biggest we had seen to date. It was also the 8^th biggest for a South African artist and the 4^th biggest for a female artist. Graham Clarke would have been known to many South Africans who, in the early days of SABC Television would have been addicted to watching ‘The Villagers’ in which Graham starred as the character Nick Wilmot. ‘I Believe In You’ was a cover of a song by Dutch act Rosy & Andres who had taken the song to number 26 in Holland.

Joe Dolan saw his points total move past the 500 mark. He was the 63^rd act to reach this milestone and had the 7^th highest points total for an act that was not from the US, the UK or SA.

We were down to having just 3 songs in the top 20 that had topped either or both the US and/or UK charts and it had been 31 weeks since this count had been this low. The 3 songs that had topped the charts in the UK or the US or both were Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’, Abba’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ and Baccara’s ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ which had all topped the UK charts. This meant that we had no US chart topper in the top 20 and this was the first time in 79 weeks that we had seen this.

Youtube playlist:

22 July 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
2	2	8	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
3	3	5	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
4	6	4	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
5	4	13	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
6	7	3	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
7	8	5	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
8	5	10	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
9	14	3	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
10	10	6	They Shoot Horses Don’t They?	–	Racing Cars
11	9	7	Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)	–	Bebu Silvetti
12	13	3	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
13	20	2	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara
14	11	12	Slow Down	–	Shabby Tiger
15	15	8	Stone Walls	–	Dennis East
16	12	6	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
17	18	2	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
18	New	1	Superman	–	Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch
19	New	1	Seabird	–	Pendulum
20	17	14	When I Need You	–	Leo Sayer

Having gained the top spot last week, Joe Dolan’s ‘Hush Hush Maria’ held on to it to make it 2 weeks in a row at 1. Adding the 6 weeks that his ‘Lady In Blue’ managed, he now had 8 weeks at 1 to his name and sat tied 15^th with Kris Kristofferson and Tommy Roe for this stat. Pussycat were desperately trying to break their peak sequence of 1-2-1-2 as ‘My Broken Souvenirs’, which had moved back to number 2 after dropping to 3 last week, clung on to second spot, hoping to dislodge the number 1 hit to make the sequence 1-2-1-1.

Baccara took the climber of the week award with a 7 place climb by ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ from 20 to 13. Both the previous 2 hits by Spanish acts that had charted so far – Los Bravos’ ‘Black Is Black’ and Miguel Rios’ ‘A Song Of Joy’ – had managed biggest climbers and with the latter getting the award twice. This gave us the 4^th time a Spanish act had taken the award. Bonnie Tyler’s ‘More Than A Lover’ was the only other star rater this week. It moved up 5 from 14 to 9 and it was Tyler’s 3^rd star rater.

The faller of the week award went to Kenny Nolan’s ‘I Like Dreamin’ which fell 4 from 12 to 16.

Roy Bulkin’s ‘Make Her An Angel’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had managed a run of 8 weeks and a peak of 6. This equalled his best peak to date which ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ had managed.

We also bid farewell to Julie Covington’s ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ which had spent 15 weeks in the chart, 7 of which had been at number 1. This was the first of 2 hits by Covington that would make our charts. ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ had been the oldest on last week’s chart and that honour now fell to Leo Sayer’s ‘When I Need You’ which was sitting on 14 weeks but was also sitting at 20 so it was not looking likely that it would have a long run as the oldest. The last time Sayer had seen the oldest in the chart it was with ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ which only lasted 1 week as the oldest.

Three months prior to this week we had seen the departure of The Rice And Beans Orchestra’s ‘The Blue Danube Hustle’ from the charts and I mentioned then that the wife of Pepe Luis Soto, the band leader of this ‘orchestra’ would see chart action. This week Celida Ines Camacho, Pepe’s wife, had one of the new entries going under the name of Celi Bee & The Buzzy Bunch. Her song, which was written by Pepe, was called ‘Superman’ and it went to number 41 on the US Hot 100 charts as well as making number 3 on the Dance Music/Club Play charts there. It would be her only charting song in the US. In the UK, ‘Superman’ failed to chart, but Celi managed to get to 72 with a song called ‘Hold Your Horses Baby’.

Local group Pendulum clocked up their second hit as ‘Seabird’ entered the charts at number 19. The song was a cover of one written and recorded by The Alessi Brothers (sometimes just known as Alessi) Billy and Bobby. Interestingly another band called The Pendulum (possible from the US) recorded a cover of a Billy Alessi composition called ‘Now I’ll Cry’.

With both new entries being by groups, the total number of hits in the top 20 by such acts jumped from 9 to 11. It had been 17 weeks since at least half of the top 20 hits were by groups.

Youtube playlist:

15 July 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	4	6	Hush Hush Maria	–	Joe Dolan
2	3	7	My Broken Souvenirs	–	Pussycat
3	8	4	(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud	–	5000 Volts
4	1	12	Yesterday’s Hero	–	John Paul Young
5	2	9	Knowing Me, Knowing You	–	ABBA
6	7	3	Magic Flight (Aka Magic Fly)	–	Space
7	11	2	Red Light Spells Danger	–	Billy Ocean
8	9	4	Crossfire	–	Bellamy Brothers
9	5	6	Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)	–	Bebu Silvetti
10	13	5	They Shoot Horses Don’t They?	–	Racing Cars
11	6	11	Slow Down	–	Shabby Tiger
12	10	5	I Like Dreamin’	–	Kenny Nolan
13	17	2	Lucille	–	Kenny Rogers
14	16	2	More Than a Lover	–	Bonnie Tyler
15	18	7	Stone Walls	–	Dennis East
16	12	15	Don’t Cry for Me Argentina	–	Julie Covington
17	15	13	When I Need You	–	Leo Sayer
18	New	1	Gimme Dat Banana	–	Strobe
19	14	8	Make Her an Angel	–	Roy Bulkin
20	New	1	Yes Sir, I Can Boogie	–	Baccara

This week we saw the 200^th different song top the charts as Joe Dolan’s ‘Hush Hush Maria’ took over the number 1 spot from John Paul Young’s ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ The latter had been at 1 for 2 weeks. This was the 7^th time an act from the non-big 3 nations had taken over the top spot from another such act and with Abba’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ being the chart topper before ‘Yesterday’s Hero’ we saw the 2^nd time where we had 3 number 1s in a row by acts not from SA, the US or the UK. Abba had also been the act on the first of the previous run of 3 when their ‘Dancing Queen’ was followed by Pussycat’s (from The Netherlands) ‘Mississippi’ and then immediately by Aussie band Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’.  ‘Hush Hush Maria’ was Dolan’s second chart topper (his previous being ‘Lady In Blue’) and he was the only Irish act so far to make it to number 1.

5000 Volts picked up their 4^th biggest climber of the week as ‘(Walkin’ on a) Love Cloud’ moved up 5 from 8 to 3 to take the award. The other star raters were Billy Ocean’s ‘Red Light (Spells Danger)’ which climbed 4 from 11 to 7 and Kenny Rogers’ ‘Lucille’ which moved up 4 from 17 to 13.

We had 2 fallers of the week and if we assume that the first of these was the one that landed at the lower place in the charts, then it would have been Roy Bulkin’s ‘Make Her An Angel’ which had the honour of being the 900^th song to see a biggest faller. It fell 5 from 14 to 19. If you prefer to count your biggest climbers from the top position down, then it would be Shabby Tiger’s ‘Slow Down’ that was the 900^th faller of the week. It dropped 5 from 6 to 11.

Julie Covington’s ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ was the oldest on the charts. It had been so for 3 weeks now and had accumulated a total of 15 weeks.

The Sweet’s illustrious SA chart career came to an end this week with the departure of ‘Fever Of Love’ from the top 20. They had scored 9 top 20 hits, spent 115 weeks in the charts and currently sat tied 8^th with The Troggs on the weeks count list, having peaked at 7 on that list. They had seen 3 songs top the charts (Funny Funny’ ‘Co-Co’ and ‘Fox on The Run’) and they would be the only act who would ever take over the top spot from themselves as ‘Co-Co’ had dislodged ‘Funny Funny’ from number 1. They also currently sat at the top of the list of weeks at 1 having managed 19 there. This total would be the tied 3^rd highest overall by the time the charts ended.

We also bid farewell to Mary MacGregor’s ‘Torn Between Two Lovers’ which lasted 9 weeks and peaked at 6. This would be her only SA chart hit.

The first of the new entries was by a local band called Strobe with their cover of ‘Gimme Dat Banana’. The song was originally a minor hit in the UK for Black Gorilla where it made number 29 and also made 20 in Sweden. Another version by Alston Koch & Dark Tan made 72 in Australia in 1979. Interestingly, Black Gorilla’s version would only enter the UK charts on 27 August 1977, a month and a week after Strobe made our charts. I have been unable to find any information about the group Strobe, but the song was released on David Gresham’s Nitty Gritty label and produced by Gresham himself.

Our second new entry was the third by a Spanish artist to chart. Baccara’s ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ followed Miguel Rios’ 1970 hit ‘A Song Of Joy’ and Los Bravos’ ‘Black Is Black’ in flying the Spanish flag in our charts. ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ topped the charts in The UK, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Sweden and Norway and fell just short of topping the charts in their native Spain and Austria where it peaked at 2. In New Zealand it managed to get to 33 and 30 in Italy. Baccara consisted of Mayte Mateos (born 7 February 1951, Logroño) and María Mendiola (born 4 April 1952, Madrid) and this, their first single, would go on to sell approximately 16 million copies worldwide, making it the 8th biggest selling single of all time. It had been 353 weeks since Miguel Rios had graced our charts and this was a new record to date gap between hits by acts from a nation. It took over the lead from Argentina who had seen 303 weeks between hits and the song which broke the Argentinian drought, Bebu Silvetti’s ‘Spring Rain (Part 1) (Lluvia De Primavera)’ sat at 9 this week.

Baccara helped to set a record to date 10 different nations represented in the charts. This week’s top 20 was made up of 7 songs by acts from the UK, 3 each from the US and SA and 1 apiece from Argentina, Australia, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden and Spain.

Abba celebrated reaching 120 weeks in the chart. Reaching this landmark was not enough to move them up the weeks count list as they sat 5^th and were 5 behind The Bee Gees and Elvis who sat tied just above them. The Bellamy Brothers meanwhile reached the 20 week mark.

Youtube playlist: