7 September 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	9	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
2	1	12	Some Girls	–	Racey
3	5	6	Pop Muzik	–	M
4	3	6	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss
5	4	6	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
6	10	4	Born to be Alive	–	Patrick Hernandez
7	7	7	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
8	6	14	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
9	8	8	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
10	9	13	For Your Love	–	Chilly
11	12	3	Good Times	–	Chic
12	17	3	How Could This Go Wrong	–	Exile
13	New	1	Fire	–	Pointer Sisters
14	14	6	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
15	18	2	Halfway Hotel	–	Voyager
16	13	11	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
17	11	12	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
18	19	2	Shine a Little Love	–	Electric Light Orchestra
19	New	1	Sometimes When We Touch	–	Dan Hill
20	15	7	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie

Having regained the top spot last week, Racey‘s ‘Some Girls’ could not hold on to it and relinquished it back to Joe Dolan’s ‘My Love’ this was the 5^th time we had seen 2 songs swap place twice at the top of the charts. ‘Some Girls’ had clocked up a total of 7 weeks at 1. It was Dolan’s 13^th week in total at 1 and this moved him into tied 5^th place overall for weeks at 1 joining Boney M, Chris Andrews and Johnny Nash there.

Exile’s ‘How Could This Go Wrong’ gave them their 2^nd biggest climber award as it climbed 5 from 17 to 12. They had picked up their previous one with ‘Kiss You All Over’. Patrick Henandez’s ‘Born To Be Alive’ was a star rater for a 3^rd week running as it climbed 4 from 10 to 6. Only 1 of those 3 star rater climbs had scooped the song a biggest climber award.

Faller of the week was The Dooleys’ ‘Honey I’m Lost’ which fell 6 from 11 to 17.

Eruption’s ‘One Way Ticket’ left the charts this week after 15 weeks and a peak at 5. As the song title suggested, there was no return for Eruption as this ended their SA chart career. They had seen 2 hits charts (the other being ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’), spent a total of 26 weeks in the charts and both songs peaked at 5.

The other song to go also had a sense of finality to it in the title as it was Wings’ ‘Goodnight Tonight’. It managed a run of 5 weeks and a peak of 15, the mirror opposite of its fellow leaver. This would be the last we would see of hits attributed to the band. They had managed 5 hits, spent 65 weeks in the charts and their beast peak was the chart topping ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ which spent a total of 5 weeks at 1. There would be further hits by Paul McCartney to chart, but none would be with Wings.

Eruption’s ‘One Way Ticket’ had been the oldest on last week’s chart and that title now fell to Supertramp’s ‘The Logical Song’ which was on 14 weeks.

The first new entry was ‘Fire’, a Pointer Sister’s cover of a Bruce Springsteen song. Springsteen wrote the track in 1977 with Elvis Presley in mind to record it. He sent a demo off, but sadly Elvis died before he got it. Springsteen recorded his own version, but felt that it didn’t fit in thematically with the rest of the material on his album, ‘Darkness On The Edge Of Town’ so it sat around till Springsteen released the box set ‘The Promise’ in 2010. There were, however, live versions from him which did make other albums and one of them made it to 46 in the US when it was released as a single. The Pointer Sisters’ version would top the charts in New Zealand and The Netherlands as well as getting to 2 in the US and 34 in the UK. Toto’s David Paich plays organ and piano on the track.

Dan Hill had seen 2 songs chart on our charts already, but this week we saw the debut SA chart hit for Dan Hill. Confused? Well the answer is quite simple really. The Dan Hill who had previously charted was a local lad while the one charting this week was a Canadian bloke. His new entry was ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ and it was the 32^nd song by a Canadian to make our charts. Canada was the highest ranking non-big 3 nation for number of hits, sitting 4^th behind the big 3 – the US, the UK and SA. Hill wrote the song along with Barry Mann and while it was Hill’s first hit as songwriter, it was a 7^th for Mann who had brought us hits such as The Staccatos ‘Come Back Silly Girl’, Jody Wayne’s ‘Patches’ and Waterloo’s ‘Rock And Roll Lullaby’ amongst others. ‘Sometimes When We Touch’ has been widely covered, including by Tina Turner, Tammy Wynette, Demis Roussos, Bonnie Tyler, Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart. It would top the charts in Canada and go to 3 in the US and 13 in the UK. Dan Hill was 9,227 days old when he charted and that was the exact same age Bobbie Gentry had been when she charted with ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’. This was the 24^th time we had seen someone chart at exactly the same age as a previous charter.

Sweden pulled ahead of Australia for weeks in the charts by acts from those nations. Sweden had now clocked up 199 compared to Australia’s 198 and sat 7^th overall with Australia dropping into 8^th place.

Peter Vee became the 23^rd local act to reach 40 weeks on the charts as his total moved on to this milestone. He was the 13^th local male to reach 40 weeks.

Youtube playlist:

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31 August 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	11	Some Girls	–	Racey
2	1	8	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
3	4	5	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss
4	3	5	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
5	8	5	Pop Muzik	–	M
6	6	13	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
7	5	6	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
8	7	7	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
9	9	12	For Your Love	–	Chilly
10	14	3	Born to be Alive	–	Patrick Hernandez
11	11	11	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
12	19	2	Good Times	–	Chic
13	12	10	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
14	13	5	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
15	10	6	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
16	15	5	Goodnight Tonight	–	Wings
17	16	2	How Could This Go Wrong	–	Exile
18	New	1	Halfway Hotel	–	Voyager
19	New	1	Shine a Little Love	–	Electric Light Orchestra
20	18	15	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption

‘Some Girls’ by Racey became the 21^st song to regain the top spot after dropping off it as it moved back to number 1 after Joe Dolan’s ‘My Love’ had interrupted its run there for 1 week. Of the 21 songs that had regained the top spot, 3 had managed to climb back to number 1 a second time. It was a 7^th week in total at 1 for ‘Some Girls’.

Climber of the week was Chic’s ‘Good Times’ which moved up 7 from 19 to 12. This was the band’s second time with the award having picked one up with their previous hit, ‘Le Freak’. Last week’s climber, Patrick Hernandez’s ‘Born To Be Alive’ was the only other star rater with a 4 place climb from 14 to 10.

Blondie picked up their second faller of the week award with ‘Sunday Girl’ dropping 5 from 10 to 15. Their previous hit, ‘Heart Of Glass’ had also picked up the award once.

Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ was only the oldest on the charts for 1 week as it fell just short of the 20 week mark, departing from the top 20 after 19 weeks with us. Those following this blog regularly would know that it had spent an all-time record 9 straight weeks at 2, kept off the top spot firstly by Richard Jon Smith’s ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’ and then Racey’s ‘Some Girls’. It was, however, by far the best performer of her 3 hits to date with neither of her previous 2 (‘Reach Out, I’ll Be There’ and ‘Walk On By’) getting to double figures for weeks nor making the top 10. There was still 1 more hit to come from Gloria. The new oldest on the charts was Eruption’s ‘One Way Ticket’ which was on 18 weeks.

Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’ was the only other song to depart the chart this week. It lasted 6 weeks and peaked at 15, the worst performing on both the weeks and peak front of his 3 hits which would be the only 3 solo ones he would see make our charts. He had managed 24 weeks with those 3 and enjoyed a best peak of 8 which ‘I Shall Sing’ managed. He had also seen 4 other hits as one half of Simon & Garfunkel which, if added to his solo hits gave him 7 hits, 73 weeks and a best peak of 1 with ‘The Sounds Of Silence’ which sat at the top of the charts for 1 week.

Our first new entry was ‘Halfway Hotel’ by British band Voyager. The song would give them a number 33 hit in the UK and would be their only hit there. It would also make it to 18 in Sweden, 19 in Zimbabwe and 23 in New Zealand. Band member John Marter would go on to join Marillion for a while and he and fellow band mate Chris Hook would play in both Deep Purple and Yes tribute bands called The Purple Project and Fragile respectively. In 1981 Voyager were the support act for the band who were responsible for our second new entry this week.

‘Shine a Little Love’ was Electric Light Orchestra’s (aka ELO) 3^rd SA chart hit. It would give them a number 6 hit in the UK spending 10 weeks in the charts which were a top 75 at that time. It was their 16^th UK chart hit. Other notable chartings were getting to 4 in Canada and Ireland, 8 in the US and 10 in The Netherlands. It also had the distinction of being the 500^th song by a British act to make our charts.

With both songs that dropped off the chart being by solo artists and both the new entries being by groups we now saw a record equalling 16 of the top 20 songs being by groups. This would be the most we would see for any act type in the top 20 era.

Sweden caught up with Australia for weeks in the charts by acts from those nations. They sat tied 7^th with 198 week each to their respective names.

Joe Dolan became the 26^th act to reach 80 weeks in the charts and joined Boney M in second place for weeks by acts from the non-big 3 nations (i.e. not from the UK, the US or SA). Sweden’s Abba on 187 weeks was the leader for this.

And talking of Abba, they saw their points total move past the 2,500 mark as it moved on to 2,506. They sat second overall behind The Bee gees who were on 2,701.

Youtube playlist:

24 August 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	4	7	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
2	1	10	Some Girls	–	Racey
3	6	4	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
4	7	4	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss
5	9	5	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
6	3	12	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
7	5	6	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
8	14	4	Pop Muzik	–	M
9	2	11	For Your Love	–	Chilly
10	8	5	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
11	11	10	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
12	10	9	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
13	12	4	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
14	20	2	Born to be Alive	–	Patrick Hernandez
15	16	4	Goodnight Tonight	–	Wings
16	New	1	How Could This Go Wrong	–	Exile
17	17	6	Bright Eyes	–	Art Garfunkel
18	18	14	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption
19	New	1	Good Times	–	Chic
20	13	19	I Will Survive	–	Gloria Gaynor

Don’t you just hate it when you are queueing and someone comes and pushes in. Well that’s how Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ must have felt as it sat at 2 for 4 weeks waiting patiently for their time at 1 while Racey’s ‘Some Girls’ hogged the top spot for 6 weeks. However, when ‘Some Girls’ finally relinquished the number 1 spot this week, it wasn’t Chilly’s hit that took over, but rather it was Joe Dolan’s ‘My Love’. To add insult to injury, ‘My Love’ had actually dropped 1 place from 3 to 4 last week. There had been 21 songs now that reached the number 1 spot for the first time after having experienced at least 1 drop in position on its way to the top. This was Dolan’s 4^th chart topper and he was the 6^th act to clock up this many. In terms of weeks at 1, it was his 12^th and he now sat tied 8^th with Charisma.

M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ was the climber of the week for a second week running as it moved up a further 6 places from 14 to 8. It was joined this week by Patrick Hernandez’s ‘Born To Be Alive’ which climbed from 20 to 14. Century’s ‘The Face In The Mirror’ was the only other star rater this week, climbing 4 from 9 to 5.

Apart from not making that final step from 2 to 1 Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ had to settle for the indignity of being one of the 2 fallers of the week. It dropped 7 places from 2 to 9. This was the tied second biggest drop from 2 that any song had seen with Chic’s ‘Le Freak’ being the other one to manage this. Barbra Streisand’s ‘Mother’ had fallen from 2 to 10, the all-time biggest fall from 2. These 3 would be the only 3 songs to see a fall to 9 or lower from second place. Joining Chilly in the biggest fall was Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ which dropped from 13 to 20. Would it survive into next week? Stay tuned.

Two songs left the charts, the first of which was ‘Chiquitita’ by Abba which had seen a run of 20 weeks, 1 of which had been spent at 1. This continued their incredible run of having every hit so far (of which there had been 13 previous and 1 still in the charts) go top 10 and only 1 of those failed to get to double figures for weeks. It was the best effort for weeks of their 14 hits to date. ‘Chiquitita’ had been the oldest on last week’s chart and that honour now fell to Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ which was on 19 weeks.

We also bid farewell to Richard Jon Smith’s ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’. It had been with us for 17 weeks and spent 9 of them at 1, taking over the top spot from the Abba hit mentioned above. We still had a few more hit from him to look forward to. This was the 19^th time we had lost 2 former chart toppers in the same week. We would never see more than 2 ex-number 1’s leave the top 20 in the same week.

Exile returned from chart exile with their second hit to date, ‘How Could This Go Wrong’. The song was written by band member JP Pennington along with Linda Lawley, Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn. This was a 22^nd hit for the Chapman/Chinn song writing team and they were now in 3^rd place, just 1 behind Barry Gibb who was in second place for hits by a song writer and 3 behind the leader, Terry Dempsey. Internationally, ‘How Could This Go Wrong’ would make a number of charts but not get very high in them, its best peak that I could find being 12 in Germany. Elsewhere it went to 24 in Belgium, 25 in Austria, 46 in the Netherlands, 67 in the UK and 88 in the US.

Also seeing their 2^nd hit make the top 20 was Chic who’s new one was ‘Good Times’. Like their previous SA chart hit, ‘Le Freak’, ‘Good Times’ would top the US charts. It would go 2 places better in the UK peaking at 5 there where ‘Le Freak’ only managed to get to 7. The song would famously be sampled later in 1979 by The Sugarhill Gang for their song ‘Rapper’s Delight’ which would become one of the first rap songs to have commercial success. It would also inspire Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ while The Cure’s ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’ also features a similar funky beat.

With both the new entries being by American acts, the gap between hits by US acts and those by UK acts increased to a new record of 37 with the Yanks on 535 and the Poms on 498.

Abba now took 2^nd place on the weeks count list for themselves as they pulled 1 ahead of Tom Jones with 187 to their name. The last time Jones had been as low as 3 on the weeks count list was on 3 November 1967, 616 weeks (or if you prefer 11 years 9 months and 21 days), previously.

Joe Dolan became the 20^th act to see their points total reach the 1,000 mark as he ticked over to 1,001.

Lastly, this week had the lowest letter count to date for the acts in the top 20. If you add up the number of letters in the name of all the acts in this week’s chart you get 165 which was 1 less than the previous record which we had seen on 4 & 11 May 1979. Bet your life is enriched by knowing that!

Youtube playlist:

17 August 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Some Girls	–	Racey
2	2	10	For Your Love	–	Chilly
3	4	11	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
4	3	6	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
5	5	5	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
6	6	3	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
7	10	3	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss
8	9	4	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
9	7	4	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
10	12	8	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
11	8	9	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
12	14	3	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
13	11	18	I Will Survive	–	Gloria Gaynor
14	18	3	Pop Muzik	–	M
15	13	17	Michael Row the Boat Ashore	–	Richard Jon Smith
16	20	3	Goodnight Tonight	–	Wings
17	15	5	Bright Eyes	–	Art Garfunkel
18	16	13	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption
19	19	20	Chiquitita	–	ABBA
20	New	1	Born to be Alive	–	Patrick Hernandez

We had seen 222 songs top the chart so far and of those 35 (just under 16%) had spent at least 6 weeks at 1. Racey’s ‘Some Girls’ became that 35^th song to manage it this week as it continued to hold on to the top spot with Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ spending a frustrating 4^th straight week at 2.

There were 2 songs that shared the climber of the week award, the first being M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ which climbed 4 from 18 to 14. The other one was Wings’ ‘Goodnight Tonight’ which became the 10^th song to pick up a biggest climber award after re-entering the charts. It moved up from 20 to 16. As the biggest climb was 4 places, there were no other star raters this week (a star rater in case you missed it is a climb of 4 or more places in a week).

The Dooley’s ‘Honey I’m Lost’ was the faller of the week dropping 3 from 8 to 11. We had seen 741 charts so far and this was the 84^th time the faller was 3 or less places, making it just over 11% of the time that the faller was this low.

Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’ was still the oldest on the chart as it became the 52^nd song to reach the 20 weeks in the chart mark. It was its 3^rd week as the oldest. For an act that had clocked up so many weeks in the charts, Abba’s songs had spent surprisingly little time as the oldest. In fact of the top 5 acts for weeks in the charts, Abba had the lowest weeks as oldest count, they were on 7. The others in ascending order were Elvis Presley (131 weeks 10 as the oldest), The Hollies (137 weeks, 16 as oldest) and tied at the top were Tom Jones (185 weeks, 18 as oldest) and The Bee Gees (203 weeks 18 as oldest). In percentage terms Abba had only spent 3.8% of their weeks as the oldest and the next lowest was Elvis who had managed 7.6% of his weeks. The Hollies had the highest percentage of these 5 with 11.7%.

The Doobie Bother’s ‘What a Fool Believes’ was the only song to fall off the top 20 this week. It had been with us for 13 weeks and peaked at 7. This ended their SA chart career with 2 hits to their name (the other having been ‘Long Train Runnin’). They had accumulated 21 weeks and the peak of 7 by ‘What a Fool Believes’ was the better of the 2 peaks. The singer from the band, Michael McDonald, would see some further chart action in SA.

The newcomer was Frenchman Patrick Hernandez. He had a Spanish father and Italian mother, hence the Spanish surname, but was born in the suburbs of Paris. ‘Born To Be Alive’ would be his only major hit, but it was a worldwide smash going to number 1 in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. It topped the Billboard National Disco Action charts in US and went to 16 on the main Hot 100 there while also reaching 10 in the UK. It shifted in excess of 1 million units in France and the US and a quarter of a million in both the UK and Germany. For the world tour that followed the success of the single, Henandez recruited dancers in New York and this troupe included a very young Madonna. France moved into tied 8^th place on the list of hits by acts from a nation. They were now equal with Jamaica on 18 (note: Jamaica’s total includes Boney M who could also have been classified as German). Hernandez was exactly the same age the date he charted as Austin Roberts was when he charted with ‘Rocky’ (11,090 days old). This was the 23^rd time a person had charted being exactly the same age as a previous charter.

Richard Jon Smith became the 47^th act to reach 60 weeks in the charts and he was the 13^th local act to manage this.

On the main weeks count list we saw Abba catch up with Tom Jones to share tied second place with both acts on 185 weeks. Jones had been the top act for over a decade before The Bee Gees (who were on 203 as noted above) eventually topped him.

Both Abba and Blondie had now featured on the charts for 20 consecutive weeks. Abba had managed this with ‘Chiquitita’ alone (although ‘Does Your Mother Know’ had now joined it) while Blondie had seen 16 weeks with ‘Heart Of Glass’, then 1 week with both ‘Heart Of Glass’ and ‘Sunday Girl’ and so far a further 2 with just ‘Sunday Girl’.

Youtube playlist:

10 August 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Some Girls	–	Racey
2	2	9	For Your Love	–	Chilly
3	4	5	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
4	3	10	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
5	5	4	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
6	12	2	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
7	14	3	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
8	7	8	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
9	8	3	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
10	20	2	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss
11	6	17	I Will Survive	–	Gloria Gaynor
12	10	7	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
13	9	16	Michael Row the Boat Ashore	–	Richard Jon Smith
14	19	2	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
15	15	4	Bright Eyes	–	Art Garfunkel
16	11	12	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption
17	13	13	What a Fool Believes	–	Doobie Brothers
18	18	2	Pop Muzik	–	M
19	17	19	Chiquitita	–	ABBA
20	RE	2	Goodnight Tonight	–	Wings

Racey’s ‘Some Girls’ became the 57^th song to manage to spend 5 weeks at number 1 as it clung on to the top spot for another week, keeping Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ at bay as the latter saw a 3^rd frustrating week at 2.

Kiss’ ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ was the climber of the week with a 10 place jump from 20 to 10. This was the 89^th song to climb 10 or more in a week.

There were 3 other star raters and these were Anita Ward’s ‘Ring My Bell’ which climbed 6 from 12 to 6, Century’s ‘The Face In The Mirror’ which jumped 7 from 14 to 7 and Abba’s ‘Does Your Mother Know’ which moved up 5 from 19 to 14. This was Abba’s 25^th time seeing a star rater and only The Bee Gees had managed more as they had 27 to their name.

On the falling front it was Gloria Gaynor and Eruption that took the honours for biggest drop. Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ fell 5 from 6 to 11 while Eruptions ‘One Way Ticket’ dropped from 11 to 16. It was a second time with the award for both acts.

Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’ was the oldest on the charts for a second week as it ticked over to 19 weeks with us. It was so close to the 20 week milestone, but had dropped 2 to 19 so it was not looking promising for it to make it. Despite having seen 14 hits chart, of which only 3 so far had not made the top 3, Abba were yet to see a 20-weeker.

Promises’ ‘Baby It’s You’ was the only song to depart the chart this week. It had been with us for 15 weeks and peaked at 3. This was the 4^th best performance on a points basis for a song by a Canadian act. It managed 198 points while the best performing Canadian song so far was Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ which had managed 305 points. ‘Baby It’s You’ would be Promises only SA chart hit.

Wings’ ‘Goodnight Tonight’ returned to the charts after an absence of 6 weeks. This was the 3^rd biggest gap for song returning to the charts. The 2 bigger gaps were The Staccatos’ ‘Cry To Me’ which took a 24 week leave of absence while Rick Nelson’s ‘I Need You’ (which had been the number 1 hit on the very first chart in 1965) returned to the charts after a 218 week break. This was the second song by an ex-Beatle to re-enter the charts and would be the last to manage this. The other one to do so was John Lennon’s ‘Mother.

Germany was clocking up 2 weeks a week on its week’s count as both Chilly and Century were German acts and in the top 20. This meant that the German acts clocked up their 200^th week in total which moved them past Australia. They were in 6^th place overall while the Aussies dropped into 7^th place.

Our run of having an act reach the 20 week milestone was extended to 5 weeks in a row as Blondie hit that mark this week. Above them, we saw Gloria Gaynor get to the 40 week mark. She was the 89^th act to manage this and the 12^th woman to do so.

Youtube playlist:

3 August 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Some Girls	–	Racey
2	2	8	For Your Love	–	Chilly
3	4	9	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
4	15	4	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
5	11	3	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
6	3	16	I Will Survive	–	Gloria Gaynor
7	5	7	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
8	14	2	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
9	6	15	Michael Row the Boat Ashore	–	Richard Jon Smith
10	9	6	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
11	7	11	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption
12	New	1	Ring My Bell	–	Anita Ward
13	8	12	What a Fool Believes	–	Doobie Brothers
14	20	2	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century
15	16	3	Bright Eyes	–	Art Garfunkel
16	10	15	Baby it’s You	–	Promises
17	13	18	Chiquitita	–	ABBA
18	New	1	Pop Muzik	–	M
19	New	1	Does Your Mother Know	–	ABBA
20	New	1	I was Made for Lovin’ You	–	Kiss

Racey’s ‘Some Girls’ clocked up its 4^th straight week at 1, seeing off the challenge from Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ which sat at 2 for a second week and Supertramp’s ‘The Logical Song’ which climbed 1 from 4 to 3. ‘Some Girls’ clocked up the 260^th week at 1 for a song by a British act.

Joe Dolan picked up his 3^rd climber of the week award with an 11 place climb by ‘My Love’ which moved up from 15 to 4. This was the 6^th time in 1979 that we had seen a song climb 11 or more places and this was a new record for a calendar year. The previous best of 5 was seen in 1968. Overall 41 songs had seen a climb of 11 or more in a week.

Three other songs made star rater climbs and these were Buffalo featuring Peter Vee’s ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ (which was last week’s climber of the week) which climbed 6 from 11 to 5, Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’ which climbed 6 from 14 to 8 and Century’s ‘The Face In The Mirror’ which climbed 6 from 20 to 14.

Promises’ ‘Baby It’s You’ was the faller of the week with a 6 place drop from 10 to 16.

The oldest song on last week’s chart was the first of 4 to leave the top 20 this week. Frankie Miller’s ‘Darlin’ spent 20 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 6. This was the lowest peak so far for a song lasting 20 weeks or more in the charts. The previous lowest peak was 5 which Double Vision’s ‘Maori Love Song’ managed. This would be Miller’s only SA chart hit. The new oldest on the top 20 was Abba’s ‘Chiquitita’ which was on 18 weeks.

Boney M’s ‘Hooray! Hooray! it’s a Holi-Holiday’ lasted 10 weeks and peaked at 12. It was the first of their 6 hits to date that did not make the top 10. All of their hits made at least 10 weeks in the charts except ‘Rasputin’ which only managed 7. They had more hits to come.

Anton Goosen’s ‘Kruidjie-Roer-My-Nie’ lasted 16 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 10. This would be his only SA chart hit as an artist and his last as a song writer. Overall he had seen 4 of his compositions chart which had clocked up a total of 41 weeks with Gene Rockwell’s ‘My Life’s In Good Hands (Jesus, Sweet Jesus)’ giving him his highest peak of 8.

Last to go was Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ which managed 17 weeks and peaked at 2. Their run with 2 in the charts only lasted the 1 weeks as their other hit, ‘Sunday Girl’ had been a new entry last week.

Anita Ward’s ‘Ring My Bell’ was the first of the new entries. The song had originally been written for Stacy Lattisaw (who as 11 at the time) to record but, as she changed record labels just at that time, the song was offered to Anita instead. It would go on to become a worldwide smash hit, going to number 1 in Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, the UK and the US, shifting over half a million units in the UK. Anita would only have 1 other hit make the US charts in the form of ‘Don’t Drop My Love’ which made it to 86 there. ‘Ring My Bell’ has been her only UK chart hit to date.

Our second new entry was by an act that would be the only one to chart where their name was only 1 letter and that was M with their hit ‘Pop Muzik’. M was essentially a guy called Robin Scott. ‘Pop Muzik’ would give him a number 1 hit in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. In the UK it went to 2, kept off the top spot there by Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’ (which was at 15 this week on our charts). ‘Pop Muzik’ would go on to be covered by none other than U2. Scott himself would go on to record and album called ‘Jive Shikisha’ with a South African band called Shikisha which was released on 1998.

Abba saw their 14^th hit make our charts this week in the form of ‘Does Your Mother Know’. They were the 6^th act so far to see this many hits chart and they sat tied 5^th overall for hits alongside Elvis Presley. ‘Does Your Mother Know’ was one of the few Abba songs that featured Bjorn Ulveaus on lead vocals instead of Agnetha and/or Frida. Like our other new entries this week, it would also make it to the top of the charts in a number of countries although these were only Germany and Belgium, far fewer than the other 2 mentioned above. It would peak at 2 in Canada and Finland. In the UK it would make it to 4 and would be one of 10 of their songs that would make the top 20 in the US, peaking at 19 there. As mentioned above, Abba’s previous hit, ‘Chiquitita’ was the oldest on this week’s chart and they became the 66^th act to see 2 or more in the charts in the same week.

The final new entry was Kiss’ ‘I Was Made For Loving You’. We had already seen band member Ace Frehley chart (with ‘New York Groove’) but this was the first SA hit for Kiss. The single would shift over a million units in the US, but would only make it to number 11 there. It fared better in terms of chart position in Belgium, Canada and The Netherlands where it topped the charts. As with Ace Frehley’s solo hit, we also saw South African born Anton Fig playing the drums on this hit.

With Kiss having a new entry and Abba now having 2 in the charts we had a record equalling 3 hits by acts whose name was 4 letter’s long. It was the 12^th week where we had seen this.

We had now seen 533 songs by American acts chart and 498 by British acts and the gap of 35 between these 2 nations was the highest we had seen so far.

Germany caught up with Australia for weeks in the chart by acts from nation. The 2 countries sat tied 6 overall with 198 weeks each.

For a 4^th week running we saw an act have their total weeks count reach the 20 week milestone. Over the last 3 weeks Supertramp, Eruption, Art Garfunkel and Frankie Miller had got there and this week it was The Doobie Brother’s turn. Also reaching a milestone was Abba who passed the 180 weeks mark and moved on to 181 as they had 2 in the chart. They were now just 4 weeks behind second placed Tom Jones who was on 185.

We now had 7 songs in the top 20 that had topped either the UK or US charts or both and this was the highest this total had been since 16 June 1978, 59 weeks previously. Those songs that had topped the charts in one or both of the UK and US were Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ (both), Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’ (UK), Amii Stewart’s ‘Knock On Wood (US), Anita Ward’s ‘Ring My Bell’ (both), The Doobie Brothers’ ‘What a Fool Believes’ (US), Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’ (UK) and  M’s ‘Pop Muzik’ (US).

Youtube playlist:

27 July 1979

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Some Girls	–	Racey
2	5	7	For Your Love	–	Chilly
3	2	15	I Will Survive	–	Gloria Gaynor
4	4	8	The Logical Song	–	Supertramp
5	6	6	Honey I’m Lost	–	Dooleys
6	3	14	Michael Row the Boat Ashore	–	Richard Jon Smith
7	8	10	One Way Ticket	–	Eruption
8	7	11	What a Fool Believes	–	Doobie Brothers
9	12	5	Knock on Wood	–	Amii Stewart
10	9	14	Baby it’s You	–	Promises
11	20	2	Magic Carpet Ride	–	Buffalo Featuring Peter Vee
12	10	17	Heart of Glass	–	Blondie
13	11	17	Chiquitita	–	ABBA
14	New	1	Sunday Girl	–	Blondie
15	15	3	My Love	–	Joe Dolan
16	19	2	Bright Eyes	–	Art Garfunkel
17	14	16	Kruidjie-Roer-My-Nie	–	Anton Goosen
18	18	10	Hooray! Hooray! it’s a Holi-Holiday	–	Boney M
19	13	20	Darlin’	–	Frankie Miller
20	New	1	The Face in the Mirror	–	Century

It was now 3 weeks in a row at 1 for Racey’s ‘Some Girls’, but what we did see was a new number 2 for the first time in a long while as Chilly’s ‘For Your Love’ finally ousted Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ from that spot after the latter had spent what would be the all time record of 9 straight weeks in second place. It dropped to 3.

Buffalo featuring Peter Vee took the climber of the week award as ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ really took off and jumped 9 places from 20 to 11. This was Vee’s second time with the award, but Buffalo’s first. It would be the only star rater this week.

The oldest song on the chart, Frankie Miller’s ‘Darlin’, was the faller of the week, dropping 6 from 13 last week to 19 this week. It was in its 9^th week as the oldest (only 12 songs so far had seen this many weeks as the oldest) and was the 51^st to reach 20 weeks in the top 20.

Neil Diamond’s ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had been in the top 20 for 11 weeks and peaked at 7. Of his 13 hits to date, 11 of them had now gone top 10 although only 7 had managed 10 or more weeks. He would return to our charts at a later date.

Also going was Bob Seger’s ‘We’ve Got Tonite’ which managed 9 weeks and a peak of 11. This had been his first SA chart hit and he had one more to come.

The first new entry was Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’. Blondie were also at 12 with ‘Heart Of Glass’ and were the 64^th act to see more than 1 hit in the same chart. ‘Sunday Girl’ would spend 3 weeks at the top of the UK charts and also topped the charts in Ireland. Despite its European success where it made the top 20 in Austria (#5), Finland (#13), Germany (#6), Norway (#5), Sweden (#18) and Switzerland (#5), it did not get a US release so consequently did not chart there.

The other new entry was ‘The Face In The Mirror’ by German band Century. Apparently the band and the song were big in Denmark, but I have not been able to find chart details for that time for Denmark, so we’ll have to take Wikipedia’s word for that. Other than that, and that the song was written by Danny Low and James Taylor-Lorty, I can also only find release information for Germany (Pinball records) and South Africa (Telefunken records). This was the 22^nd song by a German act to chart (this excludes Boney M whom, it could be argued, were German, but I have treated them as Jamaican) and Germany now sat tied 6^th for hits by acts from a nation.

It had been 59 weeks since we last saw an act type have as many as 13 of the top 20 and both this week and 59 weeks earlier, it had been the groups that had dominated the top 20.

Last week we saw Supertramp and Eruption reach the 20 weeks in the chart mark. This week it was Art Garfunkel and Frankie Miller’s turn to reach that particular milestone. Boney M saw their total weeks reach 80. They were the 25^th act so far to manage this many.

Richard Jon Smith became the 54^th act to reach 600 points as his total ticked over to 610. He was the 12^th local act to reach this milestone.

Youtube playlist: