29 March 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	9	If You Need Me	–	After All
2	5	7	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
3	1	10	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
4	3	15	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
5	4	9	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
6	12	6	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris
7	11	4	You’re Sixteen	–	Ringo Starr
8	6	8	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
9	16	3	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s
10	9	14	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
11	8	8	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
12	13	5	Give Me Back My Woman	–	Alan Garrity
13	7	14	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
14	18	2	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
15	10	7	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
16	14	5	If Teardrops were Pennies	–	Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner
17	New	1	Hurry on Home	–	Maria
18	15	11	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
19	New	1	Pledging My Love	–	Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye
20	New	1	Jolene	–	Dolly Parton

After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ became the 16^th song to regain the top slot after having fallen from it previously. The song had only been absent from the number 1 position for 1 week while Gwynneth Ashley-Robin’s ‘Little Jimmy’ had occupied pole position. The latter dropped to number 3. So far 63 of the 150 chart toppers had dropped to 3 or lower from the top spot which works out at 42%.

Dr. Marigold’s followed up their biggest climber award last week with another one this week as ‘Hello Girl’ moved up a further 7 places from 16 to 9. There were 3 other songs that managed star rater climbs and they were Crocodile Harris’ ‘Miss Eva Goodnight’ which climbed 6 from 12 to 6, Ringo Starr’s ‘You’re Sixteen’ which moved up 4 from 11 to 7 and Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’ which jumped 4 from 18 to 14.

While having a star rater, Ringo Starr was also collecting a biggest faller as his ‘Photograph’ fell 6 from 7 to 13 to take the award.

There were 3 songs that left the charts this week, 2 of which were by local males. The first of the latter was Jody Wayne’s ‘The Wonder Of Your Love’ which spent 15 weeks in the charts and peaked at 4, Wayne’s 3^rd highest peak and tied best weeks of the 8 hits he had had to date. We were not yet done with him though.

The second leaver was also by a local male, Peter Vee’s ‘The Tips Of My Fingers’. It had been with us for 11 weeks and saw a highest placing of 8. Vee had seen 3 hits make the charts so far and this was his best peak of the 3, but only the second best weeks.

Last of the leavers was the oldest song on last week’s chart, David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’. It spent 17 weeks in the top 20, 5 of which were spent at number 1. The new oldest on the chart was the song that had knocked ‘Sorrow’ off the top spot and that was Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’ which sat on 15 weeks.

Maria, helped stem the decrease in local acts on the charts by having her 3rd top 20 hit ‘Hurry On Home’ enter at 17. The song appears to be a cover of an obscure 1970 hit by a group called The Feminine Touch. Maria’s version list the songwriter as Kilbourne while the Feminine Touch’s song of the same title was written by Janet Kilburn. I have not been able to confirm that these are the same songs, so anyone out there know?

We now had 3 collaborations on the charts as Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye’s ‘Pledging My Love’ entered at 19. They joined Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner and Ike & Tina Turner. Ross and Gaye teamed up for a single album project (“Diana & Marvin”) which spawned 3 Hot 100 hits in the US, but none of them was ‘Pledging My Love’ which was either not released as a single in the US, or failed to chart there. The gap between this and Gaye’s previous (solo) hit, ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ was 256 weeks, the 7 biggest gap we had seen to date, while Diana Ross had been absent from the charts for 207 weeks which was the 11^th biggest gap to date and the tied biggest for a woman, joining Nancy Sinatra on this figure. In total only 12 acts had seen a gap of 200 weeks or more.

Last of the new entries was Dolly Parton’s second solo hit and 3rd overall when you include her duet  with Porter Wagoner mentioned above. With the latter still being in the charts, Parton became the 46^th act and 6^th woman to see 2 or more in the charts in the same week. ‘Jolene’ has become a bit of a signature tune for Parton and it topped the Country Singles charts in both the US and Canada. On the main pop charts it got to 60 and 74 respectively in those countries as well as scoring a number 7 peak in the UK. Amongst the many and varied cover versions of this is a rather unexpected one by The White Stripes.

The gap between the number of hits by American acts and those by British acts climbed to 6 with the Yanks have given us 361 hits compared to the 355 from the Poms. It had been 110 weeks since the gap was this large and it was also the Americans that time who held the lead.

Ringo Starr clocked up his 30^th week in the chart and was the first ex-Beatle to do this. John Lennon on 25 weeks was second of the Fab Four with George Harrison on 23 and Paul McCartney lagging behind on 11.

Alan Garrity now had 4^th place to himself on the local weeks count list as his 74 weeks to date put him 1 ahead of Dave Mills who dropped into 5^th place.

Youtube playlist:

22 March 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	3	9	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
2	1	8	If You Need Me	–	After All
3	2	14	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
4	4	8	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
5	6	6	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
6	5	7	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
7	8	13	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
8	9	7	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
9	7	13	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
10	10	6	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
11	13	3	You’re Sixteen	–	Ringo Starr
12	14	5	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris
13	11	4	Give Me Back My Woman	–	Alan Garrity
14	17	4	If Teardrops were Pennies	–	Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner
15	12	10	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
16	19	2	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s
17	16	17	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
18	New	1	Loving Arms	–	Dobie Gray
19	18	11	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
20	15	15	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne

Gwynneth Ashley-Robin’s ‘Little Jimmy’ marked a couple of milestones and equalled a record as it took over the top spot from After All’s ‘If You Need Me. ‘Little Jimmy’ was the 150^th song to make the number 1 spot and it brought up the 30 weeks at 1 for local women milestone. It also equalled Tidal Wave’s ‘Spider Spider’ in having the slowest climb to number 1 by a local song as it had taken 9 weeks to get to the top spot. There were 3 other (non-local) songs that had been in their 9^th week when they first gained pole position and a further 3 were in a record to date 10^th week.

The climber of the week award went to Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner’s ‘If Teardrops Were Pennies’ and Dr. Marigold’s ‘Hello Girl’ with both songs moving up 3 places to land at 14 and 16 respectively.

‘The Wonder Of Your Love’ by Jody Wayne became the 3^rd song to pick up the biggest faller award 3 weeks running as it dropped 5 from 15 to 20 to take the honours again. The previous songs to manage this were The Cowsill’s ‘Indian Lake’ and The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ with the latter going on to manage a record to date 4^th week.

David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ ticked over to 17 weeks in the charts and enjoyed its second as the oldest in the top 20.

The only song to leave the charts this week was Perry Como’s ‘Walk Right Back’ which had enjoyed a run of 2 weeks and a peak of 19. This brought to an end Como’s SA chart career and of his 3 hits, the performance by ‘Walk Right Back’ was by far his worst with both of his previous 2 hits spending 16 weeks on the charts and both peaking at 2. His total week count was 34.

The newcomer to the charts was Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’. Gray (real name Lawrence Darrow Brown) had had 4 US Hot 100 hits (and 1 that made it to 119) before ‘Loving Arms’ made the charts there. ‘Drift Away’ had been his biggest US hit, peaking at 5. ‘Loving Arms’, the follow up to ‘Drift Away’ only managed to peak at 61 in the US, however in SA, it charted where ‘Drift Away’ didn’t. ‘Loving Arms’ made number 70 in Canada.

Ringo Starr’s ‘Photograph’ equalled John Lennon’s ‘Mother’ for most weeks on the charts by a song by an ex-Beatle as it ticked over to 13 weeks in the top 20. The difference between the 2 songs was that Starr’s effort had been in consecutive weeks while Lennon’s ‘Mother’ ended up re-entering the charts for its 13 week.

We still had 6 songs each by acts from the US, the UK and SA in the charts and this was the 6^th week where we had seen the big 3 nations all contributing the same number of hits.

Alan Garrity moved into tied 4^th place on the local weeks count list as his 73 to date equalled that of Dave Mills.

Youtube playlist:

15 March 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	If You Need Me	–	After All
2	2	13	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
3	3	8	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
4	4	7	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
5	7	6	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
6	8	5	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
7	6	12	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
8	5	12	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
9	10	6	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
10	13	5	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
11	16	3	Give Me Back My Woman	–	Alan Garrity
12	9	9	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
13	20	2	You’re Sixteen	–	Ringo Starr
14	15	4	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris
15	11	14	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne
16	12	16	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
17	18	3	If Teardrops were Pennies	–	Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner
18	14	10	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
19	New	1	Hello Girl	–	Dr. Marigold’s
20	19	2	Walk Right Back	–	Perry Como

‘If You Need Me’ by Dutch band After All, enjoyed a second week at the top of the charts while the previous chart topper, Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’ loitered at 2 for a second week. After All’s effort brought the weeks at 1 total for Dutch acts to 12 and they were now 5 ahead of the next highest of the non-big 3 nations (UK, US & SA) which was Germany who were on 7.

Ringo Starr moved into the lead for number of biggest climbers by an ex-Beatle as his hit, ‘You’re Sixteen’, took the award this week with a 7 place climb from 20 to 13. Ringo now had 3 biggest climbers to his name while John Lennon and George Harrison sat on 2 and Paul McCartney only had 1. Ringo was 1 away from equalling the 4 that The Beatles themselves had managed.

Apart from Ringo Starr’s biggest climber, we had one other star rater and it was the 200^th star rater for a local act. Alan Garrity’s ‘Give Me Back My Woman’ took this honour with a 5 place climb from 16 to 11. It was his 9^th time with a star rater and he was the 3^rd local act to reach this many with Jody Wayne and The Staccatos both on 10 leading the way.

A 4 place drop in the charts this week got you a faller of the week award and 3 songs were up for this. Jody Wayne’s ‘The Wonder Of Your Love’ fell from 11 to 15, David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ dropped from 12 to 16 while Peter Vee’s ‘The Tips Of My Fingers’ nosedived from 14 to 18. For both Bowie and Vee it was the second time with the award, while Wayne was suffering his 5^th time and he was the 6^th local act to reach this total. While celebrating their 200^th star rater, the local acts had in fact seen more biggest faller awards than biggest climber awards with Wayne and Vee bringing the total biggest faller total for local act to 128 compared to the 111 biggest climber awards they had.

Despite having one of the biggest fallers this week, David Bowie would not have been completely overcome with sorrow as his hit was the oldest on the charts on 16 week. This came about by the departure of Johnny Gibson’s ‘My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man’, last week’s oldest, which fell off the charts after a run of 20 weeks and a peak of 3. This brought Gibson’s SA chart career to an end with 2 hits to his name (the other being ‘Silver And Blue’). He spent a total of 26 weeks in the charts and his peak of 3 with ‘My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man’ was the best he managed. At the time of his departure he held second place for gaps between hits by a local act as there had been a 275 week gap between ‘Silver And Blue’ leaving the charts and ‘My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man’ entering. It had been the biggest gap for a local act, till it was subsequently beaten by the 285 week gap Four Jacks & A Jill had between their hits. ‘My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man’ was the only song to leave the chart this week.

The newcomer was by a British group called Dr. Marigold’s (aka Dr. Marigold’s Prescription) with a song called ‘Hello Girl’. The band hailed from north London and comprised Fred Radley, Bill Friend, Alan French and Dave Morris. They evolved from a band called The Followers and played backing for Billy Fury, John Walker (of the Walker Brothers) and The Flirtations. Billy Forrest recorded a cover version of ‘Hello Girl’ in Afrikaans called ‘Hello Lief’. This appeared on his album ‘Roza Lief’.

Sean Rennie was enjoying his highest placing in the charts to date as ‘Charly’ moved into 4^th place which was 1 better than his only other hit to date, ‘I’ll Walk With You’, had managed.

This week also saw acts from the US, the UK and SA all contribute 6 hits to the top 20. This is the 5^th and final time we would see the big 3 nations all being equal for number of hits in the charts.

Jody Wayne pulled 1 week ahead of Lauren Copley and held on to 8^th place on the local weeks count list while Copley dropped into 9^th place.

Youtube playlist:

8 March 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	6	If You Need Me	–	After All
2	1	12	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
3	4	7	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
4	5	6	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
5	6	11	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
6	3	11	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
7	8	5	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
8	13	4	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
9	12	8	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
10	9	5	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
11	7	13	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne
12	11	15	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
13	14	4	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
14	10	9	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
15	16	3	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris
16	18	2	Give Me Back My Woman	–	Alan Garrity
17	15	20	My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man	–	Johnny Gibson
18	20	2	If Teardrops were Pennies	–	Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner
19	New	1	Walk Right Back	–	Perry Como
20	New	1	You’re Sixteen	–	Ringo Starr

After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ became the 4th song by a Dutch act and the 10th act not from SA, the US or the UK to top the chart as it took over the number 1 spot from Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’. The latter dropped to 2nd place after having enjoyed a run of 6 weeks at the top spot.

The climber of the week was Love Unlimited’s ‘Love’s Theme’ which moved up 5 from 13 to 8. This was the 20th time we had seen an instrumental track take the climber of the week award with 3 songs appearing twice in that list. There were no other star raters this week.

Faller awards went to 2 local songs. Jody Wayne’s ‘The Wonder Of Your Love’ fell 4 from 7 to 11 while Peter Vee’s ‘The Tips Of My Fingers’ dropped from 10 to 14 to share the award.

And while the fallers were local, we also saw that the oldest on the chart, Johnny Gibson’s ‘My Daddy Was A Rock ‘n’ Roll Man’, was also a by a local male. It was the 32nd song to reach 20 weeks in the charts and the 11th local one. It had been the oldest in the chart for 3 weeks.

We had 2 songs leave the charts this week. The first was The Rolling Stones’ ‘Angie’. After having their previous 2 songs only stay for a week each, they would have been pleased to see their latest one last 16 weeks on the charts, their best performance to date for weeks. It spent 4 frustrating weeks at 2 while David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ occupied the top spot, so they were unable to add to their total of 3 chart toppers to date. They had more hits to come.

Also going was Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. It was the 30th song that we would see have an equal weeks and peak figure as it spent 7 weeks in the charts and peaked at 7. There was plenty more to come from him.

Perry Como scored his third top 20 hit as ‘Walk Right Back’ entered the charts at 19 this week. The song was written by Sonny Curtis and recorded by The Everly Brothers in 1961. Their version made it to number 7 in the US and Anne Murray took a version to number 4 in the Country Singles charts in 1978. Como’s version did not chart in the US, but did make number 33 in the UK. At 61 years, 9 months and 18 days old, Como was the second oldest (of those whose birthdates are readily available) to chart with only Louis Armstrong having been older at the time he charted.

Ringo Starr became the 3rd ex-Beatle to have 2 hits in the chart in the same week as ‘You’re Sixteen’ entered at number 20, joining ‘Photograph’ which was at 5. It was now only Paul who had not managed to have 2 hits in the same week’s charts and he would not manage this as a solo artist, but his post Beatles band Wings did. ‘You’re Sixteen’ was a cover of a 1960 hit by Johnny Burnette who took his version to number 8 in the US and 3 in the UK. Ringo’s version went to number 4 in the UK and topped the US charts. Paul McCartney did help out on the recording.

On the local weeks count list we saw Jody Wayne catch up with Lauren Copley with 54 weeks to their respective names. They sat tied 8th on the list.

Using artists’ first names, this was the 3rd week we had seen where we had a record to date 5 acts that started with the letter ‘A’ (After All, Albert Hammond, Abba, Art Garfunkel and Alan Garrity). We had seen this 2 times before, the previous week and 4 weeks back.

Youtube playlist:

1 March 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
2	7	5	If You Need Me	–	After All
3	3	10	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
4	4	6	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
5	8	5	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
6	2	10	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
7	5	12	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne
8	11	4	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
9	13	4	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
10	9	8	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
11	6	14	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
12	10	7	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
13	16	3	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
14	18	3	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
15	12	19	My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man	–	Johnny Gibson
16	20	2	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris
17	15	7	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	–	Elton John
18	New	1	Give Me Back My Woman	–	Alan Garrity
19	14	16	Angie	–	Rolling Stones
20	New	1	If Teardrops were Pennies	–	Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner

‘The Peacemaker’ by Albert Hammond enjoyed a 6th week at the top of the charts and for the first time in that run it had a different number 2 to contend with as After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ moved up 5 from 7 to 2, ending Ringo Starr’s 5 week run at 2 with ‘Photograph’ which dropped to 6.

The aforementioned 5 place jump of After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ took the biggest climber award this week. This was the 6th time a song by an act from The Netherlands had been the biggest climber with 3 of the previous times being when songs by The George Baker Selection managed it. One of the previous times it had been with an After All song. The Shuffles effort with ‘Cha La La, I Need You’ back in 1970 making up the numbers.

There were 3 other songs that climbed 4 places to be star raters and they were Art Garfunkel’s ‘I Shall Sing’ (up to 9), Marie Osmond’s ‘Paper Roses’ (up to 14) and Crocodile Harris’ ‘Miss Eva Goodnight’ (up to 16).

David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ and The Rolling Stones’ ‘Angie’ were the fallers of the week with both songs dropping 5 places to land at 11 and 19 respectively. It was The Stones’ 9th time with the award and they were the 5th act to have seen this many so far. In total 18 acts would see 9 or more biggest fallers.

Johnny Gibson’s ‘My Daddy Was A Rock ‘n’ Roll Man’ was still the oldest on the charts. It was enjoying its 19th week with us and its second as the oldest.

Billy Forrest’s ‘Liefde Is My Nooi Se Naam’ ended a 3 week run in the chart. It spent the first of those 2 weeks at 20 and then managed a 1 place climb to 19. Forrest had seen 10 songs chart under his various guises so far and of those this was the 3rd to not get any higher than 19 with his ‘We’re All Playing in The Same Band’ (under the name Quentin E Klopjaeger) making it to 19 and ‘Lovely Lorraine’ (as William E.) peaking at 20. Of the 21 acts who would see 10 or more hits make the top 20 (i.e. excluding songs peaking at 21 to 30 once the charts were extended) only 1 other act would see at least 3 peak no higher than 19 and that was Cliff Richard who had already seen 4 songs do this. ‘Liefde Is My Nooi Se Naam’ was an Afrikaan version of Tommy Overstreet’s ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love’ which had recently departed from the charts. In total the 2 versions of the song had clocked up 23 weeks which put it tied 12th for weeks in the charts by songs charting in more than 1 version, alongside ‘Ramblin’ Boy’ (Des Lindberg and We Three) and ‘The Letter’ (Boxtops and Trini Lopez).

We also said goodbye to David Cassidy’s ‘Daydreamer’ which managed 14 weeks and peaked at 3. This was a big improvement on the 1 week at 18 that his only other hit to date, ‘Could It Be Forever’ had managed. There was more to come from young Mr Cassidy.

Alan Garrity clocked up his 5th hit as ‘Give Me Back My Woman’ entered the charts at 18. This was Garrity’s 3rd hit where he was the songwriter. He now joined The Dealians and Barbara Ray as local acts on 5 hits and they all sat tied 10th for number of hits by a local act. ‘Give Me Back My Woman’ was the 11th song in total that had listed Peter Lotis as the producer and Lotis had produced all of Garrity’s hits so far.

The second new entry was by a duet between Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, ‘If Teardrops Were Pennies’. The song was a cover of a 1951 hit by Carl Smith (and written by Carl Butler) which reached number 8 in the US. The song was also covered by Loretta Lynn and Rosemary Clooney. Parton & Wagoner’s version made number 3 on the US Country Songs chart. Of those for whom birth dates are readily available, Wagoner (who was born on 12 August 1927 making him 40 years, 5 months and 19 days) was the 9th oldest to make the charts so far (including Ray Conniff who actually charted as the Ray Conniff singers). All the top 9 were males with the exception of Virginia Lee who was 40 years 6 months and 2 days old when her final hit, ‘Wish Me A Rainbow’ charted. It had been 156 weeks since Parton was last in our charts and this was the 20th biggest gap between hits to date and the second biggest by a woman with Nancy Sinatra’s 207 weeks being the only one in excess of this.

The gap between the number of hits by US acts and those by UK acts opened to 4, the highest it had been in 14 weeks with the Americans having brought us 357 and the Brits 353. Abba had accounted for all the weeks by Swedish acts on the charts so far and their 10 to date moved Sweden ahead of Kenya (Roger Whittaker in case you were wondering) on the list of weeks on the charts by acts from a nation. Sweden sat 16th overall.

Not only was Albert Hammond enjoying his 6th week at 1, but he was also celebrating his 20th week in the chart as an artist (he also had 34 under his belt as writer of other people’s songs). He was the 135th act to reach 20 weeks. Alan Garrity meanwhile was enjoying his 70th week on the charts and was the 27th act to reach this milestone. He sat 5th on the local weeks count list, 3 behind 4th places Dave Mills.

Jody Wayne became the 38th and 9th local act to accumulate 600 or more points as his total moved on to 601.

With Sweden’s Abba and The Netherlands’ After All both being in the top 5, this was the 34th time we had seen 2 acts from outside of the US, the UK and SA in the top 5. So far we had not seen more than 2 such acts in the top 5.

Youtube playlist:

22 February 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
2	2	9	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
3	5	9	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
4	7	5	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
5	4	11	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne
6	3	13	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
7	6	4	If You Need Me	–	After All
8	11	4	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
9	8	7	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
10	13	6	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
11	15	3	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
12	10	18	My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man	–	Johnny Gibson
13	17	3	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
14	9	15	Angie	–	Rolling Stones
15	12	6	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	–	Elton John
16	19	2	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
17	14	14	Daydreamer	–	David Cassidy
18	18	2	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
19	20	3	Liefde is My Nooi se Naam	–	Billy Forrest
20	New	1	Miss Eva Goodnight	–	Crocodile Harris

The top 2 songs were unchanged for the 5th straight week with Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’ enjoying its 5th week at 1 and Ringo Starr’s ‘Photograph’ sitting at 2. This equalled the record to date number of consecutive weeks with an unchanged top 2. For 4 of the 5 weeks, the number 3 song had also not moved and that was David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’, but this week it dropped to 6 and Abba’s ‘Ring, Ring’ moved up to take its place at 3.

Mud’s -Dyna-mite’ was the explosive hit of the week as it climbed 4 places from 15 to 11 to share the biggest climber award with Art Garfunkel’s ‘I Shall Sing’ which moved up 4 from 17 to 13. Garfunkel had enjoyed 2 biggest climbers as one half of Simon & Garfunkel and he had seen his former partner enjoy 2 as a solo artist. Mud and Garfunkel produced the only 2 star raters this week.

The Rolling Stones became the 7th act to clock up 8 biggest faller awards as their ‘Angie’ took the award with a 5 place fall from 9 to 14. In total only 24 acts would see 8 or more biggest fallers.

Tommy Overstreet’s ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love’ was the only song to fall off the top 20 this week. It had been with us for 20 weeks, 7 of which had been at the top spot. This would be Overstreet’s only contribution to our charts. The departure of ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love’ meant that we had a new oldest song on the chart and that was Johnny Gibson’s ‘My Daddy Was A Rock ‘n’ Roll Man’ which sat on 18 weeks. We did however still have a version of ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love’ on the charts as Billy Forrest’s Afrikaans cover, ‘Liefde Is My Nooi Se Naam’ was at number 19.

The new entry this week came in the shape of Crocodile Harris’ ‘Miss Eva Goodnight’. Had the song been released in more recent times the artist would probably have been noted as ‘Crocodile Harris featuring McCully Workshop’ as that notable band played on the single which was written by Mike and Tully McCully with Tully also producing the song. This would be the first of only 3 songs where Tully was listed as producer.  Interestingly I cannot find any versions of the McCully Workshop singles that had charted or would do so, that listed the producer. Crocodile Harris’ real name was Robin Graham and he hailed from Somerset West. Sadly Robin passed away on 7 July 2015.

After seeing the acts from the US and UK catch up with them last week to end their record to date 18 weeks with the outright most in the charts, the local acts were once again leaders for number of hits in the top 20 as they accounted for 7. The UK acts were still on 6 while the Americans dropped to 5.

The Netherlands pulled ahead of Ireland for weeks in the charts as their acts had now amassed 74 weeks as opposed to Ireland’s 73. The Netherlands were the 7th highest nation in terms of weeks spent on the charts. They had a fair way to go to catch the 6th placed Australian artists who were on 99.

Youtube playlist:

15 February 1974

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	The Peacemaker	–	Albert Hammond
2	2	8	Photograph	–	Ringo Starr
3	3	12	Sorrow	–	David Bowie
4	4	10	The Wonder of Your Love	–	Jody Wayne
5	5	8	Ring, Ring	–	Abba
6	15	3	If You Need Me	–	After All
7	9	4	Little Jimmy	–	Gwynneth Ashley-Robin
8	8	6	The Tips of My Fingers	–	Peter Vee
9	6	14	Angie	–	Rolling Stones
10	11	17	My Daddy was a Rock ‘n Roll Man	–	Johnny Gibson
11	14	3	Charly	–	Sean Rennie
12	7	5	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road	–	Elton John
13	10	5	Nutbush City Limits	–	Ike and Tina Turner
14	12	13	Daydreamer	–	David Cassidy
15	18	2	Dyna-mite	–	Mud
16	13	20	Heaven is My Woman’s Love	–	Tommy Overstreet
17	17	2	I Shall Sing	–	Art Garfunkel
18	New	1	Paper Roses	–	Marie Osmond
19	New	1	Love’s Theme	–	Love Unlimited
20	20	2	Liefde is My Nooi se Naam	–	Billy Forrest

For a 4th week running the top 3 were unchanged with Albert Hammond’s ‘The Peacemaker’ at 1, Ringo Starr’s ‘Photograph’ at 2 and David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ at 3. This was the first time we had seen the top 3 songs remain unchanged for 4 straight weeks, in fact before this run we had not even seen a 3 week run with an unchanged top 3. With ‘The Peacemaker’ enjoying its 4th week at the top, it also accounted for the 180th week that the number 1 slot was occupied by a British act.

After All’s ‘If You Need Me’ was the climber of the week with a 9 place jump from 15 to 6. This was the 5th time an act from The Netherlands had taken this award and of the previous 4, The George Baker selection accounted for 3. The Shuffles were the only other Dutch act so far to take biggest climber award. No other song managed a star rater climb of 4 or more places and this was the 5th time that the biggest climber was 9 or more with no other star raters. 2 of the previous occasions when this happened, the biggest climb was 10 places while the other 2, the climber had been 9 places like it was this week.

On the falling front it was Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ that took the honours with a 5 place fall from 7 to 12. This was Elton’s 5th time with the award with ‘Crocodile Rock’ managing it once and ‘Daniel’ picking up the award 3 times. He was the 5th act so far who had managed to get to 5 biggest fallers with his first 3 hits with The Sweet managing it with their first 2 and going to 7 with their 3rd hit. Alan Garrity also managed a total of 7 with his first 3 hits, the record to date.

Tommy Overstreet’s ‘Heaven Is My Woman’s Love’ was still the oldest on the charts. It was the 31st song so far to reach 20 weeks in the charts and it was enjoying its 7th week as the oldest.

‘Good-bye Mama’ by Alan Garrity was aptly named as we said cheerio to the song from the charts. It managed a run of 7 weeks and a peak of 15 making it the first of his 4 hits to date to not make the top 10 or spend 10 weeks in the top 20. A peak of 15 for a song spending 7 weeks in the charts was the lowest we had seen to date and ‘Good-bye Mama’ joined The Troggs’ ‘Little Girl’, Tom Jones’ ‘A Minute Of Your Time’ and Robert John’s ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ in having this lowest peak.

B.W. Stevenson’s ‘My Maria’ was the only other song to depart the chart. It lasted 12 weeks and peaked at 7 which was 1 place higher than his only other hit to date, ‘Shambala’ although it spent 2 less weeks in the top 20. This brought the curtain down on Stevenson’s SA chart career with just the 2 aforementioned hits to his name, 26 weeks under his belt and the best peak of 7 with ‘My Maria’.

The first of our new entries was the 3rd of the Osmond siblings to chart. We had had 2 hits from Donny and one by Little Jimmy and now we had Maria with ‘Paper Roses’. The song was written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre and was a number 5 hit in the US and a number 24 hit in the UK for Anita Bryant. Maria’s version gave her a number 5 hit in the US and 2 in the UK as well as topping the country singles charts in the US and Canada. It is interesting to note though that while Donny, Marie and Little Jimmy all charted, The Osmonds (which included the aforementioned 3 plus their other siblings) never charted in SA despite their worldwide hits such as ‘Crazy Horses’ and ‘Love Me For A Reason’.

Joining Marie as a new entry was Love Unlimited Orchestra’s ‘Love’s Theme’. The ‘group’ was a 40-piece orchestra that did backing working for Barry White. ‘Love’s Theme’ was the 35th instrumental hit to chart. It had been 9 month since we last saw an instrumental in the charts (‘Duelling Banjo’s’ by Deliverance). ‘Love’s Theme’ spent the week of 9 February 1974 at number 1 in the US and was one of the few orchestral pieces to manage this. A version with lyrics and vocals was released by Love Unlimited (a female vocal trio backed by the Love Unlimited Orchestra – confusing, I know) in 1974 as well. The orchestral version made number 10 in the UK as well as making 7 in Holland and Belgium and 22 in Germany. Barry White, who wrote the piece, was yet to chart in his own right.

The number of solo males in the chart dropped from their record to date 14 which it had been for the last 2 weeks to the lesser, but still very respectable total of 12 while the local acts supremacy in the charts came to an end after a record to date 18 weeks with more hits in the top 20 than any other nation. They still had the most by a nation (6), but now were equalled by both the British and American acts. Sweden and The Netherlands supplied the other 2 hits. The gap between the total number of hits to date by American acts and British acts had been just 1 for the last 7 weeks, but with both new entries being by Americans, the gap increased to 3 with the Americans’ total moving on to 356 while the Brits trailed them with 353.

In terms of weeks spent on the charts by acts from a nation, we saw those from The Netherlands catch up with those from Ireland with both nations’ totals on 73. They sat tied 7th for this stat.

Both Tommy Overstreet and Ringo Starr reached the 20 weeks in the chart mark. Ringo was the 3rd of the ex-Beatles to reach this milestone and it was only Paul McCartney whose solo career was yet to take off to the same degree as his fellow ex-bandmates. He was lingering behind on 11 weeks. Elton John, meanwhile was 10 weeks ahead of Starr and Overstreet as his total reached 30, He was the 82nd act to get to this milestone.

On the local weeks count list we saw Jody Wayne move 1 weeks ahead of The Dealians. This left him in 9th place on his own while The Dealians fell to 10th.

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