18 February 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Howzat	–	Sherbet
2	4	5	If You Leave Me Now	–	Chicago
3	2	16	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
4	6	7	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
5	3	14	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
6	10	3	Livin’ Thing	–	Electric Light Orchestra
7	12	4	Under the Moon of Love	–	Showaddywaddy
8	5	10	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
9	7	11	Georgie	–	Pussycat
10	15	5	Somebody to Love	–	Queen
11	8	12	Without You	–	Barry Mason
12	9	6	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
13	11	6	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
14	19	2	What Have I Done	–	Mike Eager
15	16	3	Lost in France	–	Bonnie Tyler
16	17	4	Heaven Must be Missing an Angel	–	Tavares
17	13	18	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
18	14	15	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
19	New	1	Moody Blue	–	Elvis Presley
20	New	1	Keep on Smilin’	–	John Paul Young

Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’ set a new record for weeks at 1 by a song by an Australian act as it held on to the top spot for a 3^rd week, moving past the 2 weeks that John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ had managed. The only other Aussie chart topper had been The Seekers’ ‘World Of Our Own’ which only managed 1 week.

‘Howzat’ was, however, coming under pressure from Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now’ which had topped both the UK and US charts and moved up from 4 into second place on our charts this week.

The climb of the week was 5 places and 3 songs managed that. We saw Showaddywaddy’s ‘Under The Moon Of Love’ move up from 12 to 7, Queen’s ‘Somebody To Love’ climb from 15 to 10 and Michael Eager’s ‘What Have I Done’ jump from 19 to 14. It was Queen and Michael Eager’s first time with the award while it was a 3^rd time for Showaddywaddy.

ELO’s ‘Livin’ Thing’ was the only other star rater this week with a 4 place climb from 10 to 6.

David Dundas’ ‘Jeans On’ and Zamfir’s ‘Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)’ were the faller of the weeks. The former dropped 4 from 13 to 17 while the latter fell from 14 to 18. ‘Jeans On’ was the oldest on the charts on 18 weeks and was enjoying its 6^th week as the oldest.

Dennis East’s ‘A Million Drums’ had been with us for 16 weeks but left the chart this week. It had peaked at 5 which was 1 place higher than his only other hit to date, ‘A Rose Has To Die’. His first hit managed 13 weeks.

Also going was Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’. This also managed a run of 16 weeks but peaked much higher, enjoying a 2 week stint at the number 1 spot. It had been Abba’s 5^th chart topper and equalled their best effort to date weekwise, scoring the same as their previous hit, ‘Fernando’.

Our first new entry was the 41^st song to chart by 2 or more artists. We had seen ‘Moody Blue’ chart in June of the previous year by its writer, Mark James, now Elvis took it into the top 20. It was taken from the album of the same name and this would be the last studio album he would record. The song topped the Billboard Hot Country Singles and went to number 31 on the main Hot 100 charts. It would go to number 4 in Belgium, 5 in New Zealand, 6 in the UK and Norway, 10 in Holland and 57 in Canada. Mark James had also penned Elvis’ only SA number 1 song to date, ‘Suspicious Minds’. ‘Moody Blue’ was Elvis’ 13^th hit to date and he was the 4^th act to manage this many with The Hollies on 15, Cliff Richard on 17 and Tom Jones on18 above him.

The second new entry was the second SA chart success for John Paul Young and shared a song title with a previous SA chart hit. ‘Keep on Smiling’ was a number 6 hit for James Lloyd in 1970, but John Paul Young’s was a different song which was written by George Young and Harry Vanda who had also written his previous chart topping, ‘I Hate The Music’ (Lloyd’s song was written by John Bartels). ‘Keep On Smiling’ went to number 15 in Young’s native Australia, but when it found its way to Europe, the original b-side, ‘Standing In The Rain’ was favoured and ‘Keep On Smiling’ was relegated to the flipside of the single, a decision that paid off for the European record companies as ‘Standing In The Rain’ went to 2 in Belgium, 3 in Holland, 4 in Germany and 11 in Austria and made number 22 on the Dance Music/Club Play Singles charts in the US. This was the first of 5 occasions where we had an Aussie act at the top and bottom of our charts with Sherbet at the top and John Paul Young at the bottom.

With Abba leaving the chart and Sherbet and John Paul Young both in the top 20, the Aussie’s weeks in the charts moved on to 122 and the they sat equal 7^th with Sweden for weeks. Romania moved on to 16 and went 1 ahead of Brazil. Romania sat 16^th with Brazil dropped into 17^th place.

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11 February 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Howzat	–	Sherbet
2	2	15	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
3	3	13	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
4	6	4	If You Leave Me Now	–	Chicago
5	4	9	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
6	9	6	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
7	5	10	Georgie	–	Pussycat
8	10	11	Without You	–	Barry Mason
9	8	5	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
10	12	2	Livin’ Thing	–	Electric Light Orchestra
11	13	5	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
12	14	3	Under the Moon of Love	–	Showaddywaddy
13	7	17	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
14	11	14	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
15	16	4	Somebody to Love	–	Queen
16	17	2	Lost in France	–	Bonnie Tyler
17	19	3	Heaven Must be Missing an Angel	–	Tavares
18	15	16	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
19	New	1	What Have I Done	–	Mike Eager
20	18	16	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East

Having gained the top spot last week, Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’ held on to it to make it 2 weeks at 1. The previous chart topper, Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ spent a second week at 2 and gave us the all time record of 10 straight weeks with the top 2 songs being by acts who were not from the big 3 nations.

Leo Sayer’s ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ was the climber of the week moving up 3 from 9 to 6. This took him to his highest placing in the charts so far, his previous best being the peak of 9 that ‘Long Tall Glasses’ managed. This was the second week running the climb of the week had been 3 places and that there was only 1 song that managed this. Overall this was the 9^th time we had seen this.

Falling honours went to David Dundas’ blue jeans (yes, I know what connotations one could put to that sentence), but it was the song that fell, not Dundas’ trousers. ‘Jeans On’ dropped 6 from 7 to 13. It was still the oldest on the chart, enjoying its 17^th week in the top 20 and its 5^th as the oldest.

Billy Forrest’s ‘Our Sweet Precious Love’ was the only song to leave the charts this week. It had been with us for 11 weeks and peaked at 9 and it was the 5^th song to manage this many weeks and this peak. And what is the significance of that I hear you ask. Well, a peak of 9 and weeks of 11 were the rounded averages of weeks and peaks that all songs that would chart on our top 20 would see.

It was a like for like swap as both the song exiting the chart and the new entry were by local male artists. Michael Eager’s follow up to ‘Rock Me To Sleep’, ‘What Have I Done’ was his second hit to chart and like his previous offering was written by Ken Levine and Ernie Schroder. This was Ken’s 6^th hit as song writer and Ernie’s 7th. The song appeared on the very first Pop Shop album (Side 2, track 4 in case you’re really interested) where Michael’s surname was incorrectly spelt as ‘Eagar’ on the track listing on the back of the record sleeve. According to Ken Levine, the Stockley Sisters, who had recently had a top 20 hit with ‘Venus’, sang backing vocals, even adding their own riff during recording.

Romania moved into tied 16^th place on the list of weeks by acts from a nation. They now sat equal with Argentina on 14 weeks.

Abba shook off Cliff Richard to make 7^th place on the overall weeks count their own. They were on 111 while Cliff on 110 dropped into 8^th place.

Pussycat celebrated 10 consecutive weeks with 2 in the charts and became the 5^th act and first from a non-big 3 nation to manage this.

The average number of weeks the top 20 songs had been with us moved on to 8.1. The last time this figure had been over 8 was 94 weeks previous.

Youtube playlist:

4 February 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	5	Howzat	–	Sherbet
2	1	14	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
3	3	12	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
4	4	8	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
5	5	9	Georgie	–	Pussycat
6	8	3	If You Leave Me Now	–	Chicago
7	6	16	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
8	7	4	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
9	10	5	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
10	9	10	Without You	–	Barry Mason
11	11	13	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
12	New	1	Livin’ Thing	–	Electric Light Orchestra
13	14	4	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
14	17	2	Under the Moon of Love	–	Showaddywaddy
15	12	15	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
16	18	3	Somebody to Love	–	Queen
17	New	1	Lost in France	–	Bonnie Tyler
18	13	15	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East
19	20	2	Heaven Must be Missing an Angel	–	Tavares
20	16	11	Our Sweet Precious Love	–	Billy Forrest

This week saw the 5^th time a song by an act not from SA, the US or the UK took over the top spot from another act that was not from the big 3 nations, in fact it was the first time that we had seen 3 number 1’s in a row that were by such acts as we had seen ‘Dancing Queen’ by Sweden’s Abba followed by Pussycat from the Netherlands with ‘Mississippi’ and this week Aussie band, Sherbet’ clinched the top spot with ‘Howzat’, ending the 8 week run that ‘Mississippi’ had managed. Our first Aussie number 1 was back in 1965 (‘World Of Our Own’ by The Seekers), then we had to wait 596 weeks before John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ became the second one. Now it had been just a 13 week gap.

Showaddywaddy picked up their 2^nd biggest climber award with a 3 place jump from 17 to 14 by ‘Under The Moon Of Love’. Their last award had been with their previous hit, ‘Three Steps To Heaven’. A 3 place climb had been the smallest number of places for a biggest climber when only 1 song took the award and this was the 8^th time we had seen this where 5 of those 3 times it had been a British act doing the climbing and the other 3 times it was a local act.

Dennis East’s ‘A Million Drums’ fell 5 from 13 to 18 to take the faller of the week award. This was the song’s second time with the award and a 3^rd time for East.

‘Jeans On’ by David Dundas was the granddaddy of the chart, sitting on 16 weeks and enjoying its 4^th week as the senior citizen of the top 20.

Lionel Petersen’s song ‘I’ll Keep Coming Back’ would not live up to its name as it departed from the top 20 this week and brought to an end Petersen’s SA chart career. The song had managed a run of 8 weeks and peaked at 9. Petersen had seen 7 songs chart, spent 68 weeks in the chart and had a best peak of 5 which both ‘I Need A Little Love’ and ‘Private Number’ managed. Petersen’s last 3 hits all peaked at 9 and this would be the only time an act would manage 3 consecutive hits peaking at the same spot where the spot wasn’t number 1. Chris Andrews had been the only other act so far to have 3 consecutive hits peak at the same place but his had been 3 chart toppers. There would be 2 more acts who would manage 3 consecutive number 1s and 1 of them would manage that twice. Petersen had also appeared on The Invaders’ number 18 hit, ‘There’s A Light, there’s A Way’ and The Miracles’ number 11 hit ‘Sweet City Woman’. These 2 had managed 12 weeks between them which, added to his total above, would give him 80 weeks in the charts.

We also bid farewell to 5000 Volts’ ‘Doctor Kiss-Kiss’ which had seen a run of 11 weeks and a peak of 6 which was 2 more weeks and 4 places higher than their only other hit to date ‘I’m On Fire’. There would be more to come from them.

Our first new entry was the first to chart from The Electric Light Orchestra (aka ELO). They already had 6 UK charting songs under their belt before our new entry, ‘Livin’ Thing’, entered the British charts in November 1976. It would give them their highest peak to date on that chart, reaching number 4 there and it would take a further 10 hits before ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ would manage a better peak, going 1 place higher to 3. Elsewhere in the world it made top 10 in Australia (#2), Austria (#3), Belgium (#8), Canada (#8), Germany (#5), Ireland (#6), Holland (#6), New Zealand (#4) and just missed out on the top 10 in the US where it peaked at 13.

The other new entry was also by an artist making their first appearance on our charts and this was Welsh lass, Bonnie Tyler with her song ‘Lost In France’. Included in the song writing and production credits is the name Ronnie Scott, but it was not the jazz musician of the same name who famously started Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London. This Ronnie Scott was a song writer who had worked with Marty Wilde and who had already had success on the South African charts with Lulu’s ‘I’m A Tiger’. It had been 414 weeks between ‘I’m A Tiger’ and ‘Lost In France’ which was the 11^th biggest gap between hits for a song writer. ‘Lost In France’ went to 9 in the UK and 3 in Germany and while charting in Austria, Sweden, Australia and Holland, it only made top 20 in those countries, but did not get into the top 10.

There were 9 hit by British acts on the chart this week and we had to go back 126 weeks to find the last time there were this many. We did not have to look as far back as that to see the last time we had a song make 20 weeks, but we had now had a new record to date 92 week drought of songs making that milestone. The gap between the number of hits the Americans had seen to date compared to those of British acts was down to 21, the lowest it had been in 57 weeks. The Americans had managed 455 to the Brits’ 432.

Leo Sayer became the 15^th act to manage 30 weeks without picking up a faller of the week award. 4 of those 15 had gone on to have 40 weeks and in the Seekers case a record to date 57 weeks.

Romania caught up with Brazil in 17^th place for weeks by acts from a nation. The 2 nations had managed 13 weeks each. The Dutch acts who sat 5^th, saw their total move past the 200 milestone this week.

Leo Sayer became the 108^th act to reach 30 weeks in the charts while Abba saw their total reach the 110 mark. They sat tied 7^th on the overall weeks count list alongside Cliff Richard. We also saw Billy Forrest, who led the way for weeks by a local act, move into tied 15^th place on the overall list, his 92 weeks putting him level with Tommy Roe.

Youtube playlist:

28 January 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	13	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
2	4	4	Howzat	–	Sherbet
3	2	11	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
4	3	7	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
5	5	8	Georgie	–	Pussycat
6	6	15	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
7	8	3	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
8	16	2	If You Leave Me Now	–	Chicago
9	7	9	Without You	–	Barry Mason
10	12	4	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
11	11	12	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
12	10	14	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
13	9	14	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East
14	17	3	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
15	13	11	Doctor Kiss-Kiss	–	5000 Volts
16	14	10	Our Sweet Precious Love	–	Billy Forrest
17	New	1	Under the Moon of Love	–	Showaddywaddy
18	20	2	Somebody to Love	–	Queen
19	15	8	I’ll Keep on Coming Back	–	Lionel Petersen
20	New	1	Heaven Must be Missing an Angel	–	Tavares

Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ became the 6^th song to spend at least 8 weeks at number 1 as it continued its run at the top of the charts. The last song to manage at least 8 weeks was Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Why Me’ back in the October of 1974. In total 27 songs would spend 8 or more weeks at the top of the charts. ‘Mississippi’ became the first song to spend 4 weeks at 1 in a second calendar year after straddling the year end at the top of the charts. The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ and David Bowie’s ‘Sorrow’ had both managed 3 further weeks at 1 after straddling the year end in pole position. Pussycat now sat tied 14^th with Tommy Roe and Kris Kristofferson for weeks at 1 by an act.

We had a new number 2 as Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’ dropped to 3 and Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’ was now the nation’s second favourite.

Chicago wasted no time after entering the chart last week with ‘If You Leave Me Now’ as the song jumped up 8 places from 16 to 8 to be the climber of the week. It would be the only star rater we would see this week.

Two local acts shared the faller of the week with Lionel Petersen’s ‘I’ll Keep Coming Back’ dropping 4 from 15 to 19 while Dennis East’s ‘A Million Drums’ fell from 9 to 13. Petersen became the 7^th act to reach 9 biggest fallers and Alan Garrity on 10 was the only local act to have had more.

‘Jeans On’ by David Dundas moved on to 15 weeks and was the oldest on the chart for a 3^rd week running.

We lost André’s ‘Michelangelo’ from the chart this week. It had lasted 7 weeks and peaked at 10. This was 3 weeks and 4 places better than his only other hit ‘Ek Is Verlief Op Jou’. These 2 would sadly be André’s on SA chart offerings giving him a total of 11 weeks.

Demis Roussos also saw his SA chart career come to an end as ‘My Friend The Wind’ left the charts after a 4 week run and a peak of 16. Like André, he had also had 2 hits, but he did manage 17 weeks and a best peak of 3 which his other hit, ‘Happy To Be On My Island In The Sun’ had managed.

The first of the new entries was the 2nd SA hit by Showaddywaddy, ‘Under The Moon Of Love’. This was a cover of a 1961 hit that Curtis Lee took to number 46 in the US. Mud covered it in 1975 but for them it was an album track and the b-side of their single ‘Beating Around The Bush’. Showaddywaddy took the song to the top of the UK charts, knocking this week’s biggest climber in SA (‘If You Leave Me Now’ by Chicago) off the top spot there. It also topped the Belgium charts and made 2 in Switzerland, 3 in Holland, 4 in Germany and 5 in Austria, giving the song a European straight in poker terms.

Joining Showaddywaddy in the new entry list this week were the Tavares brothers who went under the name The Tavares. ‘Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel’ would give them a number 15 hit in the US and it would top the Dutch charts. In the UK it made it to number 4 and then nearly 10 years later (in 1986) it would have a second run in the charts there, reaching a peak of 12.

Two acts reached the 20 weeks in the chart mark and they were Pussycat and 5000 Volts. Pussycat were the 16^th act from the non-big 3 nations to reach this milestone. Smokie, meanwhile celebrated getting to 30 weeks. Pussycat also marked their 8^th consecutive week with 2 in the charts and were the 9^th act to manage such a run.

Abba moved into tied 8^th place on the overall weeks count list with their 109 putting them level with The Rolling Stones.

Youtube playlist:

21 January 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	12	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
2	2	10	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
3	7	6	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
4	9	3	Howzat	–	Sherbet
5	3	7	Georgie	–	Pussycat
6	4	14	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
7	8	8	Without You	–	Barry Mason
8	12	2	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
9	6	13	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East
10	5	13	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
11	11	11	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
12	15	3	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
13	10	10	Doctor Kiss-Kiss	–	5000 Volts
14	14	9	Our Sweet Precious Love	–	Billy Forrest
15	13	7	I’ll Keep on Coming Back	–	Lionel Petersen
16	New	1	If You Leave Me Now	–	Chicago
17	19	2	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
18	17	4	My Friend the Wind	–	Demis Roussos
19	16	7	Michaelangelo	–	André
20	New	1	Somebody to Love	–	Queen

The last time a song went more than 6 weeks at 1 was when Carl Douglas’ ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ manage 7 weeks in December ‘74/January ’75. Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ broke that drought as it enjoyed a 7^th week at 1. Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’ was in 2^nd place for a 3^rd week running and a 4^th week overall during ‘Mississippi’s reign. It dropped to 3 before regaining second place. Pussycat joined 11 other acts in seeing a total of 7 weeks at 1 and this put them tied 11^th overall for weeks at 1 by an act.

Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’ became the 4^th song by an Aussie act to take the biggest climber award twice as it moved up a further 5 places into 4^th spot. There had been 2 of The Seekers songs that had taken the award twice and then recently John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ also managed it.

Smokie’s ‘I’ll Meet you At Midnight’ moved up 4 from 7 to 3 and The Julian Laxton Band’s ‘Blue Water’ climbed 4 from 12 to 8 to be the other star raters this week. It was Smokie’s 6^th star rater and Laxton’s first but it did mean that Laxton was enjoying his highest placing in the chart to date, surpassing the peak of 10 that his only other hit to date, ‘Celebrate The Rain’ had managed.

Abba became the 17^th act to pick up 7 biggest fallers as ‘Dancing Queen’s 5 place fall from 7 to 12 was the biggest faller this week.

David Dundas enjoyed his 2^nd week with having the oldest hit in the chart as ‘Jeans On’ moved on to 14 weeks.

Rogue’s ‘Dedication’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had been with us for 10 weeks and saw a peak of 8. This would be their only SA chart hit. Just over 46% of the songs that had charted so far had made it to at least 10 weeks.

Also going was The Manhattans’ ‘Kiss and Say Goodbye’ which had lasted 8 weeks (one of the just under 53 % of songs not to make 10 weeks) and peaked at 12. Like Rogue, this would be their only SA chart hit.

The alert among you may have noted that ‘Kiss and Say Goodbye’ had been the only song by an American act on the chart last week and its departure would have given us the first time we had no American acts in the charts, however, Chicago (the band, not the city) came to the rescue which was our first new entry this week, ‘If You Leave Me Now’. It was their first hit to chart in SA. The band who hailed from, erm, Chicago, had already clocked up 20 Hot 100 hits in the US (half of which had gone top 10) before this one came along and gave them their first chart topper there, spending 2 weeks at the number 1 spot and selling over 2 million copies. It also topped the UK, Dutch and Canadian charts. In the UK it knocked our present number 1, Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ from the top spot. Before this week, we had gone 8 weeks with no new entries from American acts which was the tied second longest run we had seen for this.

The other new entry was Queen’s second hit to chart in SA, ‘Somebody To Love’. The song was their 6th to chart in the UK where it became the second of 6 songs that would peak at number 2 there. In the US it made number 13 which, at that time was their second best peak Stateside (beaten by ‘Killer Queen’ which managed to get to 12). It would also top the charts in Holland. The song features what sounds like a choir, but was in fact just vocals from Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor using voice layering techniques.

‘Daddy Cool’ by Boney M had the honour of clocking up the 100^th week by a Jamaican act, working on the fact that they were a Jamaican band although the members came from various of the West Indian islands and they were essentially based in Germany. But as mentioned before I have decided to treat them as Jamaican for statistical purposes.

Billy Forrest became the first local act and 16^th act overall to reach 90 weeks. He was unmoved at 16 on the overall weeks count list, 2 behind Tommy Roe who was 15^th. Abba moved into tied 9^th place with The Sweet with 108 weeks to their names.

Pussycat joined 14 other acts in seeing a run of at least 7 consecutive weeks with 2 or more in the charts and they were the first act not from the UK, the US or SA to manage this.

Youtube playlist:

14 January 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
2	2	9	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
3	4	6	Georgie	–	Pussycat
4	3	13	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
5	6	12	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
6	5	12	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East
7	14	5	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
8	8	7	Without You	–	Barry Mason
9	17	2	Howzat	–	Sherbet
10	7	9	Doctor Kiss-Kiss	–	5000 Volts
11	13	10	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
12	New	1	Blue Water	–	Julian Laxton Band
13	9	6	I’ll Keep on Coming Back	–	Lionel Petersen
14	11	8	Our Sweet Precious Love	–	Billy Forrest
15	20	2	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer
16	10	6	Michaelangelo	–	André
17	16	3	My Friend the Wind	–	Demis Roussos
18	12	8	Kiss and Say Goodbye	–	Manhattans
19	New	1	Show Me the Way	–	Peter Frampton
20	19	10	Dedication	–	Rogue

Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ continued its run at number 1. It had now been the nation’s favourite for 6 weeks. Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’ was unmoved at 2 while Pussycat’s other hit, ‘Georgie’ recovered slightly from its drop to 4 last week as it moved back up 1 to 3.

Sherbert’s ‘Howzat’ took the climber of the week award with an 8 place jump from 17 to 9. This was the 10^th time a song by an Aussie act had taken the award. There were 2 other star raters this week and these were Smokie’s ‘I’ll Meet you At Midnight’ which climbed 7 from 14 to 7 while Leo Sayer’s ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ climbed 5 from 20 to 15.

The fall of the week was 6 places and there were 2 songs that did this. The Manhattans ‘Kiss And Say Goodbye’ (which had been the climber of the week the previous week) dropped from 12 to 18 while André’s ‘Michelangelo’ dropped from 10 to 16.

We saw 2 songs leave the chart this week. The first had been the oldest on the chart and that was John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ which had been with us for 15 weeks and spent 2 of those at the top spot. We would see plenty more hits from him. The oldest on the chart mantle now fell to David Dundas’ ‘Jeans On’ which was sitting on 13 weeks

Also leaving us was Maria’s ‘Stand Up Like A Man’ which had seen a run of 6 weeks and a peak of 14. This would bring the curtain down on her SA chart career. She had seen 4 hits make the top 20, spent 55 weeks in the charts and enjoyed 4 weeks at 1 with ‘Clap Your Hands And Stamp Your Feet’. Sadly Maria would pass away just over 4 years later.

The Julian Laxton Band’s 2nd chart hit, ‘Blue Water’ came crashing into the charts at 12, making it the tied 6^th highest new entry to date by a local act and the first song to debut this high since Joe Dolan’s ‘Lady In Blue’ entered the charts at 7 on 19 December 1975. The band’s previous hit, ‘Celebrate The Rain’ was written by Laxton, Patric van Blerk and Trever Rabin and produced by Laxton and van Blerk. On ‘Blue Water’ Rabin moved across from writer to production credits while Laxton and van Blerk got credits for both roles again.

The other new entry was Peter Frampton’s ‘Show Me The Way To Go’. The song was originally released as a single in 1975, but it wasn’t until the live version from his mega-selling ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ album that the song took off, going to number 6 in the US, 10 in the UK and topped the charts for 2 weeks in Holland and for a week in Belgium. Frampton, who had been in the group The Herd and gone on to form Humble Pie with the Small Faces’ Steve Marriot, before finding solo fame, would have a total of 8 Billboard Hot 100 hits and only his 1977 hit ‘I’m In You’ which made number 2 there would perform better than ‘Show Me The Way To Go’.

We still only had 1 song by a US act in the charts (The Manhattans’ ‘Kiss And Say Goodbye’) and this was the 4^th week we had seen this and the first time we had seen consecutive weeks like this.

Romania went 1 week ahead of Kenya for weeks in the charts. Gheorge Zamfir had now clocked up 10 for his nation, putting them in 18^th place on their own while Kenya dropped to 19^th.

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7 January 1977

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Mississippi	–	Pussycat
2	3	8	Daddy Cool	–	Boney M
3	5	12	Jeans On	–	David Dundas
4	2	5	Georgie	–	Pussycat
5	7	11	A Million Drums	–	Dennis East
6	4	11	Dancing Queen	–	ABBA
7	6	8	Doctor Kiss-Kiss	–	5000 Volts
8	8	6	Without You	–	Barry Mason
9	12	5	I’ll Keep on Coming Back	–	Lionel Petersen
10	15	5	Michaelangelo	–	André
11	10	7	Our Sweet Precious Love	–	Billy Forrest
12	18	7	Kiss and Say Goodbye	–	Manhattans
13	9	9	Summer Love (Ete D’Amour)	–	Zamfir
14	11	4	I’ll Meet You at Midnight	–	Smokie
15	17	6	Stand Up Like a Man	–	Maria
16	20	2	My Friend the Wind	–	Demis Roussos
17	New	1	Howzat	–	Sherbet
18	13	15	I Hate the Music	–	John Paul Young
19	14	9	Dedication	–	Rogue
20	New	1	You Make Me Feel Like Dancing	–	Leo Sayer

Pussycat’s ‘Mississippi’ became the 8^th song to straddle a year end at number 1 as it continued its run at the top of the charts. It had now held on to pole position for 5 weeks which was a new record for a song by a Dutch act, moving 1 ahead of the 4 weeks that Shocking Blue’s ‘Venus’ and The George Baker Selection’s ‘Paloma Blanca’ had managed. Boney M’s ‘Daddy Cool’ moved back up to number 2 while Pussycat’s other hit, ‘Georgie’ dropped to 4, giving them only 1 week of holding the top 2 positions on the chart. This was the 21^st time the top 2 songs had been by acts not from the US, the UK or SA and this was the 6^th week running that we had seen this which was a new record, moving past the 5 week run which ended on 30 January 1976.

The Manhattans took the climber of the week award with a 6 place jump from 18 to 12 with ‘Kiss And Say Goodbye’. Also climbing at star rater pace was André’s ‘Michelangelo’ which jumped 5 from1 5 to 10 and Demis Roussos’ ‘My Friend The Wind’ which moved up 4 from 20 to 16.

There were 2 songs which took the faller of the week award with 5 place falls and they were Rogue’s ‘Dedication’ and John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’ which dropped from 14 to 19 and 13 to 18 respectively. John Paul Young’s hit was the 4^th by an Australian to see a biggest faller and so far, none of those 4 had been the faller more than once. He could, however, take heart from the fact that ‘I Hate The Music’ was enjoying its 5^th week as the oldest on the chart with 15 weeks to its name.

There were 2 songs which didn’t make it from 1976 into 1977, the first of which was Mungo Jerry’s ‘It’s A Secret’ which fell off the charts after a run of just 4 weeks and a peak of 18. This was 1 week more than their lowest weeks total for a song which ‘Baby Jump’ managed, but it shared the lowest peak with that song. This would end their SA chart career which consisted of 5 hits, 42 weeks and a best peak of 1 which ‘In The Summertime’ managed, staying at the top of the charts for 5 weeks.

We also bid farewell to Lou Rawls’ ‘You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine’ which had seen a run of 12 weeks and spent 2 of those 12 at number 1. This would be his only SA chart hit.

This week, we witnessed the second time that we had 2 songs by Australian artists on the charts but the first where they were 2 different artists. The previous occasion had been when The Seekers had 2 in the charts. The new Aussie hit on the top 20 was Sherbet’s ‘Howzat’ which joined John Paul Young’s ‘I Hate The Music’. Sherbet were massive in Australia in the 70s, scoring 20 consecutive hit singles there. ‘Howzat’ was one of those hits and it topped the charts down under as well as in New Zealand and gave them their only UK hit (making number 4 there). In the US it made number 61 and went top 20 in Holland (#6), Norway (#8), Belgium (#13) and Sweden (#16) and scraped a 36 peak in Germany. In 1981 under the changed name of The Sherbs, they had another number 61 hit in the US with ‘I Have The Skills’. Lead singer, Daryl Braithwaite went on to have a successful solo career with 15 top 40 hits in Aus and a number 47 hit in 1991 in the US with ‘Higher Than Hope’.

The other new entry was the 5^th SA hit for Leo Sayer, ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’, which made him the 56^th act so fat to reach 5 hits.  The song would give him his first US chart topper and it would go on to win the Grammy for best R&B song. In the UK it would only make it to number 2 but it would also top the Canadian and New Zealand charts. It is reputed that the song, while credited to Sayer and Vini Poncia, was actually written by Ray Parker Jr. However, Parker was young and new to the music industry and failed to get the credit he deserved. Leo Sayer tried to correct this, but was unsuccessful. It seems there were no hard feelings between the two artists as Parker played on Leo Sayer’s self-titled album 2 years later in 1978 and they shared song writing credits on a track called ‘Frankie Lee’. Co-incidentally, it was one of the artists leaving the chart this week, Lou Rawls, who introduced this new entry when Sayer sang it on Burt Sugarman’s ‘The Midnight Special’, a US television music show.

With the departure of Lou Rawls from the chart, we were left with just 1 American act in the top 20 and that was The Manhattans. This was just the 3^rd week where we had seen only 1 US act in the top 20. The Manhattans, feeling the pressure, put on a good show by having the biggest climb mentioned above which was something that the solitary US hit did not manage on either of the 2 previous occasions. We also saw a record to date 8 songs by acts that were not from SA, the UK or the US in the chart.

Romania’s ‘Gheorge Zamfir was still clocking up the week and had now equalled the 9 that Kenya’s only charter so far, Roger Whittaker, had managed. The two nations were tied 18^th on the list of weeks by acts from a nation.

Abba’s week count moved 1 ahead of that of Percy Sledge so Abba made 10^th place on the weeks count list their own while Sledge dropped to 11^th. On the local list we saw Maria make 11^th place her own with 55 weeks while Gene Rockwell and Lauren Copley on 54 dropped into tied 12^th place.

The average number of weeks that the top 20 songs had been with us crept over the 7 mark again after having been below this level for 13 weeks. It now sat at 7.1.

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