24 September 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	2	8	You	–	Peter Maffay
3	6	5	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee
4	5	12	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
5	3	11	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
6	15	3	Never Ending Song of Love	–	New Seekers
7	8	7	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
8	9	4	Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum	–	Middle of the Road
9	10	4	Tom-Tom Turnaround	–	New World
10	4	10	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
11	7	7	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
12	12	5	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
13	19	2	Silver Threads and Golden Needles	–	Barbara Ray
14	13	12	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
15	17	3	Sweet Hitch-Hiker	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
16	RE	8	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
17	20	2	Hey	–	Hedgehoppers Anonymous
18	18	3	Never Ending Song of Love	–	Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
19	New	1	Time After Time	–	Judy Page
20	New	1	Can We Get to That	–	Peter Vee

‘Co-Co’ by The Sweet equalled the record to date for weeks spent at the top spot as it enjoyed a 7th week as the nation’s favourite. So far The Tremeloes’ ‘Silence Is Golden’, The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ and Hilary’s ‘Sunglasses’ were the other 3 songs that had spent this long at the top of the charts. ‘Co-Co’ also helped the weeks at 1 count for British acts to tick over to 140, 17 more than the 123 by acts from the US and 89 more than 3rd placed local acts who had managed 51 so far. Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ spent a frustrating 3rd week at number 2.

The New Seekers’ ‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ was the climber of the week for a second week running. It climbed 9 places from 15 to 6 and was the 74th song so far to climb 9 or more places in a week (the 33rd by an act from the UK).

The only other star rater this week was Barbara Ray’s ‘Silver Threads And Golden Needles’ which moved up 6 from 19 to 13 to give Barbara her 3rd star rater climb.

John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ fell 6 from 4 to 10 to take the faller of the week award. And while we had a local star rater and faller of the week, we also saw that the 2 songs which were the oldest on the chart were local ones as The Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s ‘Hold On (To What You Got)’ and Gentle People’s ‘’Rain, Rain, Rain’ ticked over to 12 weeks with us.

Mungo Jerry’s ‘Lady Rose’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the charts this week. It had enjoyed a run of 10 weeks in the chart and peaked at 6. This was a much improved performance on their previous hit, ‘Baby Jump’ which only got to number 18 in a 3 week run, but not as good as the 15 weeks and 5 weeks at 1 that ‘In The Summertime’ had managed. We were, however, not finished with Mungo Jerry just yet.

We ignored the instructions on the label of Hurricane Smith’s debut hit on our charts, ‘Don’t Let It Die’ as the song’s chart career died this week. It had lasted 5 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 14. Hurricane Smith would not cause any further storms in the charts and this would be his solitary hit.

Last of the leavers was Blue Mink’s ‘The Banner Man’ which enjoyed 8 weeks on the charts and peaked at 3. Like Hurricane Smith, this would be their only SA chart showing.

Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’ became the 1st song to re-enter the charts twice. It initially spent 2 weeks on the charts at number 20, then after being absent for 3 weeks it returned for a 5 week run which saw a peak of 14 (its final position of that run before exiting), now after a 2 week absence, it was back.

Judy Page set a new record for gaps between hits for a local woman as her new one, ‘Time After Time’ entered the charts 112 weeks after ‘Montreal’, her previous hit, left the top 20. This was the 6th time we had seen a gap of 100 weeks or more for a local act and Judy Page was the first act local act to manage this twice. In total 8 acts would manage this twice with 1 of those 8 going on to manage it a 3rd time. Overall to date though, Johnny Rivers was the only other act to see a 100 week gap twice. ‘Time After Time’ was Judy’s 4th SA Chart hit and she was now the second highest local woman for hit count with Virginia Lee still out front with 6. ‘Time After Time’ was written by Terry Dempsey, giving him his 16th hit to date as a song writer. He was now 2 behind leader Les Reed on 18 and pulled 1 ahead of Barry Mason and Jeff Barry to give him second place on his own. This was the 43rd week that Dempsey had had more than 1 hit in the chart in the same week (the other being the re-entry of Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’), Les Reed was second with 37 weeks where he had 2 or more in the charts.

Our last new entry was also by a local act and that was Peter Vee’s ‘Can We Get To That’. The song was a cover of a b-side by Ray Stevens (the a-side was Stevens’ ‘Bridget The Midget’, a number 50 in the US) and was penned by Stevens. This was his 2nd hit as a song writer, his first being his own hit, ‘Guitarzan’. Peter Vee had already seen some SA chart action as a member of The Outlet who had had 2 hits and spent a total of 20 weeks in the charts.

The local hit count moved back to 8 in total and the locals were once again the most represented nation on the top 20. This was the 19th week where this was the case. The return of Lauren Copley and the arrival of Judy Page into the top 20 doubled the number of hits by solo female artists and their total now sat at 4. We had to go back to December 1968 to see this many women in the charts in the same week.

Groep Twee celebrated their 20th week in the charts which moved them back into the top 20 of the local hits count list, sharing 20th spot with Lance James and The Outlet. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy drew level with Dickie Loader on the list with 29 weeks to their name. On the overall list, The Bee Gees were now in second place on their own as their 106 weeks to date put them one ahead of Percy Sledge and The Troggs with the latter 2 falling to tied 3rd.

‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ had now accumulated 6 weeks between its 2 versions and moved into 24th position for weeks by songs charting in more than 1 version. There were 26 songs on the list.

Youtube playlist:

17 September 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	2	7	You	–	Peter Maffay
3	4	10	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
4	3	9	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
5	5	11	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
6	11	4	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee
7	9	6	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
8	10	6	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
9	13	3	Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum	–	Middle of the Road
10	15	3	Tom-Tom Turnaround	–	New World
11	6	8	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
12	12	4	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
13	7	11	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
14	14	5	Don’t Let it Die	–	Hurricane Smith
15	20	2	Never Ending Song of Love	–	New Seekers
16	8	10	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
17	18	2	Sweet Hitch-Hiker	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
18	19	2	Never Ending Song of Love	–	Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
19	New	1	Silver Threads and Golden Needles	–	Barbara Ray
20	New	1	Hey	–	Hedgehoppers Anonymous

‘Co-Co’ entered its 6th week at the top of the chart and moved The Sweet’s consecutive weeks at 1 total on to 12. Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ enjoyed a second week at number 2. We were yet to see a German act top the charts.

The biggest climb this week was 5 places and 3 songs managed this. They were Groep Twee’s ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde’ which moved up to 6 (and was the song’s second time with the biggest climber award), New World’s ‘Tom-Tom Turnaround’ which moved up 10 and The New Seekers’ ‘Never Ending Song of Love’ which climbed to 15. Interestingly these 3 had been with us for 5, 4 and 3 weeks respectively.

The only other song to climb more than 3 places was Middle Of The Road’s ‘Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum’ which moved up 4 from 13 to 9 to make up the 4th star rater this week.

Mungo Jerry picked up their second biggest faller award as ‘Lady Rose’ dropped 8 from 8 to 16. Their previous biggest faller had been with ‘In The Summetime’ and that had only been a 3 place fall. ‘Lady Rose’s fall would be the biggest one Mungo Jerry would ever see.

Jérome’s ‘Nosy Rosie’ was the first of 2 songs to depart the chart this week. It had seen a run of 5 weeks and peaked at 13. This was the tied second lowest peak to date for a song by a German act with both Jeronimo’s ‘Heya’ and The Rattles’ ‘The Witch’ also peaking at 13. All 3 German songs having that peak so far had also all spent 5 weeks on the charts.

The Sweet’s run of 7 weeks with more than 1 song in the chart came to an end as ‘Funny Funny’ dropped out of the top 20. It had been with us for a total of 16 weeks, 6 of which were spent at number 1. It had been the oldest on the chart last week and that title now fell to 2 local songs, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s ‘Hold On (To What You Got)’ and The Gentle People’s ‘Rain, Rain, Rain’ which were both on 11 weeks.

And while we had 2 local songs as the oldest on the chart, we also had 2 sort of local songs as new entries. Barbara Ray’s ‘Silver Threads and Golden Needles’ was her 3rd hit to make our charts. Barbara was the 9th solo female to clock up at least 3 hits and the 3rd local woman to do so. Judy Page (also 3 hits) and Virginia Lee (6 hits) were the other 2 local women to have 3 or more hits to date. ‘Silver Threads And Golden Needles’ was written by Jack Rhodes and Dick Reynolds and was first recorded in 1956 by Wanda Jackson. The Springfields (which included Dusty Springfield) took the song to number 20 in the US, its highest placing there, while The Cowsills, Jody Miller and Linda Ronstadt have all have covers make the Billboard hot 100, reaching positions 74, 54 & 67 respectively.

The second new entry was by Hedgehoppers Anonymous, a British group that made South Africa a second home. At the beginning of 1971, they dropped the ‘Anonymous’ from their name and released ‘Hey’, a song penned by band member Mick Matthews. It climbed to number 2 on the LM Radio charts and topped the Rhodesian charts. It joined Glenn Yarbrough’s ‘She’ and Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ as the shortest song title to chart so far. The gap between ‘Hey’ charting and the Hedgehoppers’ previous hit, ‘Don’t Push Me’, was a new record to date 278 weeks, smashing the previous record of 219 weeks which Groep Twee had set only 3 weeks previously. This increase in the record gap of 59 weeks (278 less 219) was a tied biggest to date. The only previous occasion we had seen this was when Rick Nelson added 59 weeks onto the record gap when he broke the record that The Animals held at that stage.

Excluding the first 2 weeks of the charts, this was only the second time the top 20 did not feature any previous number 1s. The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ had been the only previous number 1 in the top 20 but that fell off the chart this week. If terms of future number 1’s this was the first time we only saw 1 future number 1 on the chart. This would be an all-time record which we would see occur on 35 more occasions.

Creedence Clearwater Revival pulled 1 week ahead of The Rolling Stones for weeks on the chart. Their 93 to date left them in 8th place on the weeks count list but did mean that The Stones dropped to 9th. Meanwhile The Bee Gees joined The Troggs and Percy Sledge in tied 2nd place on the list with 105 weeks to their name. They were still 69 weeks behind leader Tom Jones. To put this lead into perspective, the songs to chart so far had average 8.12 weeks in the chart each which meant that these 3 acts would need just over 8 songs staying the average length in the charts to catch up with Tom.

The Peanut Butter Conspiracy continued to move up the local weeks count list, their 28 weeks to date put them tied 12th with Tidal Wave.

The Hedgehoppers ‘Hey’ and Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ would be the only songs with a title of 3 or less letters that would be on the charts simultaneously. We were also into the second week of the second run with 2 acts in the charts whose names started with the word ‘New’. The New Seekers and New World joined The New Vaudeville Band and The New Christy Minstrels (who had shared the charts back in 1967) in doing this. There would only be 1 more act to chart where the acts name began with ‘New’ and that be the odd one out as it would not share the charts with another ‘New’ act.

The Bees Gees moved into second place on the overall points list as they had now accumulated 1,313 which moved them ahead of The Troggs who were on 1,305. Tom Jones was in first place with 2,106.

Youtube playlist:

10 September 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	3	6	You	–	Peter Maffay
3	2	8	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
4	4	9	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
5	7	10	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
6	5	7	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
7	6	10	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
8	8	9	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
9	9	5	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
10	10	5	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
11	16	3	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee
12	11	3	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
13	19	2	Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum	–	Middle of the Road
14	17	4	Don’t Let it Die	–	Hurricane Smith
15	20	2	Tom-Tom Turnaround	–	New World
16	12	16	Funny Funny	–	Sweet
17	13	5	Nosy Rosie	–	Jérome
18	New	1	Sweet Hitch-Hiker	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
19	New	1	Never Ending Song of Love	–	Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
20	New	1	Never Ending Song of Love	–	New Seekers

The Sweet’s run at the top of the charts now extended to 11 weeks with 6 of those coming from ‘Funny Funny’ and now ‘Co-Co’ had clocked up 5. John Kongos’ challenge for the number 1 position faltered as his ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ dropped to 3 and Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ moved into second place.

Middle Of The Road’s ‘Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum’ took climber of the week as it moved up 6 from 19 to 13 while Groep Twee’s ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde’ and New World’s ‘Tom-Tom Turnaround’ were the other star raters both climbing 5 places and ending up at 11 and 15 respectively. This was the second week in row that the Groep Twee song had been a star rater.

The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ became the only song to make faller of the week 4 weeks running as it dropped a further 4 places from 12 to 16. This was the 26th time we had seen the number of places dropped equal the number of times the act had taken the biggest faller award. Joining ‘Funny Funny’ in a 4 place fall was Jérome’s ‘Nosy Rosie’ which dropped to 17. It was only the 3rd time we had seen a German act take the biggest faller award. While being one of the 2 biggest fallers this week, The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ was enjoying its 3rd week as the oldest on the charts as it moved on to 16 weeks.

This week was the 4th time we saw 3 local songs leave the charts. This dropped the local hit count right down to 4. The first of the leavers was Dennis’ (aka Billy Forrest) hit ‘Joey The Lipstick Collector’. It managed 3 weeks with us and peaked at 18, 1 place higher and 1 week more than his previous hit ‘We’re All Playing In The Same Band’ which he had recorded under the name Quentin E. Klopjaeger. This would be Forrest’s only hit under the name Dennis, but he would be back with a new guise in the not too distant future.

Tidal Wave’s ‘Money Baby’ made it to number 15 during a 3 week run. This was 1 place higher but 1 week less than their previously lowest charting song, ‘Green Mamba’. Unlike Billy Forrest, Tidal Wave would not be returning to our top 20. They had enjoyed 4 hits with us, spent a total of 28 weeks in the charts, 1 of which was at number 1 with ‘Spider Spider’.

Last to go was Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’ which managed 5 weeks in this, its second run on the charts, and peaked at number 14. Its previous run was 2 weeks at number 20 which gave the song a total of 7 weeks in the top 20. Copley would see further SA chart action, but her departure from the charts meant that we were down to just 1 song by a solo female in the top 20.

Creedence Clearwater Revival became the 12th act to clock up 9 or more hits as ‘Sweet Hitch-Hiker’ entered the charts this week. The song would give them a number 6 hit in the US and in the UK it made it to number 36 which was their tied lowest ever chart placing in the UK with ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain?’ being their other hit to peak this low. It would top the charts in Switzerland and go top 10 in Belgium (#8), Germany (#6), The Netherlands (#5), Norway (#4) and what was then Rhodesia (#5). John Fogarty who wrote the song, and had written all Creedence’s SA Chart hits to date, was the 16th song writer to clock up 9 hits.

The other 2 new entries were 2 different versions of the same song. At 19 was Delaney & Bonnie & Friends’ version of ‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ while The New Seekers’ were at 20 with their version. This was the 27th song to chart in more than 1 version. It was written by Delaney Bramlett who recorded it with his wife Bonnie (née Bonnie Lynn O’Farrell) and their friends who included at various times George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Rita Coolidge and Duane and Gregg Allman of The Allman Brothers Band, although it is not clear which the aforementioned actually appear on our new entry this week. Their version made it to number 13 in the US.

The New Seekers were formed by The Seekers member Keith Potger, but he was the only member of The Seekers in this new band. Unlike The Seekers (who were predominantly Australian), The New Seekers were British based (Potger himself was born in Sri Lanka which was known as Ceylon when he was born). Their version of ‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ was their second UK chart hit where it went to number 2. The song has also had a fair bit of success on the US Country Singles charts with Dickey Lee taking a version to 8 on those charts, The Osmonds went to number 43 and Crystal Gayle number 72.

We saw the first movement on the overall top 20 of the weeks count list in 15 weeks as Creedence Clearwater Revival moved tied 8th with the Rolling Stones as their weeks total moved on to 92. On the local front, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy moved on to 28 weeks and were unmoved at 13, but it did mean that The Dealians dropped to 14.

On the points front The Bee Gees hit the 1,300 mark exactly. They were 3rd overall for points and just 5 behind The Troggs who were in second place. Tom Jones still led the way on 2,106.

This would be the last week where we would see 4 songs in the charts where the first 2 words were the same (‘Co-Co’, ‘Rain, Rain, Rain’, ‘Tom-Tom Turnaround’ and ‘Funny Funny’).

Youtube playlist:

3 September 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	4	7	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
3	5	5	You	–	Peter Maffay
4	2	8	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
5	3	6	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
6	6	9	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
7	7	9	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
8	8	8	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
9	9	4	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
10	11	4	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
11	13	2	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
12	10	15	Funny Funny	–	Sweet
13	14	4	Nosy Rosie	–	Jérome
14	15	7	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
15	17	3	Money Baby	–	Tidal Wave
16	20	2	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee
17	19	3	Don’t Let it Die	–	Hurricane Smith
18	18	3	Joey the Lipstick Collector	–	Dennis
19	New	1	Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum	–	Middle of the Road
20	New	1	Tom-Tom Turnaround	–	New World

‘Co-Co’s weeks at 1 moved on to 4 and The Sweet’s consecutive run at the top went into double figures. John Kongos moved into second place with his hit, ‘He’s Gonna Step on You Again’ while Tony Christie who had occupied the position for 2 weeks with ‘I Did What I Did For Marie’, fell to 4.

Groep Twee’s ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 4 from 20 to 16. It was the 7th time we had seen an Afrikaans song take the award and with Des Lindberg’s ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’ being the only one to do so twice so far, it meant that Groep Twee were the 6th act to manage a biggest climber with an Afrikaans song. Because the biggest climb was only 4 places, there were no other star raters this week.

Last week we saw 4 biggest fallers. This week that number dropped to 3 and while the biggest fall last week was 3 places, this week it was only 2 places. The 3 songs which fell 2 places were Tony Christie’s ‘I Did What I Did For Maria’ (down to 4), ‘The Banner Man’ by Blue Mink (down to 5) and The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ which fell to 12. It was the 3rd week running that ‘Funny Funny’ had been the biggest faller and it was only the 2nd song to manage this. The previous song to be the biggest faller 3 weeks running was The Cowsills’ ‘Indian Lake’.

The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ enjoyed a second week as the oldest on the charts. It was now on 15 weeks.

Ringo Starr’s ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ did not manage to set a new record for weeks on the charts by a song by an ex-Beatle as it fell off the top 20 after equalling the record to date (set by George Harrison’s ‘What Is Life’) 12 weeks. Its peak position was 4 which was the same as the George Harrison hit, but it slightly edged it on the points front as it made 141 compared to ‘What Is Life’s 135 and was the highest points to date for an ex-Beatle song. Ringo and his 3 ex-band mates would all feature on the charts again.

Johnny Rivers’ SA chart career came to an end with the departure of ‘Sea Cruise’ from the charts. His final hit had spent 10 weeks on the charts and peaked at 8. In total Rivers had had 4 hits make our top 20, spent 33 weeks on the charts with a best peak of 2 which ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ had managed. His departure took the count of hits by acts from the US back down to the all-time low of 1 hit, Tami Lynn’s ‘I’m Gonna Run Away From You’. This was the second time we had seen this.

The first of the new entries was Middle Of The Road’s first SA chart hit, ‘Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum’. Earlier in the year, the band had missed out on charting as we chose Lally Stott’s version of ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ over Middle Of The Road’s where the latter was a much bigger hit globally than the former. However, there were no hard feelings as ‘Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum’ was another Stott composition (he shared song writing credits with Mario & Giosy Capuano). The song would just miss out on following ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’ to the top of the UK charts as it peaked at 2 there. It would also go to 5 in The Netherlands, 6 in Norway, 7 in Belgium, 15 in Germany as well as making it to number 3 in what was then Rhodesia.

The second new entry was the 10th song by an Australian band to chart. ‘Tom-Tom Turnaround’ was by New World who hailed from Brisbane. New World were the 4th Australian band to chart with The Seekers accounting for the first 7 hits by Aussie acts. ‘Tom-Tom Turnaround’ was a 3rd hit for the song writing team of Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn and the first by the duo that was not song by The Sweet. It would go to number 6 in The UK, 10 in Germany and would top the (then) Rhodesian charts. Its arrival on the charts restored us to an all time record 4 songs where the first 2 words of the title were the same with ‘Co-Co’, ‘Funny Funny’ and ‘Rain, Rain, Rain’ being the other 3. Australia still sat 5th for number of hits by acts from a nation. Their 10 hits to date were 7 behind 4th placed Canada.

The Sweet celebrated reaching the 20 weeks in the chart mark. So far 86 acts had reached this milestone. They were also enjoying their 6th week with 2 in the charts. 19 acts so far had seen 2 or more in the charts for at least 6 weeks.

Billy Forrest moved his weeks count on to 32 and pulled 1 ahead of Des Lindberg. He sat unmoved at 9 on the local weeks count list while Lindberg dropped to 10. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy moved tied 13th with The Dealians on 26 weeks.

This week was the 3rd time we had seen a record to date 5 songs with the word ‘You’ in the title.

Youtube playlist;

27 August 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	5	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	2	7	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
3	5	5	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
4	8	6	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
5	9	4	You	–	Peter Maffay
6	3	8	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
7	4	8	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
8	6	7	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
9	14	3	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
10	7	14	Funny Funny	–	Sweet
11	15	3	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
12	11	10	Sea Cruise	–	Johnny Rivers
13	New	1	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
14	17	3	Nosy Rosie	–	Jérome
15	16	6	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
16	13	12	It Don’t Come Easy	–	Ringo Starr
17	18	2	Money Baby	–	Tidal Wave
18	19	2	Joey the Lipstick Collector	–	Dennis
19	20	2	Don’t Let it Die	–	Hurricane Smith
20	New	1	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee

The Sweet’s ‘Co-Co’ extended its run at the top of the charts and had now been there for 3 weeks. Added to the 6 weeks ‘Funny Funny’ had managed, The Sweet’s consecutive weeks run at the top was now 9, something no other act had yet managed. Tony Christie was still hoping to bag a number 1 hit as his ‘I Did What I Did For Maria’ clung to second spot for a second week.

Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Me And Bobby McGee’ followed up last week’s star rater with a biggest climber this week as the song moved up 5 places from 14 to 9. This was the 8th time a Canadian act had taken the biggest climber award with 4 of the previous 7 occasions being when Lucille Starr took the honours. The other 3 songs which had been star raters last week managed it again this week with last week’s biggest climber, The Bee Gees’ ‘How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?’ climbing 4 to 11 while John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ and Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ moved up 4 to number 4 and 5 respectively. This was The Bee Gees’ 16th time with a star rater climb and they were now tied second for number of star raters, joining Percy Sledge on that total. Tom Jones was still way out in front with 22 to his name. It was a 3rd week in a row as star rater for Peter Maffay’s ‘You’.

The biggest fall this week was just 3 places and 4 songs managed this. They were Ringo Starr’s ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ (down to 16), The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ (down to 10 and second week in a row as biggest faller), The Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s ‘Hold On (To What You Got)’ (down to 7) and The Gentle People’s ‘Rain, Rain, Rain’ (down to 6).

There were 2 songs that left the charts this week, the first of which was Clive Bruce’s ‘Sally Sunshine’ which had spent 8 weeks on the charts and peaked at 11. This would not be the last we would see of Bruce on our charts.

Also going was ‘Mozart: Symphony No. 40 In G Minor K.550 1° Movement (Allegro Molto)’ by Waldo De Los Rios which became the 30th song to leave the top 20 from position 10 or higher as it spent its last week at 10. It lasted 14 weeks with us and peaked at 2. This would be De Los Rios’ only SA chart entry, but we had seen him on a previous hit as song writer (Miguel Rios’ ‘A Song Of Joy’) so in total De Los Rios managed 23 weeks in the charts if one combines his time as songwriter with his time as artist. ‘Mozart: Symphony No. 40’ had been the oldest on the chart last week and that honour now fell to The Sweet’s ‘Funny Funny’ which sat on 13 weeks.

The solo female content in the chart had been sitting at 1 hit for the last 4 weeks after the 1 week we had with no solo women in the charts. This week the number doubled as Tami Lynn’s ‘I’m Gonna Run Away From You’ joined Lauran Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’ in The Top 20. Lynn’s hit had been originally released in 1967, but only became a hit in 1971 when it went to number 4 in the UK. It was written by Bert Berns who had already brought us Them’s ‘Here Comes The Night’. Berns also co-wrote ‘Twist And Shout’ which The Beatles made famous. ‘I’m Gonna Run Away From You’ would make it to 36 in Germany and 7 in what was then Rhodesia. Tami’s arrival also doubled the number of hits by US acts on our charts after last week’s lowest ever count of just 1 American hit in the chart.

Groep Twee’s ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde’ became the 12th Afrikaans song to make our charts and it was the 8th pure Afrikaans song to do so with 3 of the previous ones being a mix of English and Afrikaans and 1 of them being an instrumental with an Afrikaans title. Groep Twee had last been seen on our charts back in the June of 1967 with ‘Die Ou Kraal Liedjie’. This gap of 219 weeks was 1 week longer than the previous record which Rick Nelson held. This was the 4th time the biggest gap between hits record was held by a local act with Emil Dean, Virginia Lee and Gene Rockwell being the previous acts to hold this record, although it should be said that the biggest of these previous record holding gaps was only 23 weeks as they all occurred in 1965 when the charts started. The previous biggest gap for a local act (which was not the overall biggest gap) was Jody Wayne who saw a break of 156 weeks between hits. ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde’ was a cover of the hit by Austrian-Swiss singer Udo Jurgens.

Ringo Starr’s ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ was sitting on 12 weeks in the charts and this equalled the best week count to date for a song by an ex-Beatle which George Harrison’s ‘What Is Life’ had managed. The Beatles themselves had only 1 song see a better week count and that was ‘We Can Work It Out’ which managed a total of 14. ‘Help’ by The Beatles managed 12.

Billy Forrest climbed into 9th places on the local weeks count list with 31 to his name. He shared the spot with Des Lindberg. Tidal Wave took 12th place to themselves with 27 weeks, causing The Dealians to drop to 13th while The Peanut Butter Conspiracy moved alongside Ken J. Larkin in 14th position with their 25 weeks to date.

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20 August 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	4	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	2	6	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
3	5	7	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
4	4	7	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
5	6	4	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
6	7	6	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
7	3	13	Funny Funny	–	Sweet
8	12	5	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
9	13	3	You	–	Peter Maffay
10	9	14	Mozart: Symphony No. 40 In G Minor K.550 1° Movement (Allegro Molto)	–	Waldo de Los Rios
11	8	9	Sea Cruise	–	Johnny Rivers
12	14	8	Sally Sunshine	–	Clive Bruce
13	10	11	It Don’t Come Easy	–	Ringo Starr
14	18	2	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
15	20	2	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
16	17	5	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
17	19	2	Nosy Rosie	–	Jérome
18	New	1	Money Baby	–	Tidal Wave
19	New	1	Joey the Lipstick Collector	–	Dennis
20	New	1	Don’t Let it Die	–	Hurricane Smith

The Sweet’s run at the top of the charts now moved on to 8 consecutive weeks, 6 of which had been with ‘Funny Funny’ and now a further 2 with ‘Co-Co’. This broke the record to date run  of consecutive weeks at 1 by an act with The Tremeloes, The Bee Gees and Hilary all managing a run of 7 straight weeks but they all did that with 1 song. Tony Christie’s ‘I Did What I Did For Maria’ enjoyed a second week at 2.

‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?’ by The Bee Gees was the climber of the week. It moved up 5 places from 20 to 15. This was the 9th time that The Bee Gees had had the biggest climber and they now sat tied second with Herman’s Hermits for number of biggest climbers but were 5 behind Tom Jones who had taken the award 14 times so far.

John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’, Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ and Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Me And Bobby McGee’ were the other star raters as they all moved up 4 places to land at 8, 9 and 14 respectively. Of these 3 acts, only Peter Maffay had seen a previous star rater and that was the previous week when ‘You’ had climbed 5 and had been the biggest climber.

Despite the good news above for The Sweet regarding their run at 1, it wasn’t all positives for them as their previous chart topper, ‘Funny Funny’ was the faller of the week as it dropped 4 places to number 7. This was their first biggest faller award.

Waldo De Los Rios’ ‘Mozart: Symphony No 40.’ was the oldest on the charts as it moved on to 14 weeks with us. It shared the oldest title with another song last week, but that other one was one of the leavers this week and is discussed below.

There were 3 songs which left the charts this week, the first of which was Lobo’s ‘Me and You and a Dog Named Boo’. It had spent 9 weeks on the charts and peaked at 6 which was not a bad performance for his first hit. Lobo would enjoy a few more hits with us.

Sakakrin’s version of The Archies’ ‘Sugar Sugar’ lasted 6 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 14. Along with The Archies version of the song it had spent a total of 24 weeks in the charts with The Archies’ 3 weeks at 1 being its best peak. Sakkarin was essentially Jonathan King who had had 1 other song chart and that was 1965’s ‘Everyone’s Gone To The Moon’. If one combines the performance of that song with what Sakkarin managed, then he had a 2 hits chart career, spent 12 weeks in the chart with his earlier one having the better peak of 8. King also wrote and produced Hedgehoppers Anonymous’ ‘Don’t Push Me’ which spent 4 weeks on the charts (bringing King’s total involvement up to 16 weeks) and peaked at 15. This would be the last we would see of King on our charts as artist, song writer or producer.

Last of the leavers was the song that had shared oldest on the chart honours with Waldo De Los Rios last week and that was Lincoln’s ‘Long Days And Lonely Nights’. It lasted 13 weeks in the charts and peaked at number 2. In terms of points it managed 174 which was the 20th best by a local song to date. We would see Lincoln again on our charts.

Tidal Wave returned to the chart with their 4th hit to date, ‘Money Talks’. Apart from making our top 20 the song would also go to number 9 in what was then Rhodesia. It was written by Terry Dempsey, giving him his 15th hit to date as a song writer and this moved him into tied 2nd place on the list of number of hits by a song writer. He shared that spot with Barry Mason and Jeff Barry and they all sat 3 behind leader Les Reed.

Billy Forrest was also returning to the charts as his 5th hit to date arrived in the form of ‘Joey The Lipstick Collector’. Forrest’s previous 4 hits had all been under the name of Quentin E. Klopjaeger, but for this new one he simply went under the name Dennis. The song, written by Johnny Garfield, appears to have been first recorded by a band called Wall St. Division from Liverpool. The b-side of this Dennis single was another cover version and that was The Bats’ ‘Huff Puff’. ‘Joey The Lipstick Collector’ would be the only song to chart in SA with the word ‘lipstick’ in the title whereas in the UK there where 6 songs containing that word that have charted (3 simply called ‘Lipstick’ by Alesha Dixon, Rocket from The Crypt and Jedward; ‘Lipstick On Your Collar’ by Connie Francis; ‘Lipstick, Powder And Paint’ by Shakin’ Stevens and ‘Red Lipstick’ by Skint & Demoralised).

The final new entry was Hurricane Smith’s ‘Don’t Let It Die’. Smith’s real name was Norman Smith and he had worked as an engineer for The Beatles. He then moved on to produce some of Pink Floyd’s albums, The Pretty Thing’s ‘SF Sorrow’ and early Barclay James Harvest. It was however while working with The Beatles that he wrote ‘Don’t Let It Die’ which he hoped John Lennon would record. He played it to Mickie Most who suggested Smith record the song himself. The advice proved good as it reached number 2 in the UK and 13 in Holland. Hurricane was the 5th (of 8) acts with the surname Smith who would chart (this excludes the band called Smith). The other 4 were Verdelle Smith, Whistling Jack Smith, Eric Smith and Sammi Smith.

Billy Forrest celebrated his 30th week in the chart. He still sat 10th on the local weeks count lit, but had moved 1 ahead of Dickie loader who dropped to 11th. Tidal Wave moved tied 12th with The Dealians as their total ticked over to 26 while The Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s 24 weeks to date moved them in to tied 15th place with Al Debbo.

We would never see a chart that had no American acts on them, but this week we saw the first time when only 1 song was by an act from the US and that was Johnny Rivers’ ‘Sea Cruise’ which sat at number 11. There would be 4 more occasions when we only saw 1 US act in the top 20. By comparison, we would also not ever be without a British act in the charts but there would only be 3 times when acts from the UK would only have 1 representative.

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13 August 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	3	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	3	5	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
3	1	12	Funny Funny	–	Sweet
4	6	6	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
5	8	6	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
6	10	3	The Banner Man	–	Blue Mink
7	11	5	Lady Rose	–	Mungo Jerry
8	9	8	Sea Cruise	–	Johnny Rivers
9	4	13	Mozart: Symphony No. 40 In G Minor K.550 1° Movement (Allegro Molto)	–	Waldo de Los Rios
10	7	10	It Don’t Come Easy	–	Ringo Starr
11	5	13	Long Days and Lonely Nights	–	Lincoln
12	14	4	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
13	18	2	You	–	Peter Maffay
14	15	7	Sally Sunshine	–	Clive Bruce
15	17	4	Sugar, Sugar	–	Sakkarin
16	13	9	Me and You and a Dog Named Boo	–	Lobo
17	20	4	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
18	New	1	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
19	New	1	Nosy Rosie	–	Jérome
20	New	1	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees

This week witnessed the only occasion we would see in the entire life of the SA Charts where an artist knocked themselves off the top spot as The Sweet’s ‘Co-Co’ replaced ‘Funny Funny’ at number 1. The latter song had spent 6 weeks at the top of the charts and it dropped to number 3 with Tony Christie’s ‘I Did What I Did For Maria’ sneaking into 2nd place. ‘Co-Co’ was the 13th song to take 3 weeks to get to number with Shocking Blue’s ‘Venus’ being the only song so far to do so in 2 weeks, the all time record.

Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ was the climber of the week, moving up 5 from 13 to 18. This was the 6th time the biggest climber had been by a German act.

Blue Mink’s ‘The Banner Man’ and Mungo Jerry’s ‘Lady Rose’ were the only other star raters this week with both songs climbing 4 places to 6 and 7 respectively. It was a second star rater climb for both songs and a 4th time in total for Mungo Jerry.

Lincoln’s ‘Long Days And Lonely Nights’ was the faller of the week, dropping 6 from 5 to 11. It was the 73rd time a local act had been the faller of the week if one includes Virginia Lee’s duet with American artist Slim Whitman. The up side for Lincoln was that their song was still one of the oldest on the chart, sharing the title with Waldo De Los Rios’ ‘Mozart: Symphony No. 40’ with both songs enjoying their 13thweek in the top 20.

A song which shared the oldest on the chart title with the aforementioned 2 songs last week, Des & Dawn Lindberg’s ‘The Seagull’s Name Was Nelson’, was 1 of 3 songs to leave this week. It had lasted 12 weeks and peaked at 4. This would be their only SA chart hit. Des Lindberg had managed 2 hits as a solo artist and if we add this to his hit with Dawn, he spent a total of 43 weeks in the chart which would have put him 36th on the overall list.

John Edmond’s ‘Boom Sha La La Lo’ managed to get to number 10 during its 10 weeks on the chart and was the 24th song to have an equal weeks and peak figure. He was also the 3rd local act to manage this with Emil Dean and Group 66 being the other 2 to do so. This was Edmond’s best performance so far of the 3 hits he had had on our charts with his previous 2 both peaking at 13 and neither making double figures for weeks. He still had more hits to come.

Last of the leavers was The Dealians’ ‘When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door’ which spent 11 weeks with us and peaked at 3, not quite as good as the peak of 1 and 15 weeks run of their only other hit to date, ‘Look Out Here Comes Tomorrow’. Like John Edmond, The Dealians would be back.

This was the 3rd time we had seen 3 local songs leave the chart in the same week.

Kris Kristofferson, who was yet to chart as a singer, enjoyed his 3rd hit as a songwriter. He had seen 2 versions of ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ chart for Sammi Smith and Percy Sledge and now he shared songwriting credits with Fred Foster on Gordon Lightfoot’s version of ‘Me And Bobby McGee’. Janis Joplin, who had died the previous year, would become the 2nd person to have a posthumous number 1 in the US as her version of ‘Me And Bobby McGee’, reached number 1 there. Lightfoot’s version seems only to have found favour with South Africa as it did not chart in the UK, US, Europe or Australia. It didn’t even make the charts in neighbouring Zimbabwe. Lightfoot’s hit boosted the total of hits by Canadian artists to 17 and they were the 4th highest placed nation for number of hits with only The US (289), The UK (283) and SA (140) ahead of them.

The second new entry was ‘Nosy Rosie’ by Jérome, a German singer. Jérome recorded other songs under the name Chris Juwens, but his real name was apparently Uwe Stelzmann. Despite the use of different aliases, he does not seem to have worried the charts around the world except from this little foray into the SA top 20. His arrival on the charts did move the total number of hits by German acts on to 8 and Germany moved tied 6th with Jamaica for number of hits.

The Bee Gees returned to the top 20 with their 11th hit to date, ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?’. This put them tied 5th for number of hits as they joined Herman’s Hermits and Petula Clark on that total. Written by Barry & Robin, it would top the US and Canadian charts and make number 2 in Chile, 3 in Australia and 6 in New Zealand. It would make the top 30 in Holland, Belgium and Italy, but interestingly, did not chart in the UK. Barry Gibb moved tied 5th for number of hits by a song writer, his 14 to date moving him level with Geoff Stephens while Robin sat 2 hits behind them and was 7th on the number of hits by a song writer list. The Bee Gees had now spent at least 1 week in the charts every year since 1967. The gap between this and their previous hit was 84 weeks which was the biggest gap to date between their hits that we had seen so far. It would ultimately be the 3rd biggest gap between Bee Gee hits on our charts.

The departure of the 3 local songs meant that for the first time in 13 week, the local acts were not the most predominant on the chart. Acts from the UK were now the most represented with 8 of the top 20 being by them. There were 6 local hits, while the Americans experienced their second week with their lowest hit count to date of 2. 2 Germans, 1 Argentinian and a Canadian made up the rest.

The Bee Gees new entry brought their weeks count to 100 and they were the 4th act to achieve this landmark. Percy Sledge and The Troggs on 105 and Tom Jones way out in front on 174 were the other acts to have made the 100 club so far.

The Peanutbutter Conspiracy caught up with John Edmond on the local weeks count list, their 23 weeks putting them tied 16th.

‘Sugar Sugar’ continued its run in the charts and had now clocked up 24 weeks with the 2 different versions that had made the charts so far. It stayed 7th on the list of weeks by songs charting in more than 1 version, but was now clear of ‘Ramblin’ Boy’ and ‘The Letter’.

The 4 songs making up the all time record for number of hits where the first 2 words of the title were the same, were still in the charts for a 3rd week running.

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