4 June 1965

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	New	1	I Need You	–	Rick Nelson
2	New	1	Ticket To Ride	–	Beatles
3	New	1	Key To Your Heart	–	Emil Dean
4	New	1	Torture	–	Gene Rockwell
5	New	1	I Know A Place	–	Petula Clark
6	New	1	Under The Boardwalk	–	Rolling Stones
7	New	1	Lovely Lovely	–	Chubby Checker
8	New	1	Minute You’re Gone	–	Cliff Richard
9	New	1	Tired Of Waiting For You	–	Kinks
10	New	1	Forget Domani	–	Connie Francis
11	New	1	Funny How Love Can Be	–	Ivy League
12	New	1	Shabby Little Hut	–	Bats
13	New	1	Do What You Do Do Well	–	Ned Miller
14	New	1	Last Time	–	Rolling Stones
15	New	1	Do The Clam	–	Elvis Presley
16	New	1	I’ll Never Find Another You	–	Seekers
17	New	1	Tennessee Yodel Polka	–	Slim Whitman & Virginia Lee
18	New	1	Just Another Guy	–	Cliff Richard
19	New	1	Game Of Love	–	Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
20	New	1	Mrs Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter	–	Herman’s Hermits

Okay, here we go with what I believe was the very first ‘official’ Top 20 chart in South Africa. We started off with Rick Nelson’s ‘I Need You’ at the top of the charts. Some of you who have been following this blog for a while may realise that this song made a 2 week re-appearance on the charts towards the end of 1969. The song first saw the light of day on Nelson’s 1962 album ‘It’s Up To You’ and was the b-side of the single release of the title track which made 22 in the UK and 6 in the US. In 1963 the b-side, ‘I Need You’ made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 in its own right, getting to number 83.

At number 2 was a band who need no introduction. ‘Ticket To Ride’ was The Beatles‘ 11th song to chart in the UK and their 7th number 1 there. In the US it was their 32nd song to make the Hot 100 (they had singles like the German version of ‘She Loves You’ – ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ get to number 97) and 8th chart topper there. Obviously it made our charts before they were famously banned by the SABC.

Number 3 was the highest placed local act on this chart, Emil Dean’s ‘Key To Your Heart’. Dean (who also went under the name Emil Dean Zoghby) would go on to become a producer, working with US rocker Pat Travers and UK acts such as Magna Carta and Nirvana (no not the Kurt Cobain one). He would also produce Ballyhoo’s ‘Man On the Moon’, a South African classic from the early 80’s.

We had another local act at 4 in the form of Gene Rockwell with his hit, ‘Torture’. This was a cover of a song written by John D. Loudermilk and first recorded by Kris Jensen whose version went to number 20 in the US in 1963. The Everly Brothers also recorded a version.

Petula Clark was the highest placed female on this first chart with her song ‘I Know A Place’ at 5. It was the follow up to perhaps Clark’s signature tune, ‘Downtown’ and it topped the charts in Canada and made number 12 in the US and 17 in the UK.

Number 6 was The Rolling Stones‘ cover of the 1964 Drifters‘ hit ‘Under The Boardwalk’. The song was not released as a single in the UK or US, but made number 1 in Australia. The Drifters took their version to 4 in the US and 45 in the UK.

Up next was Chubby Checker’s ‘Lovely Lovely (Loverly Loverly)’. Checker (real name Ernest Evans) would reach number 70 in the US with this song.

‘The Minute You’re Gone’ gave Cliff Richard his 8th UK chart topper and it was our number 8 this week. It was knocked off the UK top spot by The Beatles‘ hit mentioned above. ‘The Minute You’re Gone’ was a cover of a 1963 song by Sonny James which made 95 in the US. Richard’s version did not make the US charts.

The Kinks ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’ was at 9. It was their 3rd UK hit and their second number 1 there. Like a lot of The Kinks material it was written by lead singer for the band, Ray Davis.

Our number 10 hit, ‘Forget Domani’, was taken from the film ‘The Yellow Rolls Royce’, which starred Rex Harrison and Jeanne Moreau, and was sung by Connie Francis. Her version would make 79 on the US Hot 100. A cover by Frank Sinatra (which entered the Hot 100 on the same date as Francis’ version) would go one place better getting to 78.

The Ivy League were first heard doing backing vocals on The Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain’. They then branched out on their own and brought us our number 11 this first chart week with their song ‘Funny How Love Can Be’, a UK number 8 hit for them.

At 12 was another SA classic, The Bats ‘Shabby Little Hut’. The song was written by Van McCoy who would later score an SA hit with ‘The Hustle’ and was recorded by US band The Reflections. The Bats also recorded a Spanish version of the called ‘Una Chocita Abandonada’ which was released in Argentina.

The artist on our number 13 hit, Ned Miller, had been around for a bit, releasing his first single in 1957. His self-penned ‘Do What You Do Do Well’ would give him a number 52 hit in the US and would be his only other UK charting song apart from his number 2 hit there ‘From A Jack To A King’. ‘Do What You Do Well’ made 48 in the UK.

One could say that The Rolling Stones were the first act to have 2 songs in the top 20 in a week, but only because their 2 were each placed above a Cliff Richard song (see below). The Stones‘ second one, ‘Last Time’ would be their 3rd straight number 1 in the UK, following ‘It’s All Over Now’ and ‘Little Red Rooster’. Their next 2 singles ((I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’) would also top the charts there.

Elvis Presley was at 15 with ‘Do The Clam’, a song written for the film ‘Girl Happy’ in which he appeared. It would give him a number 19 hit in the UK and 21 in the US.

At 16 was a song by the only act on this week’s chart that was not local or from the UK or US. Aussie band The Seekers had their first UK number 1 with ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ where it knocked our number 9 this week from the top spot.

An unusual pairing of an American country singer and a local lass brought us our number 17 hit. Slim Whitman took a break from his tour of South Africa to record a couple of tracks with Virginia Lee, one of which, ‘Tennesse Yodel Polka’, made our charts this week, and along with the other, ‘Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain’ was included on Whitman’s album ‘South African Tour Hits’. Chris du Toit, who worked a lot with local trumpeter, Murray Campbell, produced this, the only song by a duet to appear on the first SA chart.

Our second act to have 2 songs on the top 20 this week was Cliff Richard whose ‘Just Another Guy’ was at 18  and it joined ‘The Minute You’re Gone’ which was at 8. Interestingly, ‘Just Another Guy’ was the b-side of ‘The Minute You’re Gone’ in most countries, but I have not been able to verify if this was the case in SA. In Holland it was released as ‘Just Another Guy’ with ‘The Minute You’re Gone’ on the b-side. Also of note about our number 18 song was that it was penned by a certain Neil Diamond who was still 2 years away from having his first US solo hit.

‘The Game Of Love’ by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders was at 19. It had topped the US charts for a week just over a month before this chart. In the UK it made number 2. Wayne Fontana was born Glyn Geoffrey Ellis and took his stage name from Elvis Presley’s drummer, D.J. Fontana.The song would appear in the movie ‘Good Morning Vietnam’. In 1987 Tex Pistol would take a cover of the song to the top of the charts in New Zealand.

The final song on this week’s top 20 would knock our number 19 song from the top spot in the US. ‘Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter’ by Herman’s Hermits would spend 3 weeks at number 1 in the US before our number 2 song, The Beatles’ ‘Ticket To Ride’, would give it its, erm, ticket to ride. Despite being a US chart topper, the song would not be released as a single in the Hermit’s native UK.

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