2 January 1970

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	8	He ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother	–	Hollies
2	3	5	(Call Me) Number One	–	Tremeloes
3	1	12	Suspicious Minds	–	Elvis Presley
4	5	5	Down on the Corner	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
5	4	11	Theresa	–	Dave Mills
6	7	27	Cry to Me	–	Staccatos
7	9	5	Tracy	–	Cuff Links
8	10	3	Pretty Belinda	–	Chris Andrews
9	11	5	Jam Up Jelly Tight	–	Tommy Roe
10	8	14	La-Dee-Doo-Down-Down	–	Archies
11	6	13	Don’t Forget to Remember	–	Bee Gees
12	13	10	I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	–	Bobbie Gentry
13	20	2	Baby it’s You	–	Smith
14	15	10	Love at First Sight	–	Sounds Nice
15	17	4	Does Anybody Miss Me	–	Ken J. Larkin
16	18	3	Nursery Rhyme	–	Archies
17	12	6	So Good Together	–	Andy Kim
18	New	1	Smile a Little Smile for Me	–	Flying Machine
19	New	1	Without Love	–	Tom Jones
20	New	1	Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)	–	Steam

We started the new year with a new number 1, something we had not seen for the past 2 years with 1968 and 1969 starting with the same number 1 that the previous years had finished with. The new chart topper was The Hollies’ ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ which was a 3rd number 1 for the band and they were the 6th act to reach this total. They sat tied second with Elvis Presley, The Troggs, The Bee Gees and The Rolling Stones for number of number 1s and they were 2 behind leader, Tom Jones who was on 5. ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ was the 90th different song to reach the top spot on the charts.

Smith’s ‘Baby It’s You’ took the biggest climber award as it moved up 7 places from 20 to 13. The next biggest climb this week was only 2 places which 5 songs managed, so there were no other star raters this week. The difference between the biggest climber and the next best of 5 places this week was not the biggest gap we had seen between the biggest and second biggest climb. In fact it was only half the amount of the biggest gap which happened on 3 February 1967 where the biggest climber was 16 places and the next biggest 6, a difference of 10 places.

2 songs took the biggest tumble and they were The Bee Gees’ ‘Don’t Forget To Remember’ and Andy Kim’s ‘So Good Together’ which both fell 5 places to land at 11 and 17 respectively. This was the second week running that Andy Kim’s hit had been the biggest faller. For The Bee Gees it was their 10th time with a biggest faller and they extended their lead for most biggest fallers, pulling 2 clear of second placed Tom Jones who was on 8.

The Staccatos’ ‘Cry To Me’ moved on to 15 consecutive weeks in the charts and 27 weeks overall. It was enjoying its 5th week as the oldest on the charts during this run and 8th week in total.

We saw 3 songs leave the chart this week, the first of which was Lou Christie’s ‘I’m Gonna Make You Mine’ which had spent 8 weeks on the charts and peaked at 7. This would be the only hit from Lou Christie that would chart in SA.

The Bats’ ‘Who’s That Girl’ also left the charts. It had been with us for 10 weeks and peaked at 6. While this was only their second best peak to date, it would be their only song to reach double figures for weeks. There was still 1 song left in The Bats hit tank.

Last to go was Percy Sledge’s ‘Silent Night’ which lasted just 2 weeks on the charts, but did manage to get to number 14 in that time. Excluding songs on the first ever chart, this was the second highest peak for a song spending just 2 weeks on the charts with Jody Wayne’s peak of 13 with ‘Patches’ being the highest peak for a ‘2 weeker’ song.

The first new entry was by a British band called The Flying Machine (not the same one as the American band featuring James Taylor). The band was formed out of another band called Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours who had had a number 9 hit in the UK with ‘Mirror Mirror’, but ‘Smile A Little Smile For Me’ would not chart for them in their native UK. It did, however, get to number 5 in the US. The band would also have a minor US hit with a cover of The Marmalade’s ‘Baby Make It Soon’. ‘Smile A Little Smile For Me’ gave Geoff Stephens his 10th hits as a song writer and Tony Macaulay his 8th. They sat 5th and 10th respectively on the number of hits by a song writer list.

Tom Jones pulled back out front on his own for hit count as his 13th one arrived in the charts this week. ‘Without Love’ moved Jones 1 hit ahead of Cliff Richard whom he had shared the top spot on the hits count list with for 5 weeks. The song was a cover of a Clyde McPhatter hit from 1957. McPhatter’s version went to number 38 in the US back then. Jones’ version would fare far better, reaching number 5 in the US. In the UK it would be his 17th hit and would reach number 10 there. Of the 10 songs that charted in the UK for Jones up to ‘Without Love’, only 1 (‘A Minute Of Your Time’) had not managed to go top 10, stalling as it did at 14. In 1963 Ray Charles had a version of the song go to 63 in the US and in 1968 Oscar Toney Jr’s version went to 90 there.

The final new entry was Steam’s ‘Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)’. The song started out life as ‘Kiss Him Goodbye’ which was written by Gary DeCarlo, Dale Frashuer and Paul Leka while they were in a band called The Chateaus. They released a version of it in 1961 but nothing happened. Then in 1969, after The Chateaus had disbanded, Leka and DeCarlo teamed up again and called themselves Garrett Scott. They recorded some songs which impressed the record execs and they then needed a b-side to the single ‘Sweet Laura Lee’. They resurrected ‘Kiss Him Goodbye’ and added the ‘Na Na’s and ‘Hey Hey’s . The record execs loved it so much that they wanted it as an a-side and Leka and DeCarlo ended up releasing the song under the name Steam. The song made it all the way to the top of the US charts where it knocked The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ off the number 1 position and went on to spend 2 weeks there. In the UK it would go to number 9. 13 years later in 1983, Bananarama would take a cover version to number 5.

Creedence Clearwater Revival celebrated their 40th week in the charts (2 in the chart in the same week counts as 2). They were the 33rd act so far to reach this milestone.

The Hollies moved tied 5th on the weeks count list, their 89 weeks to date drawing them level with Herman’s Hermits. The Archies moved into the top 20 of the list with their 55 to date. They knocked The Monkees and Sandie Shaw out of the top 20 for weeks count. On the local list, Ken J. Larkin moved into tied 12th spot with The Square Set and Jody Wayne. They were all on 18 weeks.

In the round up for 1968 I mentioned that 7 acts had spent at least 1 week in the chart every year since they started in 1965. With the first week of 1970, 3 acts extended that run to 6 years running that they had charted. These 3 acts were The Hollies, The Staccatos and Tom Jones.

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