9 January 1970

tremeloes_call_me

Pos LW Weeks Song Artist
1 2 6 (Call Me) Number One  – Tremeloes
2 1 9 He ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother  – Hollies
3 4 6 Down on the Corner  – Creedence Clearwater Revival
4 8 4 Pretty Belinda  – Chris Andrews
5 3 13 Suspicious Minds  – Elvis Presley
6 5 12 Theresa  – Dave Mills
7 9 6 Jam Up Jelly Tight  – Tommy Roe
8 6 28 Cry to Me  – Staccatos
9 7 6 Tracy  – Cuff Links
10 13 3 Baby it’s You  – Smith
11 19 2 Without Love  – Tom Jones
12 16 4 Nursery Rhyme  – Archies
13 15 5 Does Anybody Miss Me  – Ken J. Larkin
14 20 2 Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)  – Steam
15 12 11 I’ll Never Fall in Love Again  – Bobbie Gentry
16 14 11 Love at First Sight  – Sounds Nice
17 New 1 Leaving on a Jet Plane  – Peter, Paul & Mary
18 18 2 Smile a Little Smile for Me  – Flying Machine
19 New 1 Fairytales  – John Edmond
20 New 1 Liquidator  – Harry J. All Stars

After 6 weeks in the charts we could finally do what the title of The Tremeloes hit said as ‘(Call Me) Number One’ ousted The Hollies’ ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’ from the top spot. The latter had only been at number 1 for 1 week. The Tremloes joined The Hollies as well as Elvis Presley, The Troggs and The Bee Gees on 3 number 1s in a congested tied second place for number of number 1’s with Tom Jones leading the way with 5 under his belt.

And talking of Tom Jones, his new one ‘Without Love’ was the climber of the week, moving up 8 places from 19 to 11. Jones pulled 2 clear at the top of the list for number of biggest climbers as this was this 11th while nearest rivals, Herman’s Hermits were on 9. In terms of star raters Jones was now 2 ahead at the top of the list on 17 with Herman’s Hermits once more in second place with 15.

Other star raters this week were Chris Andrews’ ‘Pretty Belinda’ (up 4 to 4), The Archies’ ‘Nursery Rhyme’ (up 4 to 12) and Steam’s ‘Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)’ (up 6 to 14). It was the respective artists’ 5th, 7th and 1st star raters.

Bobbie Gentry said ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’, but failed to sing ‘I’ll Never Fall Down The Charts Again’ as her hit was the biggest faller this week, dropping 3 from 12 to 15. This was the second time the song had taken biggest faller and also Gentry’s second time.

The Staccatos’ ‘Cry To Me’ ticked over to 28 weeks in the chart in total and 16 weeks in this run. It had been the oldest on the charts in this run for 6 weeks and the band were celebrating their 10th week with the oldest in the charts made up of 1 week with ‘Come Back Silly Girl’, 3 weeks from ‘Cry To Me’s first run and now 6 in its second run.

Andy Kim’s ‘So Good Together’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the top 20 this week. It had lasted 6 weeks on the charts and peaked at 7, a much better showing than his only other hit to date, ‘How’d We Ever Get This Way’ which only lasted 2 weeks and peaked at 18. Andy still had a few more cracks at the chart to try and better these performances.

The Bee Gees’ ‘Don’t Forget To Remember’ ended its chart run this week. It had lasted 13 weeks on the charts and spent 4 of those at the top spot in a broken run starting with 3 weeks on followed by 3 weeks off the top spot, then 1 last week at 1 before heading down the chart for good.

The Archies’ ‘La-Dee-Doo-Down-Down’ became the 22nd song to leave the charts from within the top 10 as it spent its last week at number 10. The Archies had now had a record to date 3 songs drop out of the chart from position 10 or higher as both ‘Bang-Shang-A-Lang’ and ‘Feelin’ so Good (Skoo By-Doo)’ had spent their last week in the charts at number 9. The 1910 Fruitgum Company had 2 songs leave from 10 (‘1, 2, 3 Red Light’ and ‘Indian Giver’). All other acts to see this happen to them had only experienced it once.

John Denver became the 18th person to chart as a song writer before charting as an artist. Of the previous 17 who had managed this, 8 were song writers as members of a band who then went on to have solo careers (e.g. John Lennon who charted as a song writer for The Beatles before he charted as a solo artist) and it also includes Bob Lind where Judy Page’s cover of ‘Elusive Butterfly’ charted the week before Lind’s own version. Denver charted as a song writer as Peter, Paul & Mary’s cover of his song ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’ made the charts this week. The song was originally recorded by Denver in 1966 as ‘Babe, I Have To Go’. The following year Peter, Paul & Mary recorded it with the changed title, but it was not immediately released as a single. It was in 1969 when it was finally released as a single that it would top the US charts for 1 week on 20 December 1969, knocking our number 14 hit this week, Steam’s ‘Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)’, off the number 1 spot there. In 1998 Chantal Kreviazuk recorded a version for the soundtrack to the film ‘Armageddon’ (starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck). This cover would reach number 59 in the UK in 1969.

It was obviously a week for Johns charting as song writers before charting as artists as our second new entry was a first as artist for Zambian born John Edmond. He had already charted as the song writer of Pat Gregory’s ‘Hey Mr Dreamer’ in 1968, but now he was the artist on ‘Fairytales’. Ironically, he did not write ‘Fairytales’, rather the song writing credits went to Terry Dempsey, giving the latter his 3rd hit in that capacity. The song title on this was a bit misleading as it was mostly nursery rhymes and not fairy tales that made up the lyrics.

Our final new entry was Harry J. Allstars ‘Liquidator’. Harry J. Allstars were the second Jamaican act to reach our charts and with Desmond Dekker, the only other Jamaican to chart so far, having had 2 hits to date, this was the 3rd song by a Jamaican to chart. It was also the 20th instrumental to grace our charts and would be only 1 of 2 instrumentals by Jamaican artists to make the top 20. Harry J. was Harry Zephaniah Johnson and his Allstars included Aston and Carlton Barrett who would go on to be part of Bob Marley’s Wailers. ‘Liquidator’ would reach number 9 in late 1969 on the UK charts and then in 1980 it would have a bit of a revival and would reach number 42 during its second run on those charts.

The Hollies ticked over to 90 weeks on the charts and took 5th place on the weeks count list for themselves, moving 1 ahead of Herman’s Hermits who dropped to 6. Like the Hollies, Ken J. Larkin was unmoved on the local list, but shook off those he shared the position with. His 19 weeks to date meant that he had 12th spot to himself with Jody Wayne and The Square Set dropping to 13.

Elvis Presley moved past the 700 points mark and sat 16th overall on this front.

Creedence Clearwater Revival had had a least 1 hit in the charts for 34 straight weeks now and this equalled Engelbert Humperdinck’s record to date for consecutive weeks in the charts. Creedence’s sequence had been 9 weeks with ‘Proud Mary’, 4 weeks with ‘Proud Mary’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising’, 6 weeks with just ‘Bad Moon Rising’, 3 weeks with ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and ‘Green River’, 6 weeks with just ‘Green River’ and now 6 weeks with ‘Down On The Corner’ which entered the charts the same week as ‘Green River’ left.

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