20 February 1970

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Pretty Belinda	–	Chris Andrews
2	2	6	Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head	–	B.J. Thomas
3	4	6	Don’t Cry Daddy	–	Elvis Presley
4	7	4	All I Have to do is Dream	–	Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell
5	3	8	Without Love	–	Tom Jones
6	10	7	Leaving on a Jet Plane	–	Peter, Paul & Mary
7	5	18	Theresa	–	Dave Mills
8	9	7	Liquidator	–	Harry J. All Stars
9	6	12	Jam Up Jelly Tight	–	Tommy Roe
10	12	34	Cry to Me	–	Staccatos
11	13	3	Someday We’ll be Together	–	Diana Ross & The Supremes
12	8	12	(Call Me) Number One	–	Tremeloes
13	17	2	Whole Lotta Love	–	Led Zeppelin
14	18	3	Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday	–	Stevie Wonder
15	20	2	Jingle Jangle	–	Archies
16	11	8	Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)	–	Steam
17	16	3	Good Old Rock ‘n Roll	–	Dave Clark Five
18	19	4	Take a Letter Maria	–	R.B. Greaves
19	New	1	Holly Holy	–	Neil Diamond
20	New	1	Reflections of My Life	–	Marmalade

‘Pretty Belinda’ by Chris Andrews enjoyed a 5th week at the top of the charts and this now passed the number of weeks his only other chart topper to date, ‘Yesterday Man’ had managed, the latter spending 4 weeks at 1. However, the rain on the roof of that ‘boathouse down by the river’ where Pretty Belinda lived was still drumming away as B.J. Thomas’ ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ spent a second week at number 2.

The Archies had been slightly unlucky with biggest climbers as they had had songs climb 5 places on 5 different occasions and once a song climbed 6 places but each time their climb had been outdone by another song. This week their luck changed as ‘Jingle Jangle’s 5 place climb from 20 to 15 was the biggest climber this week and claimed only their second biggest climber award.However,  The Archies were not the worst in terms of biggest climbers per weeks spent in the charts to date. That honour currently went to Virginia Lee who saw just 1 biggest climber during her 36 weeks she spent in the top 20, giving her a ratio of 0.028 biggest climbers per week in the charts. The Archies had the 4th lowest ratio of 0.033 with Cliff Richard on 0.0294 and Sandy Posey on 0.03125 being 2nd and 3rd lowest respectively. Top honours went to Andy Williams who had only spent 2 weeks on the chart and had 1 biggest climber giving him a ratio of 0.5, however that is slightly skewed due to the low level of weeks he had spent with us so far. If one limits this to artists who had spent at least 20 weeks in the charts to date, then The 1910 Fruitgum Company come out top with 6 biggest climbers in 46 weeks, giving them a ratio of 0.128.

There were 3 other songs that made a 4 place, star rater climb and they were Peter, Paul & Mary’s ‘Leaving On A Jet Plane’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and Steve Wonder’s ‘Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday’ which moved up to 6, 13 and 14 respectively.

Steam’s ‘Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)’ continued its up down up down journey on the chart and this week took the biggest faller award for the 3rd time in 5 weeks. It dropped 5 places from 11 to 16.

The Staccatos’ ‘Cry To Me’ was still in the charts, it moved on to 34 weeks in total and 22 weeks in this current run           and it was still heading back up the top 20, climbing a further 2 places to 10. This was the 3rd week running it had climbed since it dropped as low as 17.

We said goodbye to 2 songs this week, the first of which was Cuff Links’ ‘Tracy’ which spent 11 weeks in the charts and peaked at 7. This was the first of 2 hits that Cuff Links would have on our chart.

The second song to go was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Down On The Corner’ which also lasted 11 weeks on the charts but managed a higher peak than ‘Tracy’, reaching number 3. This brought to an end Creedence’s record to date run of sequential weeks featuring on the charts as they had had at least 1 hit in the top 20 for the past 39 weeks. The good news for fans of the band was that we wouldn’t have to wait long to see them in the top 20 again.

Neil Diamond clocked up a 2nd SA chart hit as an artist with ‘Holly Holy’ being the first of our 2 new entries this week. The song would bag him a number 6 hit in the US and a number 12 hit in what was then Rhodesia. As a song writer, this was Diamond’s 5th time featuring on our charts as not only had he written his own 2 hits, but he had also penned 2 for The Monkees (‘I’m A Believer’ and ‘A Little Bit Of Me, A Little Bit Of You’) and 1 for Cliff Richard (‘Just  Another Guy’). 3 of his previous 4 compositions that made our charts would go top 10. ‘Holly Holy’ also had the distinction of being the 250th song by an American act to chart.

Also enjoying their second SA chart hit was The Marmalade as their ‘Reflections Of My Life’ was the second new entry this week. The song would go top 10 in Canada (#6), Belgium (#9), Holland (#9), Norway (#6), The UK (#3) and The US (#10 on the Billboard charts and #7 on the Cash Box charts). It would be their highest charting song (on the Billboard charts) of their 3 US hits and would only be out-peaked (if there is such a word) in the UK by the chart topping exploits of their cover of The Beatles’ ‘Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da’, sharing the peak of 3 with ‘Rainbow’ which would chart for them later in 1970. In 1978 Neil Cloud, the drummer for SA band Rabbitt would record a 17 minute epic cover of the song which would include parts of Ennio Morricone’s ‘The Good The Bad And The Ugly’. This was the 3rd song to chart in SA that Cloud would use in a disco cover as the aforementioned Morricone song had charted with a cover by Hugo Montenegro and Cloud had also covered The Zombie’s ‘Time Of The Season’.

Bobbie Gentry became the 65th artist and 9th female to reach 20 weeks in the charts while The Archies were enjoying their 60th. The latter were unmoved at 20 on the weeks count list and still had a bit of ground to catch up with The Tremloes’ who were 19th with 65 weeks to their name. Just above them, Elvis moved from 18th to tied 17th, his 66 weeks equalling that of The Seekers. On the local list Dave Mills moved into tied 13th place, his 18 weeks to date equalling The Square Set and Jody Wayne’s totals.

Apart from moving up the weeks count list, Elvis was also celebrating passing the 800 points mark, his 816 points to date placing him 13th overall.

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