30 April 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	3	8	Have You Ever Seen the Rain?	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
2	1	10	A Summer Prayer for Peace	–	Archies
3	2	11	Home	–	Dave Mills
4	9	9	Understanding	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
5	7	6	She’s a Lady	–	Tom Jones
6	5	5	What is Life	–	George Harrison
7	19	2	Put Your Hand in the Hand	–	Alan Garrity
8	4	15	Knock Three Times	–	Dawn
9	12	5	Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep	–	Lally Stott
10	13	5	Vicki	–	Lance James
11	6	7	Silver Moon	–	Michael Nesmith
12	14	3	Another Day	–	Paul McCartney
13	8	9	My Sweet Lord	–	George Harrison
14	11	13	Rose Garden	–	Lynn Anderson
15	15	4	Amazing Grace	–	Judy Collins
16	10	9	Pushbike Song	–	Mixtures
17	20	2	Theme from Love Story	–	Francis Lai Orchestra
18	18	3	Las Vegas	–	Tony Christie
19	New	1	Hot Love	–	T. Rex
20	New	1	Sunny Honey Girl	–	Cliff Richard

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?’ became only the 2nd so far to reach the top spot having suffered a fall before eventually reaching number 1. The previous song to manage this had been Percy Sledge’s ‘My Special Prayer’ which had actually suffered 3 falls before taking the top spot. ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?’ had suffered 2 drops in the charts before this week. There would be a total of 31 songs that would see a drop in position before reaching number 1 and of these there would only be 2 more that would have 2 falls before gaining the top spot, making Sledge’s 3 drops an all-time record. ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?’ dislodged The Archies’ ‘A Summer Prayer For Peace’ from the top spot and The Archies now had a 100% record for having their songs replaced at 1 by Creedence as their only other number 1 to date, ‘Sugar Sugar’ was replaced by Creedence’s ‘ Bad Moon Rising’.

‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?’ had the privilege of clocking up the 120th week at the top of the charts for acts from The US. They were now just 6 weeks behind the Brits who were on 126.

Alan Garrity’s ‘Put You Hand In The Hand’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 12 places from 19 to 7 this week. This was the 11th time we saw a climb of 12 or more places in a week with 5 of those occasions seeing a climb of greater than 12 places, however, this was a new record best for a local artist and it would be the overall biggest climb by a local act in the top 20 era, only beaten once the charts were extended to a top 30 and the song making that bigger climb did so from outside the top 20.

In a good week for local acts, the only other star rater this week to accompany Alan Garrity’s massive climb was Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s ‘Understanding’ which moved up 5 places from 9 to 5. This was the song’s 3rd star rater climb.

The Mixtures’ ‘Pushbike Song’ was the faller of the week, dropping 6 places from 10 to 16. It was only the second song by an Australian act to pick up a biggest faller with ‘Georgy Girl’ by The Seekers (who held the all-time record for the most number of weeks without a biggest faller) being the only other Aussie song so far to take the award.

Dawn’s ‘Knock Three Times’ continued as the oldest on the chart. It was on 15 weeks.

There were 2 songs that left the charts this week and they were Petula Clark’s ‘The Song Of My Life’ and Neil Diamond’s ‘Do It’. Petula’s hit had only managed a 2 week run and a peak of 17. It was her equal lowest weeks showing, but managed to go 2 places higher than ‘The Other Man’s Grass Is Always Greener’ which was her other 2 week-er. The departure of ‘The Song Of My Life’ brought an end to a very successful SA chart career. Clark had seen 11 hits chart, enjoyed 73 weeks in the top 20 with 1 of those weeks spent at 1 with ‘This Is My Song’. She sat tied 4th on the number of hits list and 18th on the weeks count list. By the time the charts finished in 1989, only 2 woman would have manage more hits, but 8 would have moved past her weeks total (most of those have the advantage of having hits in the top 30 era).

Neil Diamond’s leaver, ‘Do It’, spent 10 weeks in the charts and peaked at 6. Of his 4 hits so far as an artist, only 1 had failed to get to double figures for weeks. There was plenty more to come from him.

We welcomed T. Rex to our charts this week with their hit ‘Hot Love’. The song was written by Marc Bolan (the band’s lead singer in case you didn’t already know this) and was produced by Tony Visconti who worked extensively with the band as well as David Bowie. ‘Hot Love’ would give T. Rex their 1st of 4 UK number 1’s where it stayed for 6 weeks, the longest run of the 4 chart toppers they had there. It would keep Paul McCartney’s ‘Another Day’ at bay (the song spending 1 week at 2) and then Ray Stevens’ ‘Bridget The Midget’ (for 3 weeks). In the US the band never really had much impact with only 4 Hot 100 hits (only 1 of which made it into the top 10, the rest not even getting into the top 60). ‘Hot Love’ was their 2nd hit there and made it to number 72.

Cliff Richard joined Tom Jones in being the only acts so far to have spent at least a week in the charts in every year from 1965 when the charts began. His new one was ‘Sunny Honey Girl’ which was his 14th hit to date. He sat 2nd for hits count and was just 2 behind Tom Jones now and 2 ahead of 3rd placed The Hollies. ‘Sunny Honey Girl’ was his 55th UK chart hit where it went to number 19, giving him his 47th to go top 20. The song did not fare very well in the rest Europe with a peak of 30 in Belgium appearing to be its only success there. It would be a 9th hit as song writers for Roger Cook and Roger Greenway who were joined in composing the track by 2 other song writers for whom this was their first hit, Tony Hillier and John Goodison. Goodison would later chart in SA as part of Big John’s Rock & Roll Circus with a song called ‘Rockin’ In The USA’.

With the 2 new entries being by British acts, the gap between the Brits and the Americans for number of hits to date was down to 10, the lowest it had been since 21 November 1969. The American still led the way with a total of 282 hits to date while the Brits were on 272.

Dave Mills became the 3rd local act to reach the 60 weeks in the chart mark. He sat 23rd on the overall weeks count list. In total 13 local acts would spend 60 or more weeks in the charts.

Creedence Clearwater Revival moved into tied 10th place on the weeks count list, their 82 to date equalled the total Chris Andrews sat on. The Archies took 17th place on the list as their own as their 74 weeks put them 1 ahead of Petula Clark who dropped to 18th.

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