24 September 1971

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Co-Co	–	Sweet
2	2	8	You	–	Peter Maffay
3	6	5	Daar’s Niks Soos Ware Liefde	–	Groep Twee
4	5	12	Hold on (to What You Got)	–	Peanutbutter Conspiracy
5	3	11	I Did What I Did for Maria	–	Tony Christie
6	15	3	Never Ending Song of Love	–	New Seekers
7	8	7	How Can You Mend a Broken Heart ?	–	Bee Gees
8	9	4	Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum	–	Middle of the Road
9	10	4	Tom-Tom Turnaround	–	New World
10	4	10	He’s Gonna Step on You Again	–	John Kongos
11	7	7	Me and Bobby McGee	–	Gordon Lightfoot
12	12	5	I’m Gonna Run Away from You	–	Tami Lynn
13	19	2	Silver Threads and Golden Needles	–	Barbara Ray
14	13	12	Rain, Rain, Rain	–	Gentle People
15	17	3	Sweet Hitch-Hiker	–	Creedence Clearwater Revival
16	RE	8	Flower of Life	–	Lauren Copley
17	20	2	Hey	–	Hedgehoppers Anonymous
18	18	3	Never Ending Song of Love	–	Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
19	New	1	Time After Time	–	Judy Page
20	New	1	Can We Get to That	–	Peter Vee

‘Co-Co’ by The Sweet equalled the record to date for weeks spent at the top spot as it enjoyed a 7th week as the nation’s favourite. So far The Tremeloes’ ‘Silence Is Golden’, The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ and Hilary’s ‘Sunglasses’ were the other 3 songs that had spent this long at the top of the charts. ‘Co-Co’ also helped the weeks at 1 count for British acts to tick over to 140, 17 more than the 123 by acts from the US and 89 more than 3rd placed local acts who had managed 51 so far. Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ spent a frustrating 3rd week at number 2.

The New Seekers’ ‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ was the climber of the week for a second week running. It climbed 9 places from 15 to 6 and was the 74th song so far to climb 9 or more places in a week (the 33rd by an act from the UK).

The only other star rater this week was Barbara Ray’s ‘Silver Threads And Golden Needles’ which moved up 6 from 19 to 13 to give Barbara her 3rd star rater climb.

John Kongos’ ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ fell 6 from 4 to 10 to take the faller of the week award. And while we had a local star rater and faller of the week, we also saw that the 2 songs which were the oldest on the chart were local ones as The Peanut Butter Conspiracy’s ‘Hold On (To What You Got)’ and Gentle People’s ‘’Rain, Rain, Rain’ ticked over to 12 weeks with us.

Mungo Jerry’s ‘Lady Rose’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the charts this week. It had enjoyed a run of 10 weeks in the chart and peaked at 6. This was a much improved performance on their previous hit, ‘Baby Jump’ which only got to number 18 in a 3 week run, but not as good as the 15 weeks and 5 weeks at 1 that ‘In The Summertime’ had managed. We were, however, not finished with Mungo Jerry just yet.

We ignored the instructions on the label of Hurricane Smith’s debut hit on our charts, ‘Don’t Let It Die’ as the song’s chart career died this week. It had lasted 5 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 14. Hurricane Smith would not cause any further storms in the charts and this would be his solitary hit.

Last of the leavers was Blue Mink’s ‘The Banner Man’ which enjoyed 8 weeks on the charts and peaked at 3. Like Hurricane Smith, this would be their only SA chart showing.

Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’ became the 1st song to re-enter the charts twice. It initially spent 2 weeks on the charts at number 20, then after being absent for 3 weeks it returned for a 5 week run which saw a peak of 14 (its final position of that run before exiting), now after a 2 week absence, it was back.

Judy Page set a new record for gaps between hits for a local woman as her new one, ‘Time After Time’ entered the charts 112 weeks after ‘Montreal’, her previous hit, left the top 20. This was the 6th time we had seen a gap of 100 weeks or more for a local act and Judy Page was the first act local act to manage this twice. In total 8 acts would manage this twice with 1 of those 8 going on to manage it a 3rd time. Overall to date though, Johnny Rivers was the only other act to see a 100 week gap twice. ‘Time After Time’ was Judy’s 4th SA Chart hit and she was now the second highest local woman for hit count with Virginia Lee still out front with 6. ‘Time After Time’ was written by Terry Dempsey, giving him his 16th hit to date as a song writer. He was now 2 behind leader Les Reed on 18 and pulled 1 ahead of Barry Mason and Jeff Barry to give him second place on his own. This was the 43rd week that Dempsey had had more than 1 hit in the chart in the same week (the other being the re-entry of Lauren Copley’s ‘Flower Of Life’), Les Reed was second with 37 weeks where he had 2 or more in the charts.

Our last new entry was also by a local act and that was Peter Vee’s ‘Can We Get To That’. The song was a cover of a b-side by Ray Stevens (the a-side was Stevens’ ‘Bridget The Midget’, a number 50 in the US) and was penned by Stevens. This was his 2nd hit as a song writer, his first being his own hit, ‘Guitarzan’. Peter Vee had already seen some SA chart action as a member of The Outlet who had had 2 hits and spent a total of 20 weeks in the charts.

The local hit count moved back to 8 in total and the locals were once again the most represented nation on the top 20. This was the 19th week where this was the case. The return of Lauren Copley and the arrival of Judy Page into the top 20 doubled the number of hits by solo female artists and their total now sat at 4. We had to go back to December 1968 to see this many women in the charts in the same week.

Groep Twee celebrated their 20th week in the charts which moved them back into the top 20 of the local hits count list, sharing 20th spot with Lance James and The Outlet. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy drew level with Dickie Loader on the list with 29 weeks to their name. On the overall list, The Bee Gees were now in second place on their own as their 106 weeks to date put them one ahead of Percy Sledge and The Troggs with the latter 2 falling to tied 3rd.

‘Never Ending Song Of Love’ had now accumulated 6 weeks between its 2 versions and moved into 24th position for weeks by songs charting in more than 1 version. There were 26 songs on the list.

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