2 June 1972

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	10	Beautiful Sunday	–	Daniel Boone
2	1	5	Amazing Grace	–	Pipes and Drums And The Military Band of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
3	4	13	Mother and Child Reunion	–	Paul Simon
4	5	12	Sacramento	–	Middle of the Road
5	3	13	Son of My Father	–	Chicory Tip
6	7	13	How Do You Do	–	Rising Sons
7	6	13	Without You	–	Nilsson
8	8	3	Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress	–	Hollies
9	12	2	The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face	–	Roberta Flack
10	9	7	Day After Day	–	Badfinger
11	18	3	Too Beautiful to Last	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
12	14	5	The Rangers Waltz	–	Mom and Dads
13	15	6	Beg, Steal or Borrow	–	New Seekers
14	10	14	Mother of Mine	–	Neil Reid
15	11	10	Heart of Gold	–	Neil Young
16	16	6	The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)	–	Robert John
17	New	1	Samson and Delilah	–	Middle of the Road
18	New	1	Come What May (aka Aprés Toi)	–	Vicky Leandros
19	17	5	Pasadena	–	John Edmond
20	New	1	Puppy Love	–	Donny Osmond

‘Beautiful Sunday’ was not happy being knocked off its perch last week so this week the Daniel Boone hit regained the top spot from Pipes and Drums etc etc’s ‘Amazing Grace’. The latter fell to 2. ‘Beautiful Sunday’ was the 14th song so far to regain its crown after having been dethroned. Of the 14 songs to re-take the top spot, 2 had done so twice.

Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘Too Beautiful To Last’ moved up 7 places to take the climber of the week award. This was his 5th time with the honours and a 7 place climb was the best he would ever see. It would be the only star rater this week

The 2 Neils who were in the chart brought us the fallers of the week as Neil Young’s ‘Heart Of Gold’ dropped 4 to 15 while Neil Reid’s ‘Mother Of Mine’ fell 4 to 14. The second of these 2 was still the oldest on the chart, sitting on 14 weeks, so there was some consolation for Reid.

Dickie Loader’s ‘With This Ring’ became the 22nd song (and 6th local one) to have a 1 week run at number 20. Of these 22 songs, 4 had managed another run in the chart, but this would not be the case for Loader’s hit and this brought the curtain down on his SA chart career. He had seen 4 hits chart, spent 30 weeks in the chart and had a best peak of 7 which his first and third hits, ‘Sea Of Heartbreak’ and ‘Poor Little Rich Girl’ had managed.

The Carpenter’s ‘Hurting Each Other’ was one of 54 songs so far that had seen a 1 week run in the charts (regardless of position) and this brought its total time in the top 20 to 5 weeks (it was a re-entry last week) and its peak position to 18. There was more to come from this brother and sister duo.

Last to go this week was Waterloo’s ‘Rock And Roll Lullaby’ which had spent 9 weeks in the chart and peaked at 9. This was the 28th song so far to have matching weeks and peak figures and the 5th local one to make that list. This would be Waterloo’s only SA chart hit.

The first of the new entries was the 4th hit by Middle Of The Road as their ‘Samson And Delilah’ entered at 17. This would be the 158th week where we had at least 2 songs by the same artist in the charts at the same time, which is just over 43% of the time so far. The previous time we had seen this, it was also Middle Of The Road whose ‘Soley Soley’ and ‘Sacramento’ co-habited the chart and they were the 15th act so far to see 2 different pairings of songs in the chart. The band used the same song writing team who had brought you their previous hits of ‘Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum’ and ‘Sacramento’ – Giosy Capuano, Lally Stott and Mario Capuano. Stott was also responsible for their hit ‘Chirpy, Chirpy Cheep Cheep’, but it was his version and not Middle Of The Road’s that charted in SA.

Also new was the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest winner ‘Come What May’ by Vicky Leandros. The original was in French and called ‘Aprés Toi’. Although Leadros was Greek (the first artist from there to chart in SA), she actually represented Luxembourg with this song and beat the UK entry (‘Beg, Steal Or Borrow’ by The New Seekers which was at 13 in SA this week), into 2nd place.

The last song to chart was Donny Osmond’s ‘Puppy Love’. Osmond was only 14 at the time (a couple of years older than Neil Reid mentioned above) when ‘Puppy Love’, his cover of Paul Anka’s 1960 hit, entered our charts at 20. He was the 3rd youngest act to chart where birth dates are known with Neil Reid as the youngest and Heintje second youngest. It should be noted that I only have the year in which Reid was born (1959), but even if he had been born on 1 January that year, he would still be the youngest to chart to date. Paul Anka’s version of ‘Puppy Love’ went to number 2 in the US and 33 in the UK while Osmond did not fare as well in the US, only reaching 3 there, however, he topped the UK, Canadian and Zimbabwean charts with his version. This was his 2nd hit in SA.

While the number of solo woman in the chart doubled with Vicky Leandross joining Roberta Flack, the number of local hits halved with Waterloo and Dickie Loader leaving the charts to leave us with John Edmond and The Rising Sons flying the flag for SA acts. The Brits, however, bounced back to having half the chart as Middle Of The Road brought their total in the top 20 back up to 10. The arrival of Donny Osmond alongside Middle Of The Road meant that the Brits and Yanks were still neck and neck for total hits count both having given us 313 hits each so far. Greece was the 17th nation so far to produce an SA chart hit.

Middle Of The Road celebrated reaching the 40 weeks in the chart mark (remembering that 2 in the chart in the same week count as 2). They were the 43rd act so far to reach this milestone.

Engelbert Humperdinck moved on to 79 weeks in the charts and now sat tied 15 with Cliff Richard on the weeks count list. On the local list, John Edmond’s 28 weeks meant he moved up into tied 16th place alongside Tidal Wave. Rising Songs moved on to 23 week and remained at 20, but Hilary and Carike Keuzenkamp whom they had shared the spot with last week, now fell off the top 20.

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