GENE ROCKWELL (SA)

Born: 27 December 1944
Died: 3 July 1998 (aged 53)
Real name: Gert Smit

Gene was born in Krugersdorp but his family moved to Durban when he was 18 months old. In Durbs he would win a talent competition when he was just 15 years old and while still a teenager, he would form the band The Blue Angels. The Blue Angels would become The Falcons. Around 1965 Gene embarked on a solo career and produced some big pre-chart hits with ‘Heart’ being one in particular. There are claims that the single sold in excess of 2.5m copies and is the biggest selling single for a white South African male, although there are some question marks about this claim. He would be 1 of 4 local acts who saw 10 or more hits make the charts (he saw 10, the tied 3^rd best) and the only one of those who’s total did not include at least 1 collaborative hit. He would also have the highest hits count and weeks count for a local act not seeing a number 1 hit (best peak 4). He would sadly die from cancer.

Date of entry	Song	Peak (weeks at 1)	Weeks
04-Jun-1965	Torture	4	5
30-Jul-1965	Ciao	4	11
05-Nov-1965	Love	5	7
04-Mar-1966	I’ve Got Everything You Need Babe	14	8
09-Jun-1967	Save The Last Dance For Me	12	6
01-Dec-1967	Cold Cold Heart	20	2
24-Oct-1975	Wasted Days And Wasted Nights	16	4
16-Apr-1976	Shame On Me	10	11
09-Jun-1978	Rosie	14	5
28-Jul-1978	My Life’s In Good Hands (Jesus, Sweet Jesus)	8	16
		Total hits	10
		Total weeks	75

Biggest climber awards	6
Star rater climbs	6
Biggest fallers	4
Weeks with oldest in the charts	5
Longest run in the charts (weeks)	16
Weeks with more than 1 in the charts	0
Biggest gap between hits (weeks)	410
Top 30 points ranking	76
Top 20 points ranking	103
Top 30 points	1327
Top 20 points	577

Rockwell had the 8^th highest weeks count of any local artist. He also had the 4^th longest chart career for a local act measured from the date of first entering the charts to the date he last appeared on the charts (a span of 700 weeks).