1967 The Facts And Figures

We have now come to the end of the 2nd full year of charts and were two and a half years into them in total. Once again it is time to take stock of the year that we have just gone through and see who the shakers and movers were back in 1967.

There were 146 songs that spent at least 1 week on the charts this year (127 were new to the charts and 19 brought forward from 1966). We were up 10 on the number of hits seen in 1966. The 146 songs were brought to us by 98 different artists (artist charting as part of a duet or collaboration are counted separately). To date the hits count looked like this:

Year	No Of Hits
1965 (30 weeks)	79
1966	136
1967	146

23 of the hits were by local acts and 18 artists accounted for these. This was down on 1966 were we saw 30 local hits spend time in the charts.

TOP HITS

Based on a points system of 20 points for a number 1 position, 19 for number 2 etc down to 1 for position 20, the following are the top 40 chart performers for the year (Note: this does not reflect sales):

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Single Girl	Sandy Posey	302
2	Silence is Golden	Tremeloes	259
3	Green Green Grass of Home	Tom Jones	241
=4	The French Song	Lucille Starr	223
=4	The Last Waltz	Engelbert Humperdinck	223
6	Release Me	Engelbert Humperdinck	209
7	Puppet on a String	Sandie Shaw	207
8	I’m a Believer	Monkees	205
9	Ramblin’ Boy	Des Lindberg	204
10	Dedicated to the One I Love	Mamas and The Papas	198
11	Timothy	Four Jacks & a Jill	196
12	Give it to Me	Troggs	195
13	This is My Song	Petula Clark	187
14	There’s a Kind of Hush	New Vaudeville Band	177
15	I was Kaiser Bill’s Batman	Whistling Jack Smith	173
16	Let’s Live for Today	Grass Roots	169
17	That’s My Desire	Hollies	168
18	Cry Softly (Liebestraum)	Nancy Ames	167
=19	Ha Ha Said the Clown	Manfred Mann	166
=19	Even the Bad Times are Good	Tremeloes	166
21	Silence is Golden	Square Set	163
22	Die Ou Kraalliedjie	Groep Twee	161
23	Mathew and Son	Cat Stevens	152
24	I Take it Back	Sandy Posey	151
25	A Whiter Shade of Pale	Procol Harum	150
26	Timothy	Carike Keuzenkamp	149
27	Then I Kissed Her	Beach Boys	147
28	Carrie-Anne	Hollies	143
=29	There Goes My Everything	Engelbert Humperdinck	141
=29	I Love You	Lucille Starr	141
31	Good Vibrations	Beach Boys	136
32	Ruby Tuesday	Rolling Stones	133
33	Yamao Toko No Uta	New Christy Minstrels	132
=34	Something Stupid	Nancy and Frank Sinatra	131
=34	Tabatha Twitchit	Dominos	131
=36	Remember When	Max Bygraves	130
=36	She’d Rather be with Me	Turtles	130
38	Massachusetts	Bee Gees	127
=39	I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	Tom Jones	121
=39	There is a Mountain	Donovan	121

You can compare this to the list published in Top 40 magazine in 1989 which can be found here:

Top 40 Magazine 1967 List

The cumulative points to date gave the following top 10:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Sweet Pea	Tommy Roe	307
2	Single Girl	Sandy Posey	302
3	Green Green Grass Of Home	Tom Jones	289
4	California Girls	Beach Boys	286
5	Silence Is Golden	Tremeloes	259
6	Ramblin’ Boy	Des Lindberg	251
7	Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)	Roger Williams	238
8	Goodbye My Love	Murray Campbell	235
=9	Cry Softly (Liebestraum)	Nancy Ames	232
=9	With A Girl Like You	Troggs	232

The top songs pointswise on the local front for 1967 were as follows:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Ramblin’ Boy	Des Lindberg	204
2	Timothy	Four Jacks & a Jill	196
3	Silence is Golden	Square Set	163
4	Die Ou Kraalliedjie	Groep Twee	161
5	Timothy	Carike Keuzenkamp	149

And cumulatively from the start of the charts in 1965:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Ramblin’ Boy	Des Lindberg	251
2	Goodbye My Love	Murray Campbell	235
3	Timothy	Four Jacks & A Jill	196
4	Hungry For Love	A-Cads	183
5	Come Back Silly Girl	Staccatos	180

NUMBER OF HITS

Five acts managed to spend at least 1 week on the chart with 4 different hits and they were Tom Jones, Jim Reeves, The Monkees, Nancy Sinatra and Petula Clark. 11 acts had 3 hits, 19 acts had 2 while the rest all had 1. So far no act had managed more than 4 in a year. The Rolling Stones had managed 4 in 1965 and 1966, but only managed 1 this year.

To date Tom Jones led the way with 8 hits. Cliff Richard, Petula Clark, The Seekers, The Rolling Stones and The Hollies all had 7 to their names.

The Dream Merchants, The Staccatos, Four Jacks & A Jill, Gene Rockwell, Virginia Lee and The Square Set were the local acts who managed 2 hits in 1967, no local act managed more. Gene Rockwell and Virginia Lee led the way on the cumulative list with 6 each. Four Jacks & A Jill were the next best with 4 to their name.

WEEKS ON THE CHART

There was a 3 way tie for most weeks on the chart during 1967 as Tom Jones, Petula Clark and Engelbert Humperdinck all enjoyed 37 weeks in the top 20 (2 in the charts in the same week counts as 2). The Monkees, Sandy Posey and Lucille Starr had the next highest weeks count as they all managed 32.

To date, The Beach Boys 39 in 1966 was the best in a year followed by The Rolling Stones 38 they managed in the 30 weeks of 1965.

The Square Sets’ 18 weeks in 1967 put them top on the local front. They were followed by Groep Twee on 15 and Des Lindberg on 14.

Gene Rockwell had a cumulative total of 39 which was the highest local count to date. Virginia Lee was 2nd on 36 with Murray Campbell on 33 coming in 3rd. Campbell scored 30 of his 33 in 1965 and this was the best a local act had managed in 1 year to date with The Square Set’s 18 above and Four Jacks & A Jill’s 18 in 1966 being second best in a year.

NUMBER 1’s

As with 1966 we saw 18 songs top the charts, but unlike the previous year we had 1 act have more than 1 number 1 and that was Engelbert Humperdinck who got to the top with ‘Release Me’ and ‘The Last Waltz’. Elvis Presley, Tom Jones and The Rolling Stones were the only other acts so far to manage 2 chart toppers in a year and they all did this in 1965.

There were only 2 local chart toppers and they were both ‘Timothy’. Four Jacks & A Jill’s version spending 2 weeks at the top and Carike Keuzenkamp’s spending 1 week.

The Tremeloes’ 7 weeks at 1 with ‘Silence Is Golden’ was not only the best for a song in the year, but was also the best to date. Murray Campbell’s 6 non-consecutive weeks at 1 was the best a local song had managed. Des Lindberg’s ‘Ramblin’ Boy’ equalled ‘Goodbye My Love’ for consecutive weeks at 1 by a local song as it managed 3 in a row.

In terms of total count for chart toppers, both The Rolling Stones and Tom Jones had managed 3 to date with The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Engelbert Humperdinck, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra managing 2 (1 of those for Frank and Nancy Sinatra was their duet).

Tom Jones headed the list for total weeks spent at 1 as he had clocked up 10 to date. The Beach Boys, Engelbert Humperdinck and The Tremeloes were second on 6.

FEMALE ACTS

It was the best year to date for the female artists as we saw 27 hits by women (4 of which were as part of a duet) make the top 20. This almost doubled the 14 we saw in 1966 and was nearly 4 times more than the 7 in 1965.

Petula Clark brought us 4 hits, the highest total for a woman this year. Lucille Starr and Nancy Sinatra managed 3 each although 2 of Nancy’s were as part of a duet. Virginia Lee was the only local woman to manage 2. Carike Kezenkamp, June Muscat, Judy Page and Glenys Lynne were the only other local woman to chart (Lynne as part of a duet with Jody Wayne).

Petula Clark’s 37 weeks in the charts was not only the best a woman managed, but as mentioned above, shared the best for any artist. This smashed the 24 weeks record for a year that Nancy Sinatra had managed in 1966. Lucille Starr and Sandy Posey were second with 32 weeks each.

Cumulatively Petula also led the way as she had 58 to her name. Nancy Sinatra on 48 and Virginia Lee on 36 were second and third. Lee was the highest placed local woman with June Muscat on 12 second and Carike Keuzenkamp on 10 was third.

1965 and 1966 saw only 1 female chart topper each. This year we saw that number jump up dramatically to 4 with Sandy Posey’s ‘Single Girl’, Petula Clark’s ‘This Is My Song’, Sandie Shaw’s ‘Puppet On A String’ and Carike Keuzenkamp’s ‘Timothy’ all cracking the top spot. The 5 weeks that Sandy Posey’s ‘Single Girl’ spent at the top was the best any hit by a woman had managed. This was done in a run of 4 weeks on, 1 week off then 1 week on. Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ was the only other by a woman to have a 4 weeks consecutive run at the top.

The top 5 hits by woman in 1967 based on the points system were:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Single Girl	Sandy Posey	302
2	The French Song	Lucille Starr	223
3	Puppet on a String	Sandie Shaw	207
4	This is My Song	Petula Clark	187
5	Cry Softly (Liebestraum)	Nancy Ames	167

On a cumulative basis, the top 5 read:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points
1	Single Girl	Sandy Posey	302
2	Cry Softly (Liebestraum)	Nancy Ames	232
3	The French Song	Lucille Starr	223
4	Puppet on a String	Sandie Shaw	207
=5	This is My Song	Petula Clark	187
=5	These Boots Are Made For Walking	Nancy Sinatra	187

REST OF THE WORLD

Aside from artists from the UK and US (who tend to dominate most charts worldwide), and local acts the following are the top hits from other nationalities:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	The French Song	Lucille Starr	223	Canada
2	I Love You	Lucille Starr	141	Canada
3	Morningtown Ride	Seekers	84	Australia
4	Georgy Girl	Seekers	50	Australia
5	When Will the Good Apples Fall	Seekers	38	Australia

In total there were 8 songs by artists who were not from the UK, the US or SA that spent time in the top 20 this year. There were 3 from Canada (all by Lucille Starr) and 3 from Australia (all by The Seekers) while the French chipped in with 2 (1 by Francoise Hardy and 1 by the duet of Nicole Croisille and Pierre Barouh).

The cumulative best hits for ‘rest of the world’ artists was as follows:

Pos	Song	Artist	Points	Nationality
1	The French Song	Lucille Starr	223	Canada
2	World Of Our Own	Seekers	192	Australia
3	The Carnival Is Over	Seekers	160	Australia
4	I Love You	Lucille Starr	141	Canada
5	Black Is Black	Los Bravos	117	Spain

So far we had seen 7 hits from Australians (all The Seekers), 3 each from Canada (all Lucille Starr) and 3 from France. Germany Ireland, Italy and Spain had all chipped in with 1 each.

WHAT DIDN’T CHART

There were 10 songs that topped either the UK or US charts (or both) that did not make our top 20 this year. One of these, Long John Baldy’s ‘Let The Heartaches Begin’, would eventually chart in SA.

All You Need Is Love	Beatles
Hello Goodbye	Beatles
Incense And Peppermints	Strawberry Alarm Clock
Let The Heartaches Begin	Long John Baldry
Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone	Supremes
Penny Lane	Beatles
Respect	Aretha Franklin
San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)	Scott Mckenzie
The Happening	Supremes
To Sir With Love	Lulu

CHARTING IN CONSECUTIVE YEARS

There were 15 acts that had spent at least 1 week in the charts in 1965, 1966 and 1967. Gene Rockwell, The Staccatos and Virginia Lee were the 3 local acts who had managed this and along with Virginia Lee, Petula Clark was the only other woman to achieve this. The list of all acts which had charted every year so far is as follows:

Beach Boys, Cliff Richard, Donovan, Gene Rockwell, Herman’s Hermits, Hollies, Kinks, Manfred Mann, Matt Monro, Petula Clark, Rolling Stones, Seekers, Staccatos, Tom Jones, Virginia Lee

I WRITE THE SONGS

There were 206 different song writers who had their names appear on the labels of the songs that spent time in the charts this year. Les Reed was the most successful of these this year as he had 6 of his compositions chart. Geoff Stephens was second with 5 and Barry Gibb and Barry Mason’s names appeared 4 times each.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards only added 1 to their cumulative total during 1967. They still sat at the top of the cumulative list, but they were joined by Les Reed as all 3 now had 8 to their names. John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not add to their tally, but still had the second highest with 6. Tom Springfield had 2 more to his name this year, so he sat tied with the 2 Beatles’ memebrs.

Unsurprisingly Les Reed took top honours for weeks on the chart as his compositions racked up 51 which was 5 more than last year’s top writer, Paul Simon who managed 46 in 1966. Geoff Stephens was second in1967 with 41 weeks and Barry Mason 3rd with 29.

Les Reed had just edged past the 2 chaps from The Rolling Stones for total weeks to date as he had accumulated 74 to Jagger & Richards’ 73. Brian Wilson was next highest with 66.

The only song writer to see 2 of his compositions top the charts in 1967 was Kobus ‘Dopper’ Erasmus as Carike Keuzenkamp and Four Jacks & A Jill’s version of ‘Timothy’ which he wrote, managed to get to number 1.

To date 7 song writers had seen 2 of their songs top the charts and we had also seen 2 ‘Traditional’ songs get to number 1. No song writer had yet managed 3.

Maurice Jarre still led the way for weeks spent at 1 by their compositions having enjoyed a total of 8 weeks at the top with The Ray Coniff Singers and Roger Williams’ version of ‘Lara Theme’. All the ‘B’s, Brian Wilson, Bob Gaudio and Bob Crewe sat second with 7 weeks each.

THANKS

Finally, I would like to thank all those who have helped by noting corrections etc as we have gone through 1967. Special thanks go to Peet van Staaden and Ian McLean for supplying invaluable information.

And so on to 1968.

29 December 1967

 

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
2	3	7	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
3	2	11	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
4	4	9	The Letter	–	Box Tops
5	7	6	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
6	5	10	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
7	8	3	I’m Coming Home	–	Tom Jones
8	6	13	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
9	9	3	All My Love	–	Cliff Richard
10	11	3	Daydream Believer	–	Monkees
11	13	4	Baby Now That I’ve Found You	–	Foundations
12	15	4	Soul Finger	–	Bar-Kays
13	10	10	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
14	20	2	Never My Love	–	Association
15	12	5	Shock Wave	–	Invaders
16	RE	2	Zabadak	–	Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
17	14	15	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
18	19	2	Wish Me a Rainbow	–	Virginia Lee
19	17	12	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
20	16	7	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves

1967 closed with the Bee Gees still sitting at the number 1 spot as ‘Massachusetts’ clocked up its 4th week there. Bobby Vee moved into second place with ‘Come Back When You Grow Up’ climbing 1 place from 3. For the first time in 6 weeks we only had 1 version of ‘Timothy’ in the top 5 as Carike Keuzenkamp’s one fell to number 6. The Four Jacks & A Jill version was at 3.

The Association’s only other hit to date, ‘Windy’, had never made biggest climber, but they now managed it with current hit, ‘Never My Love’ which moved up 6 places from 14 to 20. To date just under 57% of biggest climbers had, like ‘Never My Love’, achieved this in their 2nd week on the chart.

The next biggest climb after the 6 places The Association managed, was a mere 3 places, so there were no other star raters this week.

Jim Reeves heard a heart break last night and it may have been his own as his song picked up the faller of the week award. It dropped 4 from 16 to 20 and was his 4th time with this award.

The Tremeloes enjoyed their 9th week in total with an oldest song in the charts. ‘Silence Is Golden’ had clocked up 4 of the 9 and ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ had now gone 1 better and was enjoying its 5th week as the oldest. It sat on 15 weeks in the top 20. There were 5 other acts that were in double figures for weeks on the chart.

The Square Set who began their SA chart career on 7 July 1967 would not see any chart action outside of this year as their second hit, ‘Carol Corina’, dropped off the charts this week. It had been with us for 5 weeks and peaked at 15. This ended their SA chart run with 2 hits to their name, a total of 18 weeks and a best peak of 3 with their aforementioned 1st hit.

Despite losing 1 song this week, there were no new entries but, before you get confused, there was a re-entry and that was Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s ‘Zabadak’. It became the 8th song to re-appear in the top 20 after departing and had been absent from the chart for just 1 week.

2 acts celebrated their 30th week in the charts and these were The Tremeloes and Four Jacks & A Jill. In total 29 acts had reached this milestone so far, but Four Jacks & A Jill were only the 5th local act to do so. Jim Reeves moved into 10th place on the weeks count list alongside Nancy Sinatra. They were on 48 weeks. Donovan’s 43rd week in the chart moved him into tied 12th place with Tommy Roe. On the local list, Carike Keuzenkamp moved tied 17th with The Dominos and John E Sharp & The Squires on 10 weeks.

Our top 20 this week had more in common with the UK charts than those in the US as 8 of the top 20 songs listed above appeared on the UK top 50 for the same week while only 4 were in the US Hot 100. However local acts had a greater presence in the US as Hugh Masakela’s ‘Up Up And Away’ sat at 74 in the US Hot 100 this last week of 1967.

Youtube playlist:

22 December 1967

 

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	7	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
2	2	10	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
3	3	6	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
4	5	8	The Letter	–	Box Tops
5	4	9	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
6	7	12	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
7	8	5	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
8	19	2	I’m Coming Home	–	Tom Jones
9	17	2	All My Love	–	Cliff Richard
10	6	9	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
11	18	2	Daydream Believer	–	Monkees
12	10	4	Shock Wave	–	Invaders
13	14	3	Baby Now That I’ve Found You	–	Foundations
14	11	14	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
15	RE	3	Soul Finger	–	Bar-Kays
16	16	6	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves
17	9	11	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
18	15	5	Carol Corina	–	Square Set
19	New	1	Wish Me a Rainbow	–	Virginia Lee
20	New	1	Never My Love	–	Association

‘Massachusetts’ by The Bee Gees enjoyed its 3rd week at the top of our chart, seeing off the challenge of Four Jacks & A Jill’s version of ‘Timothy’ which sat at number 2 for a second week and was looking to regain the number 1 spot.

Tom Jones pulled clear of the 3 other acts who were on 6 biggest climbers as he clocked up his 7th with an 11 place jump from 19 to 8 with ‘I’m Coming Home’. This left The Seekers, The Beach Boys and Nancy Sinatra behind on 6. This was only the 6th time a song had managed an 11 or more place climb and only 1 of the other 5 had been 11 places, with the rest being bigger climbs.

Cliff Richard’s ‘All My Love’ picked up a 3rd star rater climb for him as it moved up 8 from 17 to 9 while a 7 place climb for The Monkees’ ‘Daydream Believer’ gave them their 5th. This week ranked tied 5th for net movement up (i.e. add up the total of the moves up and down for all songs on the top 20) as this totalled 9. The best to date was 21 July 1967 where the net upward movement totalled 15.

The biggest faller went to Lucille Starr’s ‘I Love You’ which dropped 8 places from 9 to 17 (a falling starr you may say). Starr was the 10th woman to have a biggest faller and ‘I Love You’ was the 20th song by a woman (including those that were duets with men, of which there were 5) to take this award.

The Tremeloes ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ continued as the oldest on the charts, it was on14 weeks and had been the oldest for 4 of them.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich’s ‘Zabadak’ spent just 1 week in the charts at number 20. This was the 7th song to have a chart run of 1 week at the bottom of the top 20. Of the 6 previous songs to have such a chart run, 1 had managed to re-enter the charts.

The Seekers’ ‘When Will The Good Apples Fall’ equalled their previous highest place for a last week which ‘Morningtown Ride’ managed as it left the charts after sitting at number 13 last week. ‘When Will The Good Apples Fall’ had been with us for 6 weeks and peaked at 12. It was their first song not to go top 10 since ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ which spent just 1 week at 16, but that was on the very first chart.

While The Seekers were equalling their highest last week position, Ian & Ritchie were setting new heights for the last week position for a local song as their ‘Look Across The River’ left the chart from number 12. Three local songs previously held the record having finished their chart runs at number 13. ‘Look Across The River’ spent 7 weeks on the charts and peaked at 8. It would be the duo’s only SA chart hit.

The Bar-Kays’ ‘Soul Finger’ became the 7th song to re-enter the charts after falling off them and it did so at the second highest position to date for a re-entry, arriving back at 15. Only Matt Monro’s ‘Wednesday’s Child’, which re-entered at 14 had returned at a higher position.

Gene Rockwell’s time alone at the top of the list of number of hits by a local artist lasted just 3 weeks as this week Virginia Lee drew level with him again as her hit ‘Wish Me A Rainbow’ entered the charts. The song was originally recorded by Mary Badham and was included in the soundtrack to the 1966 film ‘This Property Is Condemned’ which starred Natalie Wood, Robert Redford and Charles Bronson. The song has been recorded by a number of different artists including Astrud Gilberto and Patti Page. With this hit Lee also drew level with Nancy Sinatra for number of top 20 hits and together they sat 1 behind Petula Clark who led the way for women. Petula on 7 was tied second on the overall list.

The final new entry was ‘Never My Love’, a 2nd SA hit for The Association. The song written by Dick & Don Adrissi and The Associations version would be the most successful recording of it as it went to number 2 in the US (number 1 on the alternate US chart produced by Cashbox Magazine). It was kept off the top spot by The Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’ (our number 4 hit this week).The song has also been covered by a variety of artists with some making the US charts  – The Sandpebbles #98 in 1968, 5th Dimension #12 inn 1971 and Blue Swede #7 in 1974. The Adrissi Brothers own version which they eventually recorded in 1977, made it to number 80. The song did not really make it across the Atlantic though as the only version to chart there was reggae artist Sugar Minott’s version which made it to number 52 in 1981.

Donovan moved into tied 13th place on the weeks count list. He joined The Beatles and The Mamas & The Papas on 42 weeks. The Monkees moved on to 33 weeks and crept into the top 20 of that list, joining local lad Murray Campbell there. On the local front, Viginia Lee’s new entry was not enough to move her up the weeks count list as she sat 2nd but was still 4 weeks behind leader Gene Rockwell. Four Jacks & A Jill went to 5 (well that is 4 Jacks plus 1 Jill) where they were level with The Staccatos on 29. The Square Set moved tied 7th with Jody Wayne on 18 while Carike Keuzenkamp’s 9 weeks with ‘Timothy’ put her in the local top 20 list, sharing 19th spot with Judy Page and Theo Cavalieros.

Youtube playlist:

15 December 1967

 

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
2	3	9	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
3	6	5	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
4	2	8	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
5	5	7	The Letter	–	Box Tops
6	4	8	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
7	7	11	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
8	13	4	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
9	8	10	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
10	17	3	Shock Wave	–	Invaders
11	10	13	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
12	9	7	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
13	12	6	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
14	19	2	Baby Now That I’ve Found You	–	Foundations
15	16	4	Carol Corina	–	Square Set
16	11	5	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves
17	New	1	All My Love	–	Cliff Richard
18	New	1	Daydream Believer	–	Monkees
19	New	1	I’m Coming Home	–	Tom Jones
20	New	1	Zabadak	–	Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

The number 1 hit was in a state this week, the state of ‘Massachusetts’ by The Bee Gees, and it was enjoying its 2nd week there. The Four Jacks & A Jill’s version of ‘Timothy’, a previous chart topper, was edging its way back to the top, climbing 1 to land at number 2. Carike Keuzenkamp’s version was heading in the opposite direction as it dropped 2 to 4.

With 2 local acts in the top 5, we also had the joy of seeing the biggest climber award coming from within our borders as it was The Invaders’ ‘Shockwave’ that took the honours this week, climbing 7 from 17 to 10. This meant that 6 out of the 12 instrumentals to chart so far had managed to take a biggest climber award at least once.

Sandie Shaw’s ‘You’ve Not Changed’ was the only other star rater this week as it moved up 5 to 8. Shaw was now 3rd on her own for number of star raters by a woman, pulling 1 clear of Virginia Lee, but she was 4 behind 2nd placed Petula Clark and 5 behind leader, Nancy Sinatra.

The biggest faller was Jim Reeves’ ‘I Heard A Heart Break Last Night’ which fell 5 from 11 to 16. This was his 3rd time with the award.

The Tremeloes’ ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ enjoyed its 3rd week as the oldest on the charts. It had now been with us for 13 weeks.

Gene Rockwell recorded his worst chart performance to date as ‘Cold Cold Heart’ lasted just 2 weeks with us, both of which were spent at number 20. This was the 6th song to have a chart record like this and the 2nd local one after The Dream Merchant’s ‘Rattler’.

The Bar-Kays didn’t fare much better as their hit ‘Soul Finger’ had also only been with us for 2 weeks, but it did manage to get to 18 during that time.

Contrary to the song’s title, Petula Clark’s chart run with ‘Eternally’ only lasted 9 weeks, the song peaking at 7 during that time. Like Gene Rockwell, however, we were not done with Clark in the charts.

Last to go was The Doors’ ‘Light My Fire’ which burnt for 5 weeks on the top 20 and peaked at 13. They too would return to the top 20.

Cliff Richard would have been forgiven for thinking he was joining the leaders on the hits count list as his 7th song to date, ‘All My Love’ entered the charts at 17. Last week this would have been good enough to join the leaders, however Tom Jones had other ideas as he clocked up his 8th this week. More on Jones’ below. Cliff’s new one was an English version of an Italian song called ‘Solo Tu’ which was first recorded by Orietta Berti in 1967. Peter Callander who had song writing credits on The Tremeloes hit mentioned above as being the oldest, supplied the English lyrics to clock up his 2nd hit on our charts as a song writer. Cliff’s recording of it would give him a number 6 hit in the UK. It was his 43rd UK hit there and the 35th to go top 10 there.

The Monkees climbed into the charts with their 4th hit to date, ‘Daydream Believer’. The song was written by John Stewart from The Kingston Trio and it would give The Monkees the last of their 3 US chart toppers. It would account for 4 of the 12 weeks in total that the band would occupy pole position in the States. The song would also top the Irish and Rhodesian charts and go top 10 in Australia (#2), Austria (#7), Belgium Flanders (#8), Germany (#4), Japan (#4), Norway (#2), Swizterland (#10) and The UK (#5). In 1980 a cover by Anne Murray would go to 12 in the US, 17 in her native Canada and 61 in the UK.

As mentioned above, Tom Jones became the first act to reach 8 hits. His new one, ‘I’m Coming Home’ was the 5th song written by the song writing duo of Les Reed and Barry Mason to chart, so not only did Jones move to the top of the hits count list, but Reed also moved to the top of the hits by a song writer list as his 8 to date (he had 3 others chart where he was not partnered with Mason) equalled the total accumulated by The Stones’ Jagger & Richards. Of Reed’s 8 compositions, only 1 of the previous 7 had been a Tom Jones hit and that was ‘It’s Not Unusual’. The song would be Jones’ 12th UK hit where it managed to get to number 2. In the US it would falter at number 57.

Our final new entry was the first song beginning with the letter ‘Z’ to chart and that was Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch’s ‘Zabadak’. There would only be 4 songs in total starting with ‘Z’ to chart. The song was the band’s 4th hit to make our top 20. ‘Zabadak’ would be the band’s 8th UK hit and the 6th to go top 10 as it made it to number 3. Elsewhere it would top the Canadian charts, go to 2 in Australia, 3 in Holland and 4 in Rhodesia. British band The Sorrows who had had an SA hit with ‘Take A Heart’ back in 1967, recorded an Italian cover of the song calling it ‘La Liberta Costa Cara’.

We had a new leader on the weeks count list as Tom Jones edged 1 ahead of The Rolling Stones. He was now on 83 weeks. The Stones had been at the top of the list since the very first chart back in June 1966, sharing the top spot with Cliff Richard for 1 week, Herman’s Hermits for 2 and Tom Jones for 4. Despite falling down the charts, Lucille Starr could smile about clocking up her 30th. She sat 6th highest for weeks by a woman (27th overall). Cliff Richard and Engelbert Humperdinck pulled 1 week clear of Virginia Lee, but their 35 to date could not move them up the hits count list as they remained at 17. The Square Set joined The Bats and The Dream Merchants in 8th place on the local list. They all had 17 weeks to their names.

Youtube playlist:

8 December 1967

 

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	5	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
2	1	7	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
3	3	8	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
4	4	7	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
5	6	6	The Letter	–	Box Tops
6	9	4	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
7	5	10	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
8	7	9	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
9	8	6	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
10	10	12	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
11	12	4	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves
12	14	5	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
13	16	3	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
14	13	5	Light My Fire	–	Doors
15	11	9	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
16	15	3	Carol Corina	–	Square Set
17	18	2	Shock Wave	–	Invaders
18	19	2	Soul Finger	–	Bar-Kays
19	New	1	Baby Now That I’ve Found You	–	Foundations
20	20	2	Cold Cold Heart	–	Gene Rockwell

The 3 week run that ‘Timothy’ had at 1 (2 weeks with Four Jacks & A Jill’s version and 1 week with Carike Keuzenkamp’s) ended this week as The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ became the 50th song to top our chart. We had had 23 number 1s by UK acts, 21 by US acts, 5 by local acts and 1 by an Aussie act. 25 of them had been by groups, 18 by solo males, 6 by solo females and 1 by a duet. The 2 ‘Timothy’s sat at 2 (Carike) and 3 (Four Jacks).

Bobby Vee’s ‘Come Back When You Grow Up’ gave him his first biggest climber award as it moved up 3 places from 9 to 6. It was joined in this small biggest climb by Sandie Shaw’s ‘You’ve Not Changed’ which climbed 3 from 16 to 13. This would be her 3rd biggest climber.

With the biggest climb being just 3 places, there were no star raters this week.

The faller award went to Petula Clark’s ‘Eternally’ which dropped 4 from 11 to 15. This was her 5th biggest faller to date and this placed her tied second for number of biggest fallers, equalling Herman’s Hermits and sitting 1 behind The Rolling Stones’ 6.

The Tremeloes’ ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ was still with us this week, so it enjoyed its second week as the oldest on the charts. Combined with the 4 weeks that ‘Silence Is Golden’ had been the oldest, this was the band’s 6th week in total with an oldest in the charts.

There was just 1 song that left the charts this week and that was The Dominos’ ‘Tabatha Twitchit’. It had been with us for 10 weeks and peaked at 3 during that time. This would be the band’s only SA chart offering. In terms of points (20 for a week at 1, 19 for a week at 2 etc), this was the 11th best performing local song to date clocking up 131 points. Des Lindberg’s ‘Ramlin’ Boy’ led the way on that list with 251 points.

The new entry was an SA chart debut for The Foundations as well as being the debut for the song writers Tony Macauley and John MacLeod. ‘Baby Now That I’ve Found You’ would give the band a UK number 1 where it knocked our current number 1 from the top spot there and went on to spend 2 weeks at the top of the charts there. It would also top the charts in Canada, get to 11 in The US, 6 in Norway and Rhodesia, 8 in Holland, 12 in Belgium and 33 in Germany. In 2002 Lauren Waterworth, a 13 years old signed by Pete Waterman of Stock, Aitken & Waterman fame, took a cover of the song to 24 in the UK.

Donovan reached the 40 weeks in the chart milestone while Sandie Shaw was 10 weeks behind him, celebrating her 30th. Donovan sat 15th on the weeks count list while Shaw was 26th and the 5th highest woman. Engelbert Humperdinck moved into tied 17th place with 34 weeks to his name. He shared that spot with Cliff Richard and Virginia Lee.

Youtube playlist:

1 December 1967

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	6	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
2	4	4	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
3	1	7	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
4	5	6	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
5	3	9	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
6	8	5	The Letter	–	Box Tops
7	6	8	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
8	9	5	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
9	12	3	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
10	10	11	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
11	7	8	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
12	18	3	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves
13	15	4	Light My Fire	–	Doors
14	17	4	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
15	20	2	Carol Corina	–	Square Set
16	19	2	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
17	11	10	Tabatha Twitchit	–	Dominos
18	New	1	Shock Wave	–	Invaders
19	New	1	Soul Finger	–	Bar-Kays
20	New	1	Cold Cold Heart	–	Gene Rockwell

‘Timothy’ took over from ‘Timothy’ at the top of our charts this week. That is Carike Keuzenkamp’s version of the song took over from the Four Jacks & A Jill’s one, the latter falling to number 3. The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ moved up 2 to 2 to separate the 2 ‘Timothy’s.

Jim Reeves became the 12th act to pick up 5 biggest climbers as ‘I Heard a Heart Break Last Night’ took the award this week by climbing up 6 places from 18 to 12. 4 of the 12 acts had gone on to have a 6th biggest climber, but none had managed 7 yet.

The Square Set’s ‘Carol Corina’ was the only other star rater this week. It moved up 5 places to 15 to account for the band’s 3rd star rater climb.

Last week’s biggest faller, The Domino’s ‘Tabatha Twitchit’, took the award again this week once again falling 6 places. This week it fell to 17.

Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Lightning’s Girl’ had been on the charts for 6 weeks, but this week she did not strike the top 20. The song had managed to peak at 10 during its time with us. Nancy would be back.

Anita Harris’ ‘Just Loving You’ suffered the same fate, leaving the charts after 8 weeks and a peak of 7. For Anita though, this would be her only showing on the top 20.

The last to go was The Hollies’ ‘That’s My Desire’. The song had managed to spend 1 more week on the charts than their ‘Carrie-Anne’ which it had shared the charts with for 8 of the 11 weeks it was on the top 20. It had enjoyed a 3 week stay at the top of the charts and was the bands only chart topper to date. It did, however only rank second for The Hollies for weeks on the chart, beaten by the 12 weeks ‘I’m Alive’ managed.

Local band The Invaders brought us the first of the 3 new entries this week. Their debut on the charts was ‘Shockwave’. The song was the 12th instrumental to grace our charts and the second by a local group (the first being Boet van Wyk Orkes’ ‘Oliekolonie’). Although the song was their 1st SA chart hit, it was in fact their 7th single to be released and the song name would also be the title of their second album. They managed to get a gold disc for the sales of this song.

The second new entry was The Bar-Kay’s ‘Soul Finger’. This was their debut single and it took them to number 33 on the US Hot 100 and 17 on the charts in the UK. Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi covered the song as The Blues Brothers and later a film in which Ackroyd starred with Chevy Chase, ‘Spies Like Us’, would feature the track. The song would also make it to 8 in Holland and 16 in Belgium

Our final new entry was by local lad Gene Rockwell. ‘Cold Cold Heart’ was his 6th hit to date which put him back in front for number of hits by a local act, pulling 1 clear of Virginia Lee who was in second place. On 6 hits, Rockwell was just 1 place behind the 5 acts that shared the top spot for hits count. The song also accounted for a chart milestone in that it was the 100th song by a solo male artist to make the top 20. ‘Cold Cold Heart’ was a cover of a 1951 track by Hank Williams. The original started out as the b-side of a single called ‘Dear John’ which made number 8 on the US Country Singles charts, but once ‘Cold Cold Heart’ started getting airplay, it was promoted to the a-side and it would top the country singles charts.

Petula Clark continued to clock up the weeks and now sat on 57. This left her unmoved in 6th place on the weeks counts list, but she had pulled clear of The Hollies who dropped to 7th place. Similarly, Jim Reeves was unmoved, but no longer shared 11th place with Tommy Roe as his 44 weeks put him 1 ahead of Roe. Engelbert Humperdinck’s week tally ticked over to 33 which put him tied with Murray Campbell at 19. Because there was a tie at 19 there was no 20th spot and this meant that The New Vaudeville Band, The Turtles and Sandy Posey all fell off the top 20 for weeks count.

Gene Rockwell sat on top of the local weeks count list with 38 to his name and he widened the gap between him and Virginia Lee who was in second place on 34. The Square Set moved up into tied 10th place, sharing the spot with Groep Twee and Emil Dean who were on 15 weeks.

The oldest on the charts was The Tremeloes’ ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ which took over from the departing ‘That’s My Desire’ by The Hollies. The former was on 11 weeks. The songs on the top 20 this week averaged exactly 5 weeks each.

Youtube playlist:

24 November 1967

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
2	4	5	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
3	2	8	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
4	12	3	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
5	6	5	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
6	3	7	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
7	7	7	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
8	14	4	The Letter	–	Box Tops
9	10	4	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
10	8	10	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
11	5	9	Tabatha Twitchit	–	Dominos
12	18	2	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
13	11	11	That’s My Desire	–	Hollies
14	9	8	Just Loving You	–	Anita Harris
15	17	3	Light My Fire	–	Doors
16	13	6	Lightning’s Girl	–	Nancy Sinatra
17	15	3	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
18	20	2	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves
19	New	1	You’ve Not Changed	–	Sandie Shaw
20	New	1	Carol Corina	–	Square Set

Four Jacks & A Jill held on to the top spot for a second week with their song ‘Timothy’ and were joined in the top 2 by ‘Timothy’. No that is not a typo, it was Carike Keuzenkamp’s version of the same song that moved up 2 places to allow the song to dominate the charts this week. This was the second time we had seen the same song at 1 and 2 and it would be the last. The previous occasion was when we had 5 weeks of The Ray Conniff Singers and Roger Williams’ versions of ‘Lara’s Theme’ occupying the top 2 spots (Conniff’s version with vocals entitled ‘Somewhere My Love’ at 1 for 3 of the 5 and Williams’ instrumental version called ‘Lara’s Theme (From Dr Zhivago)’ for the other 2).

The Bee Gees followed up last week’s biggest climb with ‘Massachusetts’ with another biggest climber award for ‘Massachusetts’ as the song moved up 8 from 12 to 4. This was the biggest climb to date that the band had managed and was their 4th biggest climber award, having picked up 2 with ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941. This would not be their last such award, but no other song of theirs (and they would have many more on the charts) would pick up more than 1 biggest climber.

‘Come Back When You Grow Up’ by Bobby Vee and ‘The Letter’ by The Box Tops were the other star raters this week both climbing 6 places to land at 12 and 8 respectively.

The phrase falling down like Dominos came to mind this week as The Domino’s ‘Tabatha Twitchit’ was the faller of the week, dropping 6 places from 5 to 11. This was the 29th time a local song had taken the biggest faller award.

Every Mother’s Son’s ‘Come On Down To My Boat’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the chart this week. It had lasted 7 weeks on the charts and peaked at 9. This would be the band’s only SA chart hit.

In contrast the artist on the other leaver this week, Tom Jones, was seeing the end of his 7th hit’s run on the charts and we were not yet halfway through all the songs by him that would make our top 20. His latest one to leave, ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ enjoyed 10 weeks with us and peaked at number 3. This ended his run of having ever second hit go to number 1 as his run of peaks now read 1-10-1-7-1-3-3.

With Bobby Vee’s star rater having the word ‘Up’ in the title, one of the leavers having the word ‘Down’ and the other leaver having the word ‘Fall’ we had a case of the ‘up’ song moving up and the ‘down’ song moving down (and out) and the ‘fall’ song falling out the charts.

Sandie Shaw returned to the charts with her 3rd hit to date, ‘You’ve Not Changed’. Her SA chart hit count now equalled the total she has managed so far in the US, but had a long way to go to equal the 22 she has clocked up in the UK. ‘You’ve Not Changed’ was one of the 22 and peaked at 18. It was not one of the 3 that charted in the US. It had been over a year since we last saw Chris Andrews, who composed the song, on our charts in song writer capacity (his previous being his own hit ‘To Whom It Concerns’ which left the charts in May 1966). This was Andrews’ 4th hit as a song writer and 2nd which was a Sandie Shaw recording as he also penned her hit ‘Long Live Love’.

The Square Set clocked up their 2nd SA hit as ‘Carol Corina’ followed up the success a few months earlier of ‘Silence Is Golden’. As with their previous hit, ‘Carol Corina’ was also written by band member Neville Whitmill. The song was released on the Continental record label and it seems you could have a choice of a red, blue or black label. Unlike their previous hit though, this new one is hard to find as it does not seem to appear on any golden oldies compilation CDs.

With Sandie Shaw’s new one, the Brits pulled ahead of the Americans again in terms of hits count after the Yanks drew level with them last week. The locals were in 3rd place with 55. It had been 23 weeks since we had last seen at least 5 local hits in the charts.

Tom Jones was unable to move ahead of The Rolling Stones on the weeks count list as his hit from last week was no longer with us. The 2 acts sat tied at the top of the list with 82 weeks each to their names. Petula Clark and The Hollies were also unmoved on the list, sitting tied 6th, but they no longer shared the spot with Herman’s Hermits. Engelbert Humperdinck on 32 weeks joined the top 20 of the list, sharing the 20th spot with The New Vaudeville Band, Sandy Posey and The Turtles. The Square Set moved up the local list to tied 12th with The A-Cads and Group 66. They were all on 14 weeks.

The very observant may have noticed that this was now the longest period the charts had gone without a Rolling Stones record in them. We had been Stones-less for 29 weeks, going one better than the 28 weeks of the previous drought which ran from the end of August 1966 to the beginning of March 1967. The last time (which co-incidentally was the name of the Stones 2nd SA hit) we saw Mick & the boys in the top 20 was on 12 May 1967 when ‘Ruby Tuesday’ was enjoying its final week with us.

Youtube playlist:

17 November 1967

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	5	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
2	1	7	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
3	3	6	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
4	7	4	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
5	4	8	Tabatha Twitchit	–	Dominos
6	11	4	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
7	8	6	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
8	5	9	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
9	9	7	Just Loving You	–	Anita Harris
10	15	3	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
11	6	10	That’s My Desire	–	Hollies
12	19	2	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
13	10	5	Lightning’s Girl	–	Nancy Sinatra
14	14	3	The Letter	–	Box Tops
15	17	2	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
16	12	10	I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	–	Tom Jones
17	18	2	Light My Fire	–	Doors
18	New	1	Come Back When You Grow Up	–	Bobby Vee
19	13	7	Come on Down to My Boat	–	Every Mother’s Son
20	New	1	I Heard a Heart Break Last Night	–	Jim Reeves

Four Jacks & A Jill supplied us with our 4th local chart topper as ‘Timothy’ knocked Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘The Last Waltz’ off the number 1 spot. The latter dropped to number 2. The new number 1 balanced out the local chart toppers as we had now had 2 by solo male artists (Murray Campbell and Des Lindberg) and 2 by local groups (The A-Cads and Four Jacks & A Jill).

The Bee Gees picked up a 3rd biggest climber award as ‘Massachuetts’ climbed 7 places from 19 to 12 to take this week’s award.

There were 2 other star raters this week, both of them moving up 5 places. Donovan’s ‘There Is A Mountain’ climbed to 6 to give him his 6th star rater to date while Ian And Ritchie’s ‘Look Across The River’ moved up to 10 to give them their 1st.

Every Mother’s Son were still singing ’Come Down To My Boat’ but this week they would have had that sinking feeling as the song was our biggest faller, dropping 6 places to number 19. Despite having had a couple less songs chart, artists from the US led the way for biggest faller as they had 71 to date compared to the 68 that those from the UK had managed.

Tom Jones’ ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ and The Hollies’ ‘That’s My Desire’ continued as the oldest on the charts, both moving on to their 10th week with us. The average of the weeks on the charts for this week’s top 20 was back up over 5, coming in at 5.1. The previous 6 weeks had seen the average being below 5 with the charts 3 weeks ago being the lowest average to date of 4.05 (these stats exclude the first 17 weeks of charts when we had songs that may have been on the charts and had higher weeks counts if the charts had started earlier).

The Monkees’ ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ dropped off the charts after 6 weeks with us. It peaked at 14, the second lowest peak of their 4 hits to date. However there were still a few SA hits left in the band.

Accompanying the Monkees out of the top 20 were the Mamas And The Papas and their hit ‘Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)’. It had been with us for just 3 weeks and peaked at 16 during that time. This equalled their lowest weeks count for a song to date, but the peak was 3 places better than the worst they had seen. They still had a hit to come.

By the time Bobby Vee’s ‘Come Back When You Grow Up’ entered our charts (which it did this week), he had already had 29 US Hot 100 hits and his 30th would enter the charts the day after these charts went out. ‘Come Back When You Grow Up’ was his 29th one of these and it would go to number 3, his first US top 10 hit since 1962’s ‘The Night Has A Thousand Eyes’ which also made number 3. The song would not chart in the UK where Vee has not seen any action since 1963. It was written by Martha Sharp who had brought us Sandy Posey’s chart topping hit, ‘Single Girl’. This was Sharp’s second appearance as song writer on our charts.

Jim Reeves moved on to 6 hits as his ‘I Heard a Heart Break Last Night’ enter the charts at 20 this week.  The song would give Reeves a number 9 hit on the US Country Singles charts and would go to 38 in the UK. Reeves joined 5 other acts who sat 1 behind the 5 tied hits count leaders. With both new entries coming from American acts, we saw the Yanks pull level with the Poms for hits count with both being on 120. One could say that the Americans edged it as they had also had one hit chart where an American teamed up with a South African (Slim Whitman and Virginia Lee) so they actually had 120.5.

The Rolling Stones had to share the top spot on the weeks count list for the first time in 117 weeks as Tom Jones finally caught up with them. Both acts now sat on 82 weeks. The Hollies and Petula Clark moved into tied 6th place with Herman’s Hermits as they all now had 55 weeks to their name. Jim Reeves went tied 12th with The Beatles and The Mamas And The Papas with 42 to his name and Donovan pulled level at 15 with Gene Rockwell, both having 37. On the local list, The Dominos’ 8 weeks with ‘Tabitha Twitchit’ put them into the top 20 for weeks count where they shared number 20 spot with Peter Lotis.

Youtube playlist:

10 November 1967

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	6	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
2	2	4	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
3	6	5	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
4	3	7	Tabatha Twitchit	–	Dominos
5	4	8	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
6	5	9	That’s My Desire	–	Hollies
7	12	3	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
8	9	5	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
9	8	6	Just Loving You	–	Anita Harris
10	11	4	Lightning’s Girl	–	Nancy Sinatra
11	13	3	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
12	7	9	I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	–	Tom Jones
13	10	6	Come on Down to My Boat	–	Every Mother’s Son
14	20	2	The Letter	–	Box Tops
15	17	2	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
16	19	3	Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)	–	Mamas and The Papas
17	New	1	When Will the Good Apples Fall	–	Seekers
18	New	1	Light My Fire	–	Doors
19	New	1	Massachusetts	–	Bee Gees
20	15	6	Pleasant Valley Sunday	–	Monkees

‘The Last Waltz’ was still dancing around the number 1 spot and was enjoying its 4th week there. This meant that last week it was in 3/4 time for weeks at 1 (a bad joke about Waltzes usually being written in 3/4 time for those of you wondering what I am on about). Four Jacks & A Jill’s ‘Timothy’ sat stubbornly at 2, still threatening to end the dance.

The last 4 weeks had seen a woman have at least one of the biggest climbers each week, but this week that sequence was broken as our biggest climber was The Box Tops’ ‘The Letter’ which moved up 6 from 20 to 14. Carike Keuzenkamp’s version of ‘Timothy’ just missed out on making it 5 weeks in a row for a biggest climber by a female artist as the song climbed 5 places, just 1 sort of being biggest climber. This was the only other star rater on the charts. This was the 10th star rater for a local woman with 2 of the previous 9 going to woman as part of a duet.

Tom Jones and The Monkees supplied us with our biggest fallers. While Jones sang ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ he should have sung ‘I’ll Never Fall In The Charts Again’ as his hit dropped 5 places from 7 to 12. The Monkees’ ‘Pleaseant Valley Sunday’ fell its 5 places from 15 to 20.

Alan Price’s first sojourn into our charts lasted just 3 weeks as ‘The House That Jack Built’ crumbled and fell off the top 20. It managed to peak at 15 during that time. He would return to our charts.

The Hollies run with 2 in the charts ended this week with departure of ‘Carrie-Anne’ from the top 20. It had lasted 10 weeks and peaked at 2, their 2nd highest peak to date (their highest peaking song being the one that was left in the charts, ‘That’s My Desire’ which made it to number 1). Their 8 week run with 2 in the charts was beaten only by the 11 sequential week runs with 2 in the charts that Murray Campbell and Tommy Roe had managed. Tom Jones shared an 8 sequential week run with The Hollies. Tom Jones’ ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ and The Hollies other hit, ‘That’s My Desire’ took over as the oldest on the charts, and with both being on 9 weeks, they became the 2nd and 3rd songs to become the oldest as such a low week count (the previous one to become the oldest on 9 weeks was in fact ‘Carrie-Anne’).

Last of the leavers was Frankie Laine’s ‘Laura (What’s He Got That I Ain’t Got)’ which had enjoyed a stay of 8 weeks with us, peaking at number 5 in the process. This far outstripped the 2 weeks at 20 that Brook Benton’s version of the song had managed. In total the song spent 10 weeks on the charts in its 2 different versions which ranked it the 10th most successful song to date charting in more than 1 version (‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’ by The Bee Gees and The Staccatos managed 10 weeks as well, but had a better peak of 2). Excluding ‘Timothy’ which was currently enjoying 2 versions on the chart, there was only 1 song that had performed worse than ‘Laura (What’s She Got That I Ain’t Got)’ and that was the 5 weeks that ‘Games That Lovers Play’ which charted for Eddie Fisher and Connie Francis.

It was getting crowded at the top of the list of number of hits to date as The Seekers joined The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, The Hollies and Petula Clark there on 7 as their new one, ‘When Will the Good Apples Fall’, arrived at 17 this week. The Aussies were the 4th best represented nation on the charts with 7 hits so far and this was entirely due to the success of The Seekers as we were yet to see another act from down under chart. There had been 54 local songs, 118 from the US and 120 from the UK. ‘When Will The Good Apples Fall’ was penned by Kenny Young who had charted once before as the co-writer of ‘Under The Boardwalk’ which The Rolling Stones had a hit with. The Seekers’ new one would go to 11 in the UK. This would equal their lowest peak there up till then. They would only have 1 further UK hit which would stumble at number 50. The song would not make the US charts.

Jim Morrison and The Doors made their SA Chart debut with ‘Light My Fire’. This was also their US Billboard Hot 100 debut hit where it knocked The Association’s ‘Windy’ from the top spot and went on to spend 3 weeks there. When they performed the song on the Ed Sullivan show, Morrison was asked to change the lyric ‘girl we couldn’t get much higher’ to ‘girl we couldn’t get much better’. Apparently he agreed to do so, but when the time came he retained the original lyric. The song originally spent 1 week at number 49 on the UK charts, then went to number 7 in in 1991 when Oliver Stones’ film about the band was released. It also topped the Irish charts. In 1968 Jose Feliciano took a cover to number 3 in the States and to the top of the Canadian charts. In 2002, UK Pop Idol winner, Will Young took his version to the top of the UK charts for 2 weeks.

The Bee Gees’ second hit to date, ‘Massachusetts’ was the final new entry this week. This gave Maurice his first song writing credit on the charts as only Barry and Robin were credited on their previous offering ‘New York Mining Disaster 1941’ and only Barry got credit on ‘Spicks And Speck’ the cover of their song which The Staccatos charted with. ‘Massachusetts’ was the 3rd Bee Gees song to chart in the UK where it gave them their first of 5 number 1s that they have had there so far. In the US it was also their highest peaking song of their career to that date where it went to 11. It would also top the charts in Australia, Germany, Austria, Japan, New Zealand, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Rhodesia. A UK poll in 2011 by television channel ITV voted the song the 3rd best Bee Gees’ song behind ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ and ‘You Win Again’.

Apart from having the number 1 hit, Engelbert was also celebrating his 30 week I the charts. Tom Jones pulled into tied 2nd place on the weeks count list, his 81 to date equalling The Beach Boys tally and they sat 1 behind the 82 of The Rolling Stones who led the way. The Seekers shrugged off Manfred Mann to sit in 4th place on their own. They had 61 weeks to their name. Petula Clark and The Hollies both moved on to 54 weeks and, while still sitting tied 7th, they no longer shared the spot with The Troggs.

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3 November 1967

Pos	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	5	The Last Waltz	–	Engelbert Humperdinck
2	5	3	Timothy	–	Four Jacks & a Jill
3	3	6	Tabatha Twitchit	–	Dominos
4	2	7	Even the Bad Times are Good	–	Tremeloes
5	4	8	That’s My Desire	–	Hollies
6	8	4	I Love You	–	Lucille Starr
7	6	8	I’ll Never Fall in Love Again	–	Tom Jones
8	7	5	Just Loving You	–	Anita Harris
9	10	4	Eternally	–	Petula Clark
10	9	5	Come on Down to My Boat	–	Every Mother’s Son
11	13	3	Lightning’s Girl	–	Nancy Sinatra
12	18	2	Timothy	–	Carike Keuzenkamp
13	17	2	There is a Mountain	–	Donovan
14	11	8	Laura (What’s He Got That I Ain’t Got)	–	Frankie Laine
15	14	5	Pleasant Valley Sunday	–	Monkees
16	12	10	Carrie-Anne	–	Hollies
17	New	1	Look Across the River	–	Ian and Ritchie
18	15	3	The House That Jack Built	–	Alan Price
19	20	2	Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon)	–	Mamas and The Papas
20	New	1	The Letter	–	Box Tops

Engelbert Humperdinck waltzed off with the number 1 spot for a third week running with his song ‘The Last Waltz’. This run at the top was under threat from 2 local songs, Four Jacks & A Jill’s ‘Timothy’ which moved up 3 to 2 and The Dominos’ ‘Tabatha Twitchit’ which was unmoved at 3.

And while Four Jacks & A Jill’s version of ‘Timothy’ was challenging for the top spot, Carike Keuzenkamp’s one was racing up the charts, taking the biggest climber award with a 6 place jump from 18 to 12. Carike was the 3rd local woman to have the biggest climber with Virginia Lee managing it once before and Glenys Lynne doing so with ‘Cookie’, her duet with Jody Wayne.

Last week we had the 1st time where we saw a female artist have the biggest climb for 3 weeks running. This record was now extended to 4 weeks.

The only other star rater this week was Donovan’s ‘There Is A Mountain’ which climbed 4 to 13. This was Donovan’s 5th star rater climb.

The Hollies’ ‘Carrie-Anne’ followed up last week’s biggest faller feat with a second biggest faller for the song and a 4th for the group as it fell a further 4 places from 12 to 16. It moved into double figures for its week count and was still the oldest on the charts.

Dave Davies’ ‘Death Of A Clown’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the chart this week. It had enjoyed a run of 4 weeks and climbed to a peak position of 14 during that time. This would be the Kinks’ member’s only solo SA chart hit.

We also bid farewell to Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ which had managed just 1 week more than Dave Davies, having been with us for 5 weeks. It peaked at 11 during that run. Unlike Davies though, Gentry would be back.

Both the new entries this week featured acts who were having their first SA hit. The first was ‘Look Across The River’ by Ian And Ritchie who were a local duo made up of Ian Lawrence and Ritchie Morris. Ian was born in East London (the one in South Africa) and Ritchie was born in Wales (the one in the UK). They performed together till 1970 when they went their separate ways. Ian would star in the TV series ‘The Villagers’ and ‘The Diggers’. He would also star in a number of stage shows. Ritchie would record a couple more singles without Ian. As a duo they would supply music for the Springbok Radio show ‘Deadline Thursday Night’.

The second new entry was by US band The Box Tops. ‘The Letter’ was their first Hot 100 hit. In South Africa it knocked Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode To Billie Joe’ out of the top 20, while in the US it knocked Gentry’s hit off the top spot and would go on to spend 4 weeks at number 1 there. It would also top the Canadian charts, go to 4 in Australia, 5 In the UK and 6 in Rhodesia. The Arbors would take a version of the song to number 20 in the US and Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders would reach 42 in the UK with it, but probably the most successful version after The Box Tops was Joe Cockers’ which went to 7 in the US and 39 in the UK.

Tom Jones had The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys in his sights as he moved his week count on to 80 this week. The Beach Boys were 1 ahead on 81 and The Rolling Stones, who led the way, were on 82. As the saying goes, it was tight at the top. Further down the list, The Monkees celebrated their 30th week in the charts. They sat 24th on the weeks count list. Petula Clark and The Hollies moved tied 7th with The Troggs. They were all on 53 weeks. The Mamas And The Papas climbed into 13th place alongside Jim Reeves as they ticked over to 41 weeks and Donovan pulled 1 clear of Cliff Richard to occupy position 16 by himself with his 35 weeks.

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