Written by: Tom Jans Produced by: Menton Williams South African record label (unless otherwise stated): MCA
Hit number for artist
1
Peak position
1
Weeks
20
Biggest climber awards
1
Star rater climbs
3
Biggest faller awards
1
Top 20 points
282
Overall Top 20 points ranking
=111
Top 20 points ranking for the artist
1
Top 30 Points
482
Overall Top 30 points ranking
=117
Top 30 points ranking for the artist
1
Annual ranking:
1974
=3
Other chart success:
Canada
67
US
61
The song was first recorded by Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge in April 1973. Their version would eventually be released as a single in August 1973 and make it to 86 in the US in April 1974, but only after Gray’s version had reached its US peak of 61. Since then it has been recorded by numerous artists including Elvis Presley, Petula Clark, Olivia Newton-John and local lad, Peter Vee. There is even a version out there by David Hasselhoff who played Michael Knight in the TV series ‘Knight Rider’.
Written by: Brian Cadd Produced by: Rick Hall South African record label (unless otherwise stated): Capricorn
Hit number for artist
2
Peak position
7
Weeks
13
Biggest climber awards
2
Star rater climbs
2
Biggest faller awards
0
Top 20 points
103
Overall Top 20 points ranking
=1078
Top 20 points ranking for the artist
2
Top 30 Points
233
Overall Top 30 points ranking
=991
Top 30 points ranking for the artist
2
Annual ranking:
1977
=42
The song was first recorded in 1974 by Brian Cadd, who wrote the tune. Cadd was an Australian singer who would spend some time as a member of The Flying Burrito Brothers. The track has also been recorded by Gene Pitney and Glen Campbell.
Born: 26 July 1940 Died: 6 December 2011 (aged71) Real name: Lawrence Darrow Brown or possibly Leonard Victor Ainsworth
Gray was born in Simonton, a town not too far outside Houston, Texas. His grandfather was a Baptist minister and it was through him that Gray discovered gospel music. In the early sixties, he moved to Los Angeles hoping to become an actor, but would do some singing to earn money. He would record a few songs going under the names Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis and Larry Dennis. Eventually he got a contract with Strip Records after Sonny Bono recommended the label to him. His first hit was ‘Look At Me’ which made it to 91 on the US Hot 100. His second hit, ‘The ‘In’ Crowd’ would peak at 13 and make the UK charts, reaching number 25. He would see a total of 9 US chart hits with ‘Drift Away’ giving him his best peak of 5. He would only manage 1 further UK chart hit (‘Out On The Floor’ #42). He would be the first international artist to play to non-segregated audiences in apartheid South Africa. Sadly, he would die from complications from surgery for cancer.
After just 2 weeks at 1, Terry Jacks’ ‘Seasons In The Sun’ was knocked off the top spot by Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’. ‘Seasons In The Sun’ dropped to 2 while Andy Williams’ ‘Solitaire’ moved up 2 to 3 to put pressure on the top 2.
Cher’s ‘Dark Lady’ was the climber of the week as it moved up 7 places from 16 to 9. This was her first time with the biggest climber award a feat she had not even managed as one half of Sonny & Cher.
Since arriving at 17 in the chart 5 weeks back, Lionel Petersen’s ‘I Need A Little Love’ had moved up 1 place in each of the last 4 weeks, but this week, the song failed to join 4 songs which had seen a 5 consecutive week run climbing 1 place each week as it had a star rater jump of 4 from 14 to 10. Of those 4 which managed 5 weeks in a row with a 1 place climb each week, only 1 so far had managed 6 weeks and that was John Edmond’s ‘Boom Sha La La Lo’. This would be the only song to manage this the top 20 era and we would see 2 more manage this in the top 30 era with 1 seeing the entire run in positions 21 to 30, while the other would start its run at 21.
Apart from ‘Dark Lady’ and ‘I Need A Little Love’ there were no other star raters this week.
Falling honours went to Bobby Wright’s version of ‘Seasons In The Sun’ which dropped 5 from 7 to 12.
Love Unlimited’s ‘Love’s Theme’ was still the oldest on the charts. It was on 14 weeks and was enjoying its 2nd week as the oldest.
We lost one song off the chart and that was local act Crocodile Harris and his hit ‘Miss Eva Goodnight’. It had managed 12 weeks and a peak of 5 which was the mirror opposite of the previous hit which Tully McCully had a hand in writing – ‘Why Does It Rain’ by McCully Workshop – which had managed 5 weeks and a peak of 12. The departure of Crocodile Harris meant that the local content was down to only 2 hits which was the lowest local count since 11 August 1972 when Jessica Jones’ ‘Sunday, Monday, Tuesday’ and Alan Garrity’s ‘I Need Someone’ were the only South African representatives in the top 20. That was 92 weeks back.
The newcomer was the 8th song that Albert Hammond had a hand in writing. ‘The Air That I Breathe’, which he co-wrote with Mike Hazlewood, was included on Hammond’s ‘It Never Rains In Southern California’ album, but it was The Hollies version that was the big hit, getting to number 2 in the UK and 6 in the US and becoming their 14th SA top 20 hit. The Hollies sat 3rd for number of hits to date with only Cliff Richard on 15 and Tom Jones on 17 above them. Alan Parsons (he of the Alan Parsons Project fame) was the audio engineer on The Hollies version and Radiohead had to include a songwriting credit for Hammond and Hazlewood after it was discovered that their hit ‘Creep’ used the same chord sequence. In 1998 Simply Red took a version to number 6 in the UK.
With the word ‘air’ in the title of the new entry, we had now seen songs which had 3 of the 4 classic elements in the title as we had seen 3 with the word ‘fire’ in the title and 3 with ‘water’ in the title. We now only needed the word ‘earth’ to appear to complete the set.
Vicky Leandros’ continued presence in the charts brought the weeks count for acts from Greece (Leandros being the only one so far) to 61 which meant that Greece moved into tied 10th place with Jamaica for weeks on the charts by a nation.
Elvis moved 1 week ahead of Percy Sledge with 106 to his name. He sat at 7 on the weeks count list while Sledge dropped to 8. On the local list we saw Maria move into tied 11th place with Jessica Jones and The Peanut Butter Conspiracy with all 3 acts on 48.
As a final note on this week’s chart, we saw Ringo Starr’s ‘You’re Sixteen’ at sixteen.
SA Singles Charts 