Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’ spent a 3rd straight week at the top of the charts, keeping Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ at bay as the latter moved up into second place, sending the previous number 1, Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘The Sounds Of Silence’ into 3rd place.

Last week’s biggest climber, Petula Clark’s ‘My Love’, managed to claim the title again with a 4 place climb from 12 to 8. This week it shared the title with Group 66’s ‘One by One’ which accounted for the 13th time a local song had been the biggest climber. ‘One by One’ moved up 4 from 17 to 13.

The Beatles experienced their 3rd biggest faller in a week as ‘We Can Work It Out’ fell 5 places from 11 to 16.

Both Ronnie Wilson and Tony Wells had been saying that they would step aside for a number of weeks now and this week they both finally did as their versions of the song ‘I’ll Step Aside’ were 2 of the 3 songs to leave the chart this week. Wilson’s version had managed 6 weeks and peaked at 16 while Wells was slightly more successful managing 7 weeks and a peak of 9, giving the song a total of 13 weeks and a highest position of 9. This fell way short of the 29 weeks the only other song to chart with different versions so far had managed, the other being ‘Goodbye My Love’ where Murray Campbell’s solo version had been the most successful, topping the chart for 6 weeks.

The other song to go was The Rolling Stones’ ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’ which got off of the charts. It had spent 15 weeks on the charts, 3 of which were at the top spot. To date, The Stones had had 5 songs chart, 3 of which had gone to number 1 and the 4th which was still in the top 20 (‘19th Nervous Breakdown’) and was heading towards the top moving up 2 to 5 this week. The departure of ‘Get Off My Cloud’ ended a run of 3 weeks where The Stones had 2 in the chart. They topped the list for total weeks with 2 in the top 20, having managed this 13 times, the next highest being 8 which Tom Jones and Herman’s Hermits had managed. The bad news for The Stones was that they would not manage to have 2 in the charts at the same time again. Chris Andrews who still had 2 in the charts this week was enjoying his 3rd week with 2.

And talking of Herman’s Hermits, they had the highest of the new entries this week as we ignored the advice on the record label of their single ‘A Must to Avoid’ and propelled it to number 15 on the charts. They joined Tom Jones and Gene Rockwell in second place on the list of number of hits by an artist as they now all had 4 to their name, 1 less than the 5 The Stones had clocked up. ‘A Must To Avoid’ was written by P.F. Sloan (who had brought us The Turtles ‘Let Me Be’) and Steve Barri and would go to number 6 in the UK and 8 in the US, their first single to have a higher peak in the UK than in the US since 5 hits previously when ‘Silhouettes’ went to 3 in the UK and 5 in the US (2 of those 5 hits only charted in the US). The song was produced by Mickie Most, a British born chap who had lived in South Africa for a while, having some success with his band Mickie Most & The Playboys.

The Beach Boys returned to the charts with their second hit ‘Barbara Ann’ which followed up the success of chart topper, ‘California Girls’ which departed from the chart just 6 weeks previously, but this was the biggest gap between hits to date for an American act. To date there were only 3 other US acts that had managed 2 hits (Elvis Presley, Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs and Glenn Yarbrough) all of which had ended up with 2 in the charts in the same week and none of which had gone on to have 3 hits yet. ‘Barbara Ann’ was a cover of 1961 hit by The Regents (#13 hit in the US) and would be The Beach Boys 23rd US Hot 100 hit where it would peak at number 2. In the UK it would manage a highest position of 3. It would top the chart in Austria, Germany, Norway and Switzerland.

The final new entry was The Kinks’ ‘A Well Respected Man’. It was the band’s 2nd song to chart in SA and as it had been 41 weeks since their previous hit, ‘Tired Of Waiting For You’, had last seen chart action this beat Petula Clark’s record of a 36 week gap between hits that she set up 2 weeks back. ‘A Well Respected Man’, written by Ray Davies, was not given a single release in the UK, but was included on the EP ‘Kwyet Kinks’. In the US, where it was released as a single, it would be their 6th song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 and would peak at number 13 there. It would also chart in Holland and Belgium peaking at 6 and 20 respectively and was used as the theme tune to the UK comedy TV series ‘Mr. Sloane’ which starred Nick Frost.

‘Wind Me Up, Let Me Go’ by Cliff Richard moved on to 17 weeks and was still the oldest on the charts. The song sat tied second now for weeks on the chart by a song, joining Rick Nelsons’ ‘I Need You’ and The Staccatos’ ‘Come Back Silly Girl’ there and was 2 behind leader, ‘California Girls’ by The Beach Boys. The latter band with their new entry this week, moved on to 20 weeks in the charts and sat tied 10th overall for weeks on the charts by an artist. Chris Andrews moved into the top 20 of that list as his 16 weeks to date put him tied 18th. Four Jacks And A Jill clocked up their 10th week and now sat 8th on the list for local acts.

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