13/06/2026
This was the Top 20 Countdown on Air FM Radio with Brent Meder - counting down the twenty biggest songs in South Africa exactly fifty years ago this week. The SA Singles Chart 11 June 1976. Do you remember these songs? What was your favourite? Please comment below.
What a chart! And what a reminder of just how much incredible music was coming out of South Africa and around the world during the mid-70s.
Barry Manilow’s ‘I Write The Songs’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the charts this week in 1976, along with Bobby Angel’s ‘It’s A Burning Thing’, which peaked at No. 9.
South Africa's Top 20 exactly as it looked on 11 June 1976.
From Sailor to ABBA, Queen to Cliff Richard, local legends like Gene Rockwell, Richard Jon Smith, Bruce Millar and Marie Gibson, all the way to the Number One song from The Four Seasons.
The Four Seasons’ ‘December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)’ had now spent as many weeks as there were seasons in their name at 1 while Marie Gibson’s ‘One Day At A Time’ was enjoying a second week at 2.
The male domination of the top 20 was beginning to wane as they dropped to below 10 of the top 20 for the first time in 13 weeks, although there were still more solo men in the charts than another type of act.
Acts from Sweden moved onto 91 weeks in the chart and this gave them 10th place on the list of weeks by a nation to themselves as the Jamaicans on 90 dropped into 11th place. Abba had now accounted for 80 of those 91 Swedish weeks and they were the 23rd act to reach this milestone.
Cliff Richard moved into tied 16th place on the overall weeks count list, his 83 putting him level with The Staccatos.
Richard Jon Smith moved ahead of Bobby Angel and The Rising Sons with his total on 43. He held on to 17th place on the local weeks count list while the latter 2 on 42 fell into tied 18th place.
