What's the story with the 1978 hit Dancin' Shoes?

I was listening to various chart hits and came across Dancin' Shoes by the Faith Band, which only charted at #54 on the Billboard Hot 100. As I'm listening, the song sounds familiar. Then I realize there was a more famous version by Nigel Olsson of Elton John's band. The really strange thing here is, unless there was a mistake in the Billboard book I have, they both peaked on THE SAME DAY, Dec. 16, 1978, Olsson's at 18. Anyone know why there were two competing versions?

 

I can't speak specifically to that song, but it was not uncommon in the '50s and '60s for two or more artists to release competing versions of the same song. A classic example is "Louie Louie," which had versions released almost at the same time by three Pacific Northwest bands: the Kingsmen, the Wailers, and Paul Revere & the Raiders.

It appears that a similar thing happened in '78 with "Dancin' Shoes."

 

Ok, this is weird, the same chart book I'm consulting says the Fifth Dimension and Diana Ross versions of Love Hangover also reached their peak on the same day, April 3, 1976. I'm suspecting a mistake.

 

A Whitburn book? With "Dancin' Shoes," December 16, 1978 sounds about when Olsson's version entered the Hot 100 or was released as a single. It entered the Top 40 with the January 27, 1979 issue of Billboard, peaking at #18. The song was written by Carl Storie of the Faith Band. The links provide the history of the Chosen Few / Limousine / Faith / Faith Band evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Band
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/the-chosen-few-1960-s-band-anyone-heard-of-them.348608/

 

Actually, now that I think about it, there are some discrepancies between two chart books I have. The one I'm consulting is Top Pop, I think by Whitburn, which came out around '83, ad has hot 100 pop entries. Maybe you're right about the song entering the hot 100. Still, in both the Dancin' Shoes and Love Hangover cases, the same book has the entries on exactly the same day for the same criteria of chart entry.

 

Olsson's other hit was a cover as well, this time a cover of The Jarmels doo wop era hit, A Little Bit Of Soap.

 

Happened way back in 1957 where there were two versions of Singin' The Blues - Guy Mitchell and Tommy Steele.

The bit that might make this unique is that they went to #1 like this.

4th Jan - Mitchell
11th Jan - Steele
18th Jan - Mitchell
25th - [not Singin' The Blues]
1st Feb - Mitchell (joint top)

There was one a few years ago with the versions of "Hallelujah" where the Alexandra Burke version was competing with the one by Jeff Buckley for the #1 spot.

Edit - just read that Leonard Cohen's version was at #36 at the same time.

 

Dancin’ Shoes was written by Carl Storie of the Faith Band and appeared on the group’s 1978 album Rock N Romance. By that time, the group had been recording and releasing albums for many years and enjoyed regional popularity around their home base of Indianapolis, Indiana. Nigel Olsson’s recording of Dancin’ Shoes, released in late 1978, was a cover version.



Although I don’t have any direct knowledge about the circumstances behind the release of both singles, I suspect that once Mercury Records, which had been distributing the Faith Band’s LP, learned that Bang Records was going to release Nigel’s cover version of Dancin’ Shoes they decided to either release the Faith Band’s original or increase promotion of the single if it had already been released.

Both versions made their debut on the Billboard Hot 100 during the same week (December 16, 1978) [Interestingly, Nigel’s version made its debut one week earlier in Cash Box than the Faith Band’s original, which failed to chart at all in Record World!]. Nigel’s version of Dancin’ Shoes peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at #18 for the weeks ending March 3 and 10, 1979. The Faith Band’s original had dropped off the Billboard Hot 100 several weeks earlier (its last appearance was February 10, 1979). So, the two competing versions of Dancin’ Shoes made their debut on the Billboard Hot 100 during the same week but peaked during different weeks.