Songoftheday 10/27/20 - Walk beside the pony Daddy it's my first ride, I know the cake looks funny Daddy but I sure tried...

 

 

"Butterfly Kisses" - Raybon Bros.

from the album Raybon Bros. (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 8

 

Yesterday I went on a long rant about how the record companies started to ensure their eventual demise with the phasing out of the commercial "single" that allowed younger, newer, and more budget-conscious fans to purchase a song they love on the radio. This mostly started in the 1990s with labels holding back single releases to either juice up a high debut or juice up album sales, which worked sometimes. In the later half of the decade their popped up a practice of another act releasing a cover while the radio hit is big to grab those sales, and the most conspicuous example of this was "Butterfly Kisses". Written and recorded by gospel singer Bob Carlisle, the track became a top ten radio hit without being put out commercially (except for the Christian bookstore market), and therefore were unable to make the top-40. Meanwhile, country singer Marty Raybon had just left his long-running lead singer position in the band Shenandoah, who had scored 25 Country Singles hits including five #1's from the ten years of 1987 to 1997, though none of them had reached the pop Hot 100 list. Marty formed a new act with his brother Tim, and the Raybon Bros. promptly released "Butterfly Kisses" as a single in cassette, CD, and vinyl 7" form not even a month after Carlisle's went to radio. With a similar enough sound and Marty's country cred, a lot of people were inclined to buy that version instead of plunking down 15 or so bucks for an album of religious music. And so it went that the brothers scored a top-40 pop hit mostly thanks to sales of the single...

The Raybon's version of "Butterfly Kisses" became the act's first and only top-40 pop hit in June of 1997. The single also rose to #37 on Billboard magazine's Country Singles chart, besting Carlisle version even on the radio there. A second single from the pair's self-titled debut (and only) album, "The Way She's Lookin'", was a minor country radio hit at #64. Their album also contained a collaboration with Olivia Newton-John, "Falling", which slipped on to the Canadian country airplay list at #96. 

With their album not really doing much, Marty and Tim ended the act for the former to go solo, where he would release nine albums, but only landing one minor country hit with "Cracker Jack Diamond", which went to #63 in 2000. He reunited with Shenandoah in 2014 and has done three more studio sets with them. 

 

Now this wasn't even the biggest instance of two competing versions of a song on the charts in 1997 - that would come a little bit later.

Up tomorrow: R&B trio are almost out of gas.