B. W. Stevenson had four U.S. Hot 100 songs, the highest being 1973’s My Maria , which peaked at #9. Earlier that year he had released Shambala which, to his dismay, Three Dog Night quickly covered and took to #3. (Stevenson’s version stalled at #66).
Why was he dismayed?
Three Dog Night, which was hugely popular at the time, had rushed their release, which cut into Stevenson’s sales.
What about Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah ? Seems like there are a half dozen covers which are more famous than his original.
Fair enough. If Three Dog Night had a #3 hit with my song I’d be dismayed all the way to the bank.
Speaking of Three Dog Night, Hoyt Axton Wrote a number 1 and number 3 hits for them. Joy to The World and Never Been to Spain.
But Dolly had a #1 hit with “9 to 5”.
Jimi Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower was the first thing that came to mind.
Bob Dylan got to #2 twice (Like a Rolling Stone and Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35)* The Byrds took Mr. Tambourine Man to #1
*Dylan did hit #1 with a couple of songs on category charts, but not the Billboard Top 100.
Yeah, the thread seems to have started to drift from the OP’s original question, to “examples of a cover song that was a bigger hit than the original.”
My bad. I interpreted the OP incorrectly. I was looking for a big artist that covered another big artist and got the song higher than the writer did. I missed the part where the OP stipulated that the writer would not have ANY song higher than the big cover.
Prince wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Sinead O’Connor’s cover of it went to number one. Prince’s version didn’t.
Reading kenobi’s post, I see this isn’t an example of what the OP asked for. Prince had other songs that reached number one.
Boris Fomin was a highly successful Soviet songwriter, popular and much beloved in his home country (well, except in the 1930s when his style fell out of favour politically). But his domestic success pales in comparison to the international sales figures for various Western covers of his “Dorogoy Dlinnoyo”. The most famous of these was Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days”, a number-one hit in 1968.