1986: 29 years after its first appearance in the Top Ten, and three years after his untimely death, Jackie Wilson's "Reet Petite" climbs all the way to #1 in the UK.
"Written by Berry Gordy and Tyran Carlo, a pseudonym of Jackie's cousin Billy Davis,[1] and produced by Dick Jacobs, the song is one of the classics of rock and roll music. Taking the title from the Louis Jordan song "Reet, Petite and Gone", this was Jackie Wilson's first recording as a solo artist. The song peaked at #62 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1957 and reached #6 on the UK singles chart. With the success of the song, Gordy was able to fund the launch of Motown Records.
The song was reissued in 1986 following the showing of a clay animation video on the BBC Two documentary series Arena. The reissued version proved so popular that in December 1986, almost three years after Wilson's death, the song became a #1 in the UK for four weeks. This held the record for the longest time between a song's debut on the chart and it finally reaching number one (29 years, 1 month, 11 days) until it was overtaken by Tony Christie's "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" in 2005."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reet_Petite