This is another one of those British production duos who have barely ever been seen by anybody, but they had a brief but very enjoyable time on the chart. Shanks And Bigfoot were Stephen and Daniel, but they first came on to the scene under a different name. In November 1998, “Straight From The Heart” was released, under the name Doolally.
This reached no. 20 and featured the uncredited vocal of Sharon Woolf. This also turned out to be one of the earliest Garage singles on the chart, a genre that would become much more prominent a year or two later. There was no video made for this though. But then in May 1999, they released their first single under the Shanks And Bigfoot name.
“Sweet Like Chocolate” turned out to be an instant classic, and there was a huge amount of interest. This did reach Number One in its first week on the chart (although this was in the era when this happened so frequently that it wasn’t too much of an achievement). But what was impressive was that this sold more than the Top Five put together. Again, Sharon Woolf was the uncredited vocalist.
And there was also the famous computer-generated video, which featured a lot of chocolate. Mmm, chocolate. I remember that this was released around the time that I left school. Did I spend the time listening to this or revising for my GCSEs? Well I think that you know that answer to that one. And then in August 1999, “Straight From The Heart” was re-released.
This was mostly because this could now be promoted with a “this is Shanks And Bigfoot too!” angle, and this time reached no. 9, an improvement of 11 places. Although they are considered to be a one-hit wonder by many, in July 2000 they did have one final hit single when “Sing-A-Long” reached no. 12, and this featured a different uncredited vocalist.
Around this time they also won a few awards. They then released their album “Swings And Roundabouts”, followed in 2001 by one more single which was “Trust In Me”, but neither these made the chart, and after a few years, Shanks And Bigfoot came to a quiet end. But they paved the way for so many other Garage acts, and “Sweet Like Chocolate” definitely has to be one of the best chart-toppers of its era.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 