In 1974, Mills released an album that featured "Music Box Dancer", but it was not initially a hit. When he re-signed with Polydor Records Canada in 1978, the label released a new song as a single, with "Music Box Dancer" on the B-side. The single was sent to
easy-listening stations in Canada, and one copy was mistakenly sent to
CFRA, an
Ottawa pop station. The program director played the A-side and could not figure out why it had been sent to his station, so he played the B-side to see if the record label had been mistakenly marked. He liked "Music Box Dancer" and added it to his station's playlist. The song's success at CFRA was swift. "Music Box Dancer" premiered on CFRA's top 30 chart on May 5, 1978; by June 30, it was the #1 song on the station's playlist. "Music Box Dancer" also began picking up play on other Canadian stations around this time, becoming a nationwide hit. Mills's album went gold in Canada, which, after several months, prompted Polydor in the US to release the album and single with the B-side "The Poet and I". The million-selling Gold-certified single reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1979 as well as #4 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, while the album reached #21 on the Billboard Top Album chart and also went gold. Around that time,
Nashville, Tennessee television station
WNGE used
Music Box Dancer as its news theme; it became so popular among
Middle Tennessee viewers that Polydor awarded a gold record to WNGE for breaking the single in the U.S.
It was Mills's only U.S. Top 40 pop hit; the follow-up, another piano instrumental titled "Peter Piper", peaked at #48 on the Billboard Hot 100, although it was a popular Top 10 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Mills managed one final Adult Contemporary chart entry, "Happy Song", which peaked at #41 at the beginning of 1981. Mills also released a version of
Ricky Nelson's "Poor Little Fool" with substantial airplay in Ontario during the 1970s and 1980s. ==Chart performance==