The song was immediately a hit in a version recorded byShep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra, considered to have spent fourteen weeks on the charts in 1937, four at #1. (The charts did not actually exist in those days, but reconstructions of what they would have been give those statistics.[2]) A version was also recorded byJan Garber, which charted at #10.[2])
The song is also featured in the 1981 film,Body Heat, played at an outdoor summer concert by a big band on stage.
In the 1971 novelSummer of '42 by Herman Raucher, the song is prominent in chapter 19. That's when the main character, Hermie, visits Dorothy shortly after she has received the news of her husband's death in World War II. The song clearly was the favorite of Dorothy and her husband, and she dances with Hermie as the phonograph record plays.
Magni Wentzel withEinar Iversen, trumpet, Endre Iversen, piano, Tor Braun, guitar, Erik Amundsen,bass. Recorded on May 2, 1960. Released on the single Odeon ND 7373.
^28 August 1938: Adelaide Hall accompanied by Fats Waller, recorded 'That Old Feeling' -His Master's Voice OEA6391. (reference: 'Underneath a Harlem Moon ... the Harlem to Paris years of Adelaide Hall' pages 365 to 368 -ISBN0826458939
You may hear the song "That Old Feeling" performed by theShep Fields Rippling Rhythm Orchestra in 1937