With Wilma Burgess’s cover of “Don’t Touch Me,” Cochran was concerned for Jeannie. Decca was a much bigger and much more influential label than Monument, and could easily beat the smaller label in distribution. Using his own money, Hank hired a couple of promotion men to start plugging the Seely version in the big markets. This worked in some places, but surprisingly not in Chicago. John Trotter at 50,000 watt powerhouse WJJD stayed hot on the Wilma Burgess release and completely ignored Jeannie’s. Decca had a stronger foothold in many of the major markets, leaving the two versions to fight it out in the smaller cities. By late summer the war was over but amazingly, Seely had won. The powerful Decca promotions machine had come up short. Burgess managed to climb to #12 and then tailed off. Jeannie had climbed all the way to #2 in Billboard, holding that position for three straight weeks, but wasn’t quite able to reach the summit because of the few big stations like WJJD that remained loyal to Wilma’s record.
Hank Cochran always believed (and rightfully so) that having the two versions of “Don’t Touch Me” going head to head at the same time kept Seely from notching a #1 hit on Billboard’s country singles chart. Even years later when he discussed this, his voice still revealed a slight bitterness. Jeannie’s version did reach #1 on the other two national charts at the time (Cashbox and Record World, both now gone). In addition, Cochran picked up a couple of BMI awards for the song, and Seely won the 1966 Grammy award for “Best Female Country Vocal Performance.” The record also briefly put Jeannie’s name on the Billboard “Hot 100” pop chart for the first and only time, topping out at #85.