A slight diversion:
I wanted to begin with an artist I thought would’ve made the Top 10…and deserves an entry. Number 21:
Burl Ives
(45 pts):
- 3 Top 10 hits
- 1 Top 20
- 1 Top 40
- 4 Top 100 hits
- “Holly Jolly Christmas” peaked at #4 in 2022.
Billboard magazine was born in 1894, and began tracking popular songs in July 1913.
Since then, there have been multiple changes to how it tracks song popularity, including:
- Elimination of a physical release (1998)
- Including digital downloads (2005)
- Streaming media (2007)
- Radio streams (2012)
- YouTube views (2013)
- and how recurrent songs were treated (2015)
…and Burl Ives has been there for all of it.
Kind of.
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was born in 1909. and his parents quickly noted his musical ability.
He performed locally as a child, then after dropping out of college became a traveling banjo-playing folk singer.
Ives found his way into a few acting gigs in the 1930s, and became close with a number of other folk singers, including Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie.
By the 1940s he’d found a niche, popularizing old folk songs including “The Wayfaring Stranger,” which he used as the title of his radio program, two albums and his autobiography.
After a year in the army, Ives went to Hollywood where he recorded songs for movies and played bit parts in a few of them.
He recorded “Blue Tail Fly” with The Andrews Sisters in an effort to get a hit. “Blue Tail Fly” was another minstrel song from the 1840s, and it peaked at number 24 on Billboard’s Best Selling Popular Retail Records. Other hits followed.
1951 saw him achieve his first Top 10 hit: “On Top of Ole Smoky” (it’s a 5.)
But the next year brought scrutiny to his leftist ties.
He testified before HUAC to preserve his career, and his relationship with Seeger and other folk singers was broken.
His musical success tailed off, but his Hollywood career continued to grow.
He had a role in East of Eden, then received acclaim as Big Daddy Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
In 1958 Ives won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the epic Western The Big Country
In the 1960s, Ives switched to recording more country music: a genre that dominated the early modern Billboard 100.
He had two more top 10 songs “A Little Bitty Tear” hit #9 (7) and “Funny Way of Laughin’” #10 (4).
Ives continued to have success as a musically-inclined actor.
But in 1964, he took a step for what most of us years later remember him for.
In 1939 Montgomery Ward asked 34 year-old staff copywriter Robert May to write a poem to give away with some promotional materials for the Christmas season.
He read it to his daughter who approved, and the story about the ninth (and youngest) reindeer in Santa’s family named Rudolph was born.
It was a smash, as 2.4 million copies were handed out that year, and more than three million the year after the war ended.
In an incredibly “modern” tale: After the war, May was struggling under the medical debts incurred when his wife succumbed to cancer, and asked Montgomery Ward’s president for the rights to the poem.
Surprisingly the company did.
And in 1947 May took his poem to Johnny Marks, his sister’s husband, a songwriter who hadn’t yet made his mark (… sorry.)
After he’d turned the short story into a song, Marks offered it to a number of artists like Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, before Gene Autry finally agreed to record it.
It wound up as the first #1 hit of the 50s.
Marks became known for his holiday songwriting.
He followed with a series of Christmas songs, finally hitting it big again with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree” in 1958.
When a stop animation production company called Videocraft International (today known as Rankin/Bass) decided to make a Christmas special out of Rudolph, it seemed obvious to hire Marks to write the score.
Ives wasn’t originally a part of the Christmas special – Rankin/Bass did much of their work in Toronto with Canadian voice actors.
But NBC insisted on adding a “name” actor. So the storyline was rewritten with Ives as Sam the Snowman, who narrates.
“Holly Jolly Christmas,” also written by Marks, had been recorded in 1962 for the Quinto Sisters’ first album. The song was to be sung in the TV special by Yukon Cornelius, played by Larry D. Mann. With Ives onboard, however, Sam the Snowman sang “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Silver and Gold” for the TV special.
I can’t stress how much Ives has been a part of my Christmas seasons.
I mean, Burl is Christmas. “Holly Jolly Christmas” plays every season, and the Rudolph special ran every year in my house growing up, as well as millions of other homes across the country.
When Jon Favreau directed the 2003 Will Farrell breakout film Elf, he used stop animation and included a character that would remind the audience about Sam/Burl.
“Holly Jolly Christmas” opens with a mixed chorus mimicking the “ding-dong” of jingle bells, a 12-string guitar and some sleigh bells. Ives joins in, already in a festive mood.
He doesn’t need it to be a white Christmas like some other singers, he just needs a cup of cheer. You’re going to see old friends during this holiday season, but meet some new ones as well.
As for the kissing? He’ll let you do that, but make sure you give her a kiss from him.
It’s a little over two minutes of absolute holiday joy. The chorus behind Ives reminds me of some Percy Faith among others, and one would have to be a Scrooge to not get into a festive mood listening to “Holly Jolly Christmas”, and Ives’ voice is a bit lower and warmer than in some of his earlier hits…not quite at Santa’s deep “Ho Ho Ho”, but warm like a cup of hot chocolate on Christmas Eve.
Not surprisingly, it has regularly charted on Billboard’s Holiday Charts, as well as the Country and Adult Contemporary charts,
And after Billboard’s revision of recurrent songs in 2015 (as well as the inevitable Christmas Creep), “Holly Jolly Christmas” entered the Top 100 for the first time in 2018.
By January of 2019 it hit #10, setting a few records along the way.:
It was Ives’ first Top 10 hit in 56 years, 7 months and 2 weeks, breaking Andy Williams’ previous record of 47 years between Top 10 hits, set only the week before. A year later, it peaked at #4.
Ives is also the oldest person to have a Top 10 hit, topping Louis Armstrong by a whopping 23 years.
Unfortunately, 109 year old Ives wasn’t around to see it, since he passed away in 1995.
I doubt it’s the last time Ives will be in the Top 10 with “Holly Jolly Christmas”, but I do hope it eventually tops the holiday behemoth Tom Breihan will eventually have to deal with.
GRADE: 9/10
TRIVIA: Wayne Newton “earned” a Cash Box #1 with “The Letter but never on the Billboard Top 100 (he peaked at #4 with 1972’s “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast”, which Tom didn’t bother with). Under which artist did Newton get mentioned? The answer… in next week’s article about our #10 artist!
BONUS BEATS: There’s hundreds of artists who have done their own versions of this song, so I’ll stick to just a few of the more famous. Here’s Lady A, who also charted with their version on four separate charts, but not the Top 100:
(Lady A’s highest-charting single, 2009’s “Need You Now,” peaked at #2. Tom gave it a 6.)
BONUS BONUS BEATS: I am obligated to share my wife’s favorite artist’s version.
(Michael Bublé’s highest-charting single, 2012’s “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” peaked at #20.)
…to be continued…
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When I saw that this was going to be about the guy who broke your system I just broke out laughing.
Awesome job with the P.S. to your series. Of course, I guess it can’t be a P.S. if it comes first. A.S., then.
Ives lived until 109? Wow!
Ives was 85 when he passed away in 1995 – he hit the charts again when he would have been 109 (I had to check as well)
mt, thanks for running this! It looks fantastic!
ISP, as I was researching this, I’d come across an artist and think to myself, “Holy Sh**! Tom missed this one? Top 10 for sure!”
Initially I thought Ives would make Top 10, but he really wasn’t close.
After your comment from Monday, mt isn’t joking – I need to know tonight’s lottery drawing numbers!
cst, I checked my article twice, Ives was naughty AND nice… but died before he hit the Top 10.
It’s a lucky day, but it’s also an unlucky day.
In my next column I wrote that a certain artist (with the single biggest #2 of their decade) has to be among the biggest ones to never be mentioned by Tom, and that remark was inspired by you. I just calculated the artist’s points according to your scale and due to their short chart career, they end up with a measly 35. Waaaay off on that one.
Did everyone have fun writing their articles about the biggest #2s?
(or did I get the artist wrong?)
Nope, Wang Chung only made it to (checks Google doc) #130 on SiriusXM’s countdown!
You’ll have to wait until the column to see who I was thinking of.
I don’t like when stores play Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but here it is two weeks before Halloween and I’ll happily have “Holly Jolly Christmas” stuck in my head all day long.
Nice piece, thegue, good work!
you may not believe me but I have somehow got to [redacted] years old without ever hearing one single solitary version of ‘Holly Jolly Christmas’. Despite being a true devotee of Christmas music generally. Blame the ocean I’m on the other side of
I hope you remedy that forthwith (if you haven’t already)…
I will do but only in December. as much as I love xmas music I have to draw a line. 25 days is enough
In the UK, you’re subjected to the XMas thing right after Halloween – in the US, we get a a bit of a break for Thanksgiving.
The Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer soundtrack is in heavy rotation on Radio Wonham during the holidays. Holly Jolly Christmas and Silver & Gold are in the Desert Island of Misfit Toys playlist, which includes my absolute favorite seasonal songs. Cheers for the write-up on Ives, who does not get his rightful due. Sad to learn of his testimony before the HUAC, but I am sure that was beyond difficult to navigate. At least he had a UK #1 with Little Bitty Tear.
Very interesting. I’d never heard Burl Ives’ folk stuff. He clearly was influenced by John Jacob Niles, which is not something I would have expected from the guy who sang “Holly Jolly Christmas.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbbDTg2QzEU
I’ll have to check out more of his older work.
Excellent! Burl Ives always reminds me of my mother-in-law, who liked him. I’m not a big fan of folk (I have no love for that “Wayfaring Stranger” hit of his), but the later stuff that is more poppy/country I liked.
Still…what a pleasant surprise to have a thegue article about such a unique performer!
Nice start and how fitting that Bitchin’ Burl should set us off.
As dothestrand alluded, Holly Jolly Christmas hasn’t really travelled to this side of the pond. Though that may be changing, it charted here for the first time last Christmas at #42. I can hear in my head how the title line sounds but I’m lost with the rest of it.
Sone nice trivia about Elf but my main takeaway is that Burl’s middle names are Icle Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe is unusual enough, parents must have been big Walter Scott fans, but I’ve never heard Icle before, looked more like a typo the first time I read it.
If you’re going to use Icle as a middle name, at least have the sense to pair it with Bryce as a first name. Then he could have had a song about Bryce Icle on his bicycle. Or something about a Christmas icicle?
It’s spelling “Icle” but it’s pronounced “John.”
Oh, it’s a Welsh name?
I actually researched the name as I was writing this article!
It is a feminine name, NEVER popular in America (I think the most were 9 girls named it), but it’s big in Scandinavia. So maybe it was his grandmother’s name?
Or something about a testicle. I was going to say its not as festive but I’m sure you can work baubles into it.
We are all learning new things about Burl Ives today. He appears to have worked frequently with the Ray Charles Singers…not THAT Ray Charles! Some other musician named Ray Charles who I’ve never heard of.
That “other Ray Charles” was one of the biggest singer/songwriter/vocal arranger conductors that Hollywood had in the 1960s and 1970s. He’s the male singer in “Come and Knock On Our Door,” the theme song for the hit sitcom Three’s Company (RIP Suzanne Somers) and more importantly for this discussion, his vocal group The Ray Charles Singers had a number 3 pop hit in 1964 with “Love Me With All Your Heart.” I give it a 5, take a listen and make your own call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nfqH4YDDM
Bitchin’ article, thegue!!!
Confirmed!
Burl Ives plays an animal trainer in Sam Fuller’s White Dog. Jordan Peele references the film in Nope. If you’ve seen White Dog, you’ll understand that Peele is Quentin Tarantino’s equal when it comes to referencing old movies. I wanted to clap.
I have this hope that sometime in our lives “A Holly Jolly Christmas” will hit number one, as will “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams. All of those songs are over 60 years old and deserve the honor immensely. They sound just as great today as when they first came out.