More Early Pop Chart Xmas Hits

Here are more early pop chart Xmas hits.  There were no specific Billboard holiday charts until 1963.

Winter Wonderland – Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers, #4 in 1947. Issued on the 78 flipside of the Mercer hit “A Gal In Calico.”  Orchestra conducted by Paul Weston.  I think of Mercer more as a songwriter and producer than a performer.  He “co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs.”

I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas – Yogi Yorgesson, #4 in 1949,with The Johnny Duffy Trio, and the B-side of Yingle Bells.  It’s a parody of ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas. Who IS this guy? He’s “the creation of Harry Stewart, who delighted audiences in the 1940s and 50s with parody songs” in a Swedish accent. He was born Harry Skarbo, the son of a Norwegian immigrant father and a second-generation Norwegian-American mother.

White Christmas – Frank Sinatra, orchestra and chorus conducted by Axel Stordahl, #5 in 1945. The song is from Holiday Inn, written by Irving Berlin. I’ll have to remember to play a LOT of Frank at Christmastime in 2025 when he would have been 110.

Jingle Bells – Glenn Miller, with vocals by Tex Beneke, Ernie Caceres & The Modernaires, #5 in 1941.

Frosty the Snow Man – Gene Autry and the Cass County Boys, orchestra conducted by Carl Cotner, #7 in 1950. Like many of my generation, I’m more familiar with the Jimmy Durante version from the 1969 animated film.

Not the same

Silent Night – Bing Crosby with Victor Young and his orchestra, #7 in 1935. This is a “markedly different arrangement from his much more familiar Decca re-makes of 1942 and 1947.”

Christmas Island– The Andrews Sisters, Guy Lombardo, and His Royal Canadians, #7 in 1946. I loved the Sisters. I have several seasonal cuts with them and Bing.

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! – Woody Herman, #7 in 1946. Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne wrote it. I got a Herman album from my late FIL’s collection.

Yingle Bells – Yogi Yorgesson, #7 in 1949.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Spike Jones, #7 in 1950.

Chevy

Chuck Miller recently posted three long-form (four to six-minute) Chevrolet commercials for the holidays from the past three years. It was touching stuff.