Today in 1960, Brenda Lee’s perennial Christmas single, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” makes its first appearance on the charts.
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958; it has since been recorded by numerous other music artists. By the song’s 50th anniversary in 2008, Lee’s original version had sold over 25 million copies with the 4th most digital downloads sold of any Christmas single.
Because of her mature-sounding voice, Lee recorded this song when she was only thirteen years old. The song’s declaration of a rock and roll sound notwithstanding, its instrumentation also fits the country music genre, which Lee more fully embraced as her career evolved. The recording features Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Boots Randolph on sax, Bob Moore on bass, and veteran session player Buddy Harman on drums.
An instrumental version of the song appears as background music in the 1964 television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which exclusively featured music written by Marks. It can be heard in the scene where Rudolph first arrives at the Reindeer Games and meets another reindeer named Fireball. A fully sung version of the song would later appear in Rankin/Bass’s 1979 sequel Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July. The song was also used in the 1990 film Home Alone during a scene when Kevin McCallister pretends that there is a holiday party taking place in his house, and discourages the burglars from robbing it. The song was also featured in The Christmas Special episode of Regular Show in 2012. The song was also used in D-TV set to the Disney cartoons, Pluto’s Christmas Tree and Mickey’s Christmas Carol.
Although Decca released the single in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960. That Christmas holiday season, it placed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time, eventually peaking at No. 14. It continued to sell well during subsequent holiday seasons, peaking as high as No. 3 on Billboard’s Christmas Singles chart in December 1965. Lee’s 1958 recording still receives a great deal of airplay, as radio station formats ranging from top 40 to adult contemporary to country music to oldies to even adult standards have played this version. It has since turned into a perennial holiday favorite, and due to rule changes in 2014 has returned annually to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching an all-time chart peak of No. 8 during the 2019 holiday season.
Source: Wikipedia
