How Johnny Marks, King of Christmas Hits, Made “Rudolph” a Classic

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” went without a song for years, from the tail end of the Depression through World War II and nearly until the midcentury before a musician named Johnny Marks began to consider it.”

Source: Library of Congress
December 11, 2024
Posted by: Neely Tucker

Marks studied music in college in the 1920s, penned a good song or two for Guy Lombardo’s orchestra in the late 1930s and had a major hit with “Address Unknown” for the Ink Spots in 1939. He served with distinction during the war and wrote some songs that got noticed, but now he was nearly 40 and looking for a hit.

It was about this time that his sister Margaret married Robert L. May, the guy who had come up with the “Rudolph” story back in 1939. May was an ad writer for Montgomery Ward department store and the company gave away more than two million copies of his 31-page “Rudolph” story as a holiday treat for customers that year. After the war’s paper restrictions ended, they’d given away another three million before letting May have the copyright in 1947.

Johnny Marks at his piano with some of his popular sheet music. Photo: Courtesy St. Nicholas Music.

Whether May suggested he take a crack at it or on his own whim, Marks looked over his new brother-in-law’s story with a professional eye. It merged “The Ugly Duckling” storyline with the rhyming couplets style of “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” This is how it started:

’Twas the day before Christmas and all through the hills

The reindeer were playing … enjoying the spills

Marks used just over 100 words in his song. He kept the chord progression simple. His first draft didn’t quite work, so he kept tinkering with it. Finally, he offered it to a couple of singers before Western star Gene Autry reluctantly recorded it in 1949 (his wife had to convince him to do so).

“I thought it would be a mild hit,” Marks later told radio broadcaster Mike Whorf.

The rest, as all of the other reindeer might have said, went down in history. Tens of millions of records sold, hundreds of recordings in every conceivable genre, an endless procession of cartoon and TV specials (of which Marks wrote many a score and song).

Johnny Marks at the piano in a publicity photo. Photo: Courtesy St. Nicholas Music.

It turned out Marks had a particular gift for the Christmas hit. In the coming years, he wrote “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” made famous by Burl Ives; “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” a perennial hit for pop singer Brenda Lee; and a traditional Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” adapted from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The Library preserves much of this history, including placing Autry’s version of “Rudolph” in the National Recording Registry. There’s also the first copyright submission for the “Rudolph” story, a copy of that first 1939 giveaway booklet, handwritten “Rudolph” sheet music and what is likely the only surviving Technicolor nitrate print of Rudolph’s first animated cartoon.

Marks was wistful that people seemed to remember his holiday hits and less of his other work, he said in that 1975 interview with Whorf, preserved now on a disc in the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled. But he didn’t forget what made him famous, and knew that he’d added several standards to the nation’s culture. The name of his music publishing company?

“St. Nicholas Music Inc.”

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Levi Gwaltney

Levi Gwaltney is the Editor In Chief of Las Cruces Digest. The Editor makes editorial and posting decisions regarding content published on this site. In most cases, the Editor makes little if any contribution to content published, and takes no credit for the content of republished posts. If available, the source or author of posts is provided at the top of the article.