Even though he was of Jewish descent, Johnny Marks should have been christened “Mr. Christmas” after writing one of the biggest holiday songs in history, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” He based it on the 1939 story, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, that his brother-in-law Robert L. May wrote as a promotional Christmas storybook for customers at the Montgomery Ward department stores.
A decade after May’s department store story debuted, Marks’ song about Rudolph was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949 and went to No. 1. Nearly a decade later, Marks found himself working with Decca and sharing another holiday song he wrote, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” with a 13-year-old singer Brenda Lee.
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‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’
Lee recorded and released “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” in 1958 and by 1960, the song peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Lee first recorded the song during the summer of 1958 at Owen Bradley’s Quonset Hut studio on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. “The producer cut the air way down in the studio,” said Lee. “He had a big Christmas tree and everyone was there—the Anita Kerr Singers and the A-team, as we called them. It was like a little touch of magic kind of sprinkled in, and it turned out to be magic.”
The song also had a resurgence in 1990 when it was featured in the holiday film Home Alone and again in 2023 when Lee re-released the song as a video featuring Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood to celebrate its 65th anniversary and it finally went to No. 1 on the Hot 100 when Lee was 79.
“This song has been so special to me,” said Lee. “I never thought it would be my signature song, but I love that it is because it brings so much joy.”
Mr. Marks
Born November 10, 1909, in Mount Vernon, New York, Marks graduated from Columbia University and later studied in Paris before publishing his first song, “Summer Holiday,” in 1936.
While serving in the military during World War II, Marks continued writing and entertained the front-line troops with some of the songs he wrote.
After the war, Marks founded St. Nicholas Music, Inc. in 1949, which became the leading publisher of Christmas songs, and more holiday classics followed.
‘Holly Jolly Christmas’
In 1964, Marks penned another holiday standard “Holly Jolly Christmas,” which was first recorded by The Quinto Sisters as the title track of their album.
Coincidentally, that same year, it was also sung by Burt Ives for the stop-motion feature Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Ives, who served as the narrator Sam the Snowman in the film, also sang Marks’ earlier hit “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for the film, among others. “Holly Jolly Christmas” also appeared on Ives’ album Have a Holly Jolly Christmas in 1965.
Mr. Christmas
Though Marks never celebrated Christmas, he had a gift for capturing the holiday so well and continued writing more seasonal songs, including “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which was recorded by Bing Crosby in 1956 and Chuck Berry’s 1958 hit “Run Rudolph Run.”
Other songs in Marks’ catalog include “Address Unknown,” “I Guess There’s an End to Everything,” “How Long Is Forever,” “Free,” “Chicken Today and Feathers Tomorrow,” “There’s Always Tomorrow,” “The Most Wonderful Day of the Year,” “Jingle, Jingle, Jingle,” “Don’t Cross You Fingers, Cross Your Heart,” “Address Unknown,” “We Speak of You Often,” “She’ll Always Remember,” “What’ve You Got to Lose But Your Heart,” “A Merry Merry Christmas,” “The Night Before Christmas Song,” “Everyone’s a Child at Christmas,” “Neglected,” “Who Calls?,” “Happy New Year, Darling,” and “When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter,”
Marks’ continued writing more Christmas songs into the 1970s for the film The Tiny Tree in 1975 and the red-nosed follow-up Rudolph’s Shiny New Year in 1976. Leaving behind a legacy of holiday masterpieces, Marks also served as the director of the Association of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) from 1957 through 1961.
Several years before his death on September 3, 1985, at the age of 75, Marks was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1981.
Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
