Ramblin': Jingle Bell Rock' rocking up the charts

Dec. 15—It's funny how we can remember the first time we heard some songs, while others have become intermingled with the many we hear from multiple sources.

Even some of our favorite songs appear to have always existed in some timeless musical mist, having seemingly been around forever.

It might be easy to remember the first time we heard our favorite album, or even special deep cuts from that album that didn't become huge hits, but became personal favorites.

To recall the first hearing of those songs, all one has to do is to recall the first time they heard the album — the first time they heard it after they bought it, or a friend played it for them.

With downloads, streaming, etc. making select albums cuts or, in many cases, entire albums, available at the click of a button, particular songs can be heard practically anytime these days.

Still, I felt one song so vividly that I've always remembered the precise instant I heard it.

On a chilly winter night, in the early evening darkness, lights in downtown McAlester infused Choctaw Avenue with a festive holiday spirit.

I remember stepping inside of the Ben Franklin store, then located in downtown McAlester before a later move to Tandy Town. Called a five-and-10 store, it contained all sorts of stuff.

As I walked inside, I felt the warmth and heard the mingled voices of holiday shoppers who were going up and down the aisles, looking for those treasures.

Something different that night though was the the sound of a radio hooked up to the store's intercom system. Just inside the lobby, I heard a lone electric guitar and the opening notes of "Jingle Bells" on the bottom strings, immediately eliciting a rock 'n' roll feeling.

Then, the rest of the band kicked in and I heard a singer, who I later learned was Bobby Helms, sing the opening lines "Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock."

Only two words, repeated twice, the the word "rock" added on the third time. But what an impact it had on my young ears.

Still an elementary school student, I'd never heard a Christmastime song quite like that before.

At the time, I thought it was a contemporary song, one that had just been released and hitting the airwaves. Only later would I learn the song had already been around for years — and the first time I heard it had been upon the occasion of many subsequent rereleases over the song's long lifetime.

What had been thinking about the song again — in addition to hearing it on the radio again as becomes more common with each passing holiday season — is the song's rising up the charts again this week on the Billboard Hot 100.

Last week I wrote about the current #1 song on the Hot 100, Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," followed at #2 by Mariah Carey's modern-day holiday classic "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

Lee hit the #1 spot with "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" last week — 65 years after she first recorded and released the song in 1958.

There were lots of music fans interested in seeing if Lee would hold the number one song again on the Billboard Hot 100 charts for the current week of Dec. 16, or if she would be replaced in the top spot by Carey, whose "All I Want For Christmas Is You" has become the perennial #1 song in America over the past few holiday seasons.

Lee is holding on to the #1 spot, with Carey coming in at #2 for the second week in a row — but there's a new entry coming in at #3, and it's been around even longer than "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree."

That song that so fascinated me as a kid, "Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" is the #3 song in the U.S. this week.

Remember, we're not talking the holiday music charts. It's the mainstream chart that covers the most popular songs in the U.S. across all genres — but this time of year the Billboard Hot 100 has become infused with timeless holiday songs, mainly from holiday seasons past.

Bringing up the #4 spot is "Last Christmas" by Wham!, a 1986 release which is climbing the charts again.

A non-holiday song is not included on this week's Top Ten until the #5 song position, which is "Lovin' On Me" by Jack Harlow.

After that, it's Burl Ives, holding for the second week in a row at #6 with another classic, " A Holly Jolly Christmas."

It dates back to 1964, when Ives sang it on the Christmas television special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" — for which Ives also served as the narrator.

"A Holly Jolly Christmas" is followed on the Hot 100 by another non-holiday song, Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" — although come to think of it, Swift's song is also a seasonal number, only it's representing summer instead of wintertime.

Swift's hit is sandwiched between "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and Andy Williams at #8, with "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

Rounding out the remainder of the Top Ten are "Snooze" by SZA and Doja Cat, with "Paint the Town Red," but Jose Feliciano is gaining on them both with another Christmastime classic, "Feliz Navidad" climbing the charts to #11.

Although recorded 1957, a year earlier than "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree," the recording of "Jingle Bell Rock" uses many of the same studio musicians and was recorded on the same Decca label as Lee's classic.

Legendary Nashville record producer Owen Bradly manned the consoles for both recordings.

"Jingle Bell Rock" also utilized the Anita Kerr singers — a Nashville vocal troupe who would go on to sing on "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" a year later.

Both recordings feature that ringing electric guitar sound — and Nashville studio ace Hank Garland played those memorable guitar licks on both recordings.

However, the story around "Jingle Bell Rock" is that Garland, along with singer Bobby Helms, played a more pivotal role in the creation of "Jingle Bell Rock" than providing the lead guitar and vocals.

Both Helms and Garland would go on to claim they wrote a significant part of "Jingle Bell Rock," for which they were never credited.

Helms said the song had originally been titled "Jingle Bell Hop," written by Joe Beal and Jim Boothe, who were in the advertising business.

He so disliked the demo recording of "Jingle Bell Hop," which he said featured an organ, that he asked Garland to help him rework it, right there in the studio.

Both Helms and Garland said they wrote the song's bridge that begins with "What a bright time, it's the right time, to rock the night away."

By. the time they finished, they came up with the version of "Jingle Bell Rock" that's so well known today.

Probably, the most crucial change, in addition to writing the bridge, came in changing the song's title from "Jingle Bell Hop" to "Jingle Bell Rock."

Otherwise the song would have been named for a little-remembered dance style, also used in the late 1950s and early 1960s to symbolize a teenage dance gathering.

What a difference a word makes!