First recorded by The Quinto Sisters (1964).
Popular version by Burl Ives (1964 |MOR #30 1998 |US #38 2017).
From the wiki: “‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’, also known as ‘Have a Holly Jolly Christmas’, is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks. It was the title song of The Quinto Sisters’ first album, Holly Jolly Christmas, recorded in June 1964 for Columbia Records, featuring guitarist Al Caiola with arrangements by Frank Hunter and Marty Manning.
“The song was also featured in the 1964 Rankin-Bass Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, in which Burl Ives voiced the narrator. This version was also included on the soundtrack album.
“The song was re-recorded by Ives and released in 1964 as a single and later featured the following year in his 1965 holiday album, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. This version of the song has a somewhat slower arrangement than the televised version and features a twelve-string guitar solo introduction. It is this version that has since become the more commonly heard rendition on radio.
“The song’s enduring popularity is evidenced by its reaching #30 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in 1998, as well as #21 on the US Country Digital Songs chart and #5 on the Holiday 100 chart in 2011. The song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in 2017, after rules on chart eligibility for older songs had been relaxed several years before, and reached a peak of #38.
“On the week ending January 4, 2020, it reached a new peak of #4. With this feat, Ives now holds the record for the longest break between Hot 100 Top Tens as he returned to this minimum ranking after 56 years, seven months and two weeks since his previous Top 10 hit and, at 109 years after birth, surpassing Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ (which reached the Top 40 when Armstrong would have been 86 years old) as the oldest artist, living or deceased, to have a Top 40 hit.”
Burl Ives, “A Holly Jolly Christmas” from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1964):
Burl Ives, “A Holly Jolly Christmas” single (1964):