KVKI Playlist December 2011 Top Songs

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The #1 song for December on the Christmas Station 96.5 KVKI is, 'Jingle Bell Rock', recorded by Bobby Helms.

Robert Lee Helms (August 15, 1933–June 19, 1997), better known as Bobby Helms, was an American country music singer who enjoyed his peak success in 1957 with his hit, “Jingle Bell Rock”. He was mostly known for the Christmas song. His other hits include “Fraulein” and “My Special Angel”.

Released just a few days before Christmas 1957, his song “Jingle Bell Rock” was a big hit. Uniquely, it also re-emerged four out of the next five years, and sold so well that it repeated each time as a top hit, and became a Christmas classic still played to this day. It took five years for this song to become a second million seller for Helms.

It reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 21 weeks in the chart. The record gained gold disc status. Accounts that Helms wrote and recorded the song with Hank Garland seem to be apocryphal — ASCAP and Allmusic list the writers of the song as Joseph Beal, Joseph Carlton, James Ross and James Boothe.