Get ready for “Jingle Bell Rock” with “A Bobby Helms Christmas”

Bobby Helms' most famous Christmas hit “Jingle Bell Rock” opens the new collection Christmas with Bobby Helmswill be released on CD and digital formats this October. The set also includes two long-lost Christmas rarities, “The Bell That Couldn't Jingle” and “Those Snowy, Glowy, Blowy Days Of Winter,” as well as the Ryan Riback remix of “Jingle Bell Rock” and “Captain Santa Claus (And His Reindeer Space Patrol),” the B-side of the original “Jingle Bell Rock” single.

Although Helms first became known as a country singer, topping the Billboard country charts with his 1957 single “Fraulein,” he scored his biggest hit by putting a Christmas twist on rock 'n' roll, combining jingle bells and Hank Garland's electric guitar with Helms' warm, friendly vocals. The Indiana native was initially skeptical about recording a Christmas rock song, but when it was released on Decca Records at the start of the 1957 holiday season, “Jingle Bell Rock” peaked at No. 13 on the most-played C&W chart and made the jump to the Billboard and Cashbox pop charts — and then stuck in the public's mind.

A few years after its release, “Jingle Bell Rock” kept returning to Billboard's newly introduced Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 35 in 1958 and reappearing a few more times through 1962. Over the years, “Jingle Bell Rock” became a standard, covered by the Beach Boys, Chubby Checker, Hall & Oates, Kylie Minogue and Mariah Carey, among others. Helms' original version of the track made a comeback in the 1990s, appearing in films such as Home Alone 2: Lost in New York And Promised is promisedBut it was only the introduction of on-demand streaming that helped the song achieve new commercial success.

“Jingle Bell Rock” re-entered the Hot 100 in January 2016, thanks largely to heavy streams around the holiday season. It reached a new peak the following December, and in 2018 it entered the top 10 for the first time. In January 2020, it reached a new high of No. 3. “'Jingle Bell Rock' has become a part of Christmas,” Helms said in a retrospective last year. “It cheers people up.”

command Christmas with Bobby Helms Now.