Yuletide Serendipity: ‘Christmas Bells in the Steeple’

Perry Como Christmas Album.

More music is played during Christmas than any other holiday. A lesser-known song called “Christmas Bells in the Steeple” was penned for singing legend Perry Como by a young Nashville, Tennessee, songwriter in 1967. The song is a subtle reminder about the true meaning of Christmas.

“Christmas Bells,” as it is commonly known, was released as a 45-single, and its two-time Grammy Award-winning composer rereleased the song in 2016 on his own Christmas album.

Mr. C: The Back Story

Perry Como in New York City, circa October 1946. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Readers under 50 years old may not know that Como was an iconic American singer and television personality whose career spanned seven decades from the 1930s to the 1990s. In the 1950s, Como sold more records than anyone but Elvis Presley.

Known affectionately as “Mr. C,” Perry Como recorded over 700 songs between 1936 and 1987. During the quarter century from 1945 to 1970, he sold over 100 million records, with only Bing Crosby, Elvis, and The Beatles selling more.

In 1945, the popular music magazine Metronome presented Como with its Outstanding Achievement Award for popular singing. That same year, Picture News voted him the outstanding male vocalist of 1945, and the National Veterans of America named him their favorite singer.

Cover of the January 1946 edition of Metronome magazine when Perry Como and Jo Stafford were voted best male and female singers of the year. Public Domain

Considering Como’s competition at the time was Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, that was impressive for a 32-year-old who previously sang for his barbershop customers while cutting their hair.

Como’s TV History

Como during the second season of his television program "The Perry Como Show," on Aug. 15, 1956. Public Domain

Como’s early notoriety came from record sales and hosting a short weekday radio show from 7:00 to 7:15 called the “Chesterfield Supper Club.” In late 1948, he decided to dip his toe in the waters of a new medium: television.

Few families owned TV sets at the time, but that quickly changed during the prosperous Eisenhower years. As more households grew attuned to television, thousands more people welcomed the casual, affable man with the cozy cardigan sweaters and warm baritone voice into their living rooms.

In their 2009 book, “Perry Como–A Biography and Complete Career Record,” authors Malcolm MacFarlane and Ken Crossland wrote of Como during this time: “Through the 1950s, he was the incarnation of Eisenhower’s America. Cool and casual, his appeal crossed generations, time zones and seasons. His weekly TV show became an institution, ‘Saturday Night with Mr. C,’ the TV show that everyone watched and everyone remembered.”

Como hosted 1,049 television shows over the next 13 years. His annual Christmas specials were family favorites and always ranked high in viewership.

Como signed what was believed to be the largest deal in show business in 1959, when Kraft Foods Company offered him a two-year contract worth $25 million. During the period from October 1961 through June 1963, he performed in a total of 66 of Kraft’s Wednesday primetime shows.

Back to the Studio

Country musician Chet Atkins signing a copy of his book "Country Gentleman." Public Domain

After three decades of doing records, radio, and television in New York City, Como was ready for a change of scene and type of music. In the 1960s, he began reducing his TV appearances and refocusing his energies on recording.

Como saw guitarist Chet Atkins, pianist Floyd Cramer, and saxophonist Boots Randolph at a celebrity golf tournament that Como promoted in 1962. When RCA executive Steve Sholes suggested that Como record some popular country music songs in 1965, they thought: What better place to do that than Music City—Nashville, Tennessee?

Como was offered some country music standards by Atkins to record on the appropriately named LP record, “The Scene Changes.” Some call the four-day Nashville sessions produced by Atkins some of Como’s best work. He melded seamlessly with his country cousins whom he had never worked with before.

For Atkins and arranger-background singer Anita Kerr, it was critical that Como be allowed to sing his own way. “He didn’t have to change his style,” Kerr said in the MacFarlane and Crossland biography. “That was the idea. Perry Como, singing his usual style with a Nashville musical background.”

That approach paid off. “Como took to Nashville as if he had been recording there all his life,” MacFarlane and Crossland wrote. “Kerr found him ‘relaxed, pleasant and quite at home.’”

The Nashville recording experience went so well that Como returned there in 1968 to record his third Christmas album, “The Perry Como Christmas Album.”

Perry Como Christmas Album.

Christmas Serendipity

Atkins had successfully chosen the songs for “The Scene Changes” and was also asked to help select material for the new Christmas album. He reached out to a young local songwriter he’d known since 1957 to see if he had written any Christmas songs that could be used on Como’s album.

Known primarily for his funny repertoire of music like “Ahab, the Arab” and “Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated Quick-Dissolving Fast-Acting Pleasant-Tasting Green and Purple Pills,” Atkins’s friend did not disappoint with the request.

“Chet was recording Perry in Nashville and he asked me did I have any Christmas songs,” Harold Ray Ragsdale recalled in a 2016 YouTube clip. “I didn’t, but I said, ‘No, but I’ll get you one real soon,’ and I went home and wrote this and Chet cut it with Perry.” A short time later, Ragsdale, better known as two-time Grammy Award-winner Ray Stevens, sent Atkins “Christmas Bells” with lyrics that highlighted the real meaning of Christmas:

Christmas bells in the steeple, Ringing out on Christmas morn, But where are all the people, Where has everybody gone?

They’re all busy with their presents, Snug and warm behind their doors Thinkin' no one was forgotten, Empty shelves in all the stores!

Doesn’t anyone remember, As they wake up Christmas morn The 25th day of December, Little Baby Jesus was born?

Christmas bells in the steeple, How their ringing seems to say O come all ye faithful, Get down on your knees and pray Don’t you know it’s Christmas Day?

When I asked via email how he composed such a moving melody and lyrics on such short notice, Stevens admitted, “It just came to me and I went with it!”

Singer and songwriter Ray Stevens at the Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum on July 19, 2014 in Nashville, Tenn. Stevens wrote "Christmas Bells." Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum

Stevens said that he was impressed when hearing the studio recording for the first time. “I liked the recording a lot. Cam Mullins did it as a simple string arrangement and did a great job with it.” When asked about Como and Atkins’s reaction to his composition, Stevens deadpanned, “They must have liked it!”

“I don’t think it was widely known I wrote the song,” Stevens modestly noted when asked if his fans were surprised that he wrote a Christmas ballad. A couple years later, though, everyone knew Stevens after he recorded his international hit “Everything is Beautiful.” That song won Stevens a Grammy Award for Best Male Contemporary Vocal Performance in 1971, along with four other Grammy nominations.  The Georgia native who signed his first record contract at age 18 with Capitol Records also notched another Grammy win in 1976 for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for “Misty,” and another nomination for the same song.

Stevens decided to record “Christmas Bells” on his own Christmas album, “Mary and Joseph and the Baby and Me,” in 2016. While promoting the album on a YouTube clip, he said, “I decided heck, I’ll record it myself; it’s been 50 years or so since Perry had it out.”

It may not have been a Christmas miracle in August 1967 when a country music comic performer penned an obscure holiday song for one of America’s singing legends, but it could certainly be called Christmas serendipity.