Burl Ives

Burl Ives transformed his abilities as a folksinger into an expansive path that embraced radio work along with performances in theater and motion pictures. His Broadway introduction occurred through the 1938 Rodgers & Hart show The Boys from Syracuse, after which he hosted a dedicated radio program by 1940 and issued his first major-label recording in 1944. Partnering with the Andrews Sisters, he scored his initial chart single via 1948’s “Blue Tail Fly,” then guided classic folk numbers such as “Lavender’s Blue (Dilly Dilly)” and “On Top of Old Smoky” into the U.S. Top 20. The adapted “Lavender Blue,” which Ives performed in the film So Dear to My Heart, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song during 1950. Following his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in the 1958 production The Big Country, he connected with younger audiences by portraying Sam the Snowman in the 1964 Rankin-Bass television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. That program included his renditions of the title track and Johnny Marks’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” selections that continued to surface on holiday anthologies for many subsequent decades. Screen appearances and infrequent benefit concerts sustained his visibility until his passing in 1995. Upon Billboard’s launch of a Holiday Songs chart in 2011, both “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Ives reached the Top 40.

Born Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives in Hunt City, Illinois, on June 14, 1909, he first performed publicly after his uncle, having overheard him singing with his mother at home, asked him to appear at a local soldiers’ reunion gathering. He later studied at Eastern Illinois State Teachers College, participated in football, and withdrew in 1929. Instead he journeyed across the country, singing and playing banjo while taking various temporary positions, until offered an opportunity to broadcast on WBOW in Terre Haute, Indiana. He resumed his studies at Indiana State Teachers College, subsequently known as Indiana State University. In 1933 he relocated to New York, enrolled in classes at Juilliard and New York University, and received instruction in acting from Benno Schneider and in voice from Ella Toedt. While based there, he also presented folk material in Greenwich Village venues. By late 1938 he had secured his Broadway debut in a minor part within Rodgers & Hart’s The Boys from Syracuse, which starred Eddie Albert. The following year Ives and Albert relocated to Los Angeles and shared housing near Hollywood.

Regular radio engagements began for Ives in 1940, among them his own CBS program The Wayfarin’ Stranger, titled after one of his ballads. His debut album, Okeh Presents the Wayfarin’ Stranger, appeared in 1941. He transferred to the major label Decca in 1944 and made his screen debut in the 1946 film Smoky. Amid numerous releases covering children’s material, traditional folk, and hymns, his autobiography Wayfaring Stranger was issued in 1948, the same year he achieved his first Top 30 single with “Blue Tail Fly” (commonly recognized as “Jimmy Crack Corn”), recorded alongside the Andrews Sisters and the Vic Schoen Orchestra. In 1949 he reached number 16 on the U.S. singles chart with an adaptation by Eliot Daniel and Larry Morey of the folk song “Lavender’s Blue (Dilly Dilly),” released as “Lavender Blue” and featured in the motion picture So Dear to My Heart; it received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. That year he briefly moved to Columbia Records. Around the same period he contributed to the emerging 12-inch format by recording a sequence of albums for Encyclopedia Britannica Films under the collective heading Historical America in Song.

Ives entered the Top Ten in 1951 with a version of “On Top of Old Smoky” cut with Percy Faith & His Orchestra, having by then returned to Decca. Two further Top 30 singles followed that decade: 1952’s “The Wild Side of Life,” recorded with Grady Martin and the Slewfoot Five, and 1954’s “True Love Goes On And On,” made with Gordon Jenkins & His Orchestra & Chorus. From 1955 to 1956 he portrayed “Big Daddy” Pollitt in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a part he reprised in the 1958 screen version, where he received third billing behind Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. For his performance as Rufus Hannassey in the 1958 western epic The Big Country he captured the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

During his fifties Ives attained his second and third Top Ten placements through country selections drawn from sessions with Owen Bradley & His Orchestra; “A Little Bitty Tear,” also featuring the Anita Kerr Singers, climbed to number nine in 1961, while “Funny Way of Laughin’” reached number ten the next year. The latter track appeared on the 1962 album It’s Just My Funny Way of Laughin’ and earned Ives a Grammy for Best Country Western Recording. His career’s most lasting success emerged from a 1962 Johnny Marks composition employed in the 1964 animated television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Serving as voice of the host and narrator Sam the Snowman, Ives interpreted both “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and the already familiar title song. “A Holly Jolly Christmas” later climbed as high as number four on the Hot 100 in 2020. At the original time he instead registered a modest hit with “Pearly Shells (Popo O Ewa),” again accompanied by Owen Bradley & His Orchestra, and appeared in several films, among them the 1963 Walt Disney musical Summer Magic, the 1964 war comedy-drama Ensign Pulver, and the 1964 feature The Brass Bottle, which inspired I Dream of Jeannie. He maintained public presence through increased television roles during the 1960s and registered his final Billboard Adult Contemporary chart entry with a 1968 cover of Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.”

Throughout the 1970s Ives continued issuing recordings, including How Great Thou Art for Word in 1971, the country project Payin’ My Dues Again for MCA in 1973, and children’s collections for Disneyland Records. When Disneyland opened in 1974 he supplied the voice for the animatronic host Sam Eagle in the America Sings attraction. Endorsement agreements and appearances on series such as Little House on the Prairie and Roots preserved his visibility. Even after reaching age 70 in 1979 and moving toward semi-retirement in Washington State, he accepted occasional film and television parts and gave benefit concerts into the early 1990s. Ives succumbed to cancer at his Anacortes, Washington, residence on April 14, 1995.

The Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special continued its annual broadcasts into the following millennium. When Billboard debuted its Holiday Songs chart in 2011, incorporating sales, streaming, and radio data, both “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by Ives registered on the listing. They remained seasonal staples, with “A Holly Jolly Christmas” achieving Top Three placements well into the 2020s. The 2001 compilation 20th Century Masters: The Best of Burl Ives attained its highest chart standing yet in January 2021, rising to number 24 on the Billboard 200.