Dr. Elmo

Hailing from Lexington, Kentucky, Elmo Shropshire rose to prominence under the stage name Dr. Elmo, the playful figure behind the seasonal novelty track "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," which has surpassed ten million copies sold. After completing his veterinary medicine studies in Kentucky, he spent years traveling the East Coast to care for thoroughbred racehorses before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he established his own animal hospital and performed occasional bluegrass sets at festivals and clubs alongside his then-wife Patsy.

The pair first unveiled "Grandma" to listeners on a local San Francisco radio outlet in 1979; the song gained quick traction in the region, prompting additional holiday performances throughout the city. When the activist organization Gray Panthers labeled Elmo & Patsy’s material “ageist music” and organized a protest at one of their concerts, widespread press coverage followed and attracted interest from major record companies. MTV began rotating the independently funded video in 1983, and the following year Epic issued the Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer album along with a fresh single that paired “Grandma” with the B-side “Percy, the Puny Poinsettia.”

Although Elmo & Patsy later divorced, Elmo continued performing as Dr. Elmo and issued his first solo project, Slices of Life, in 1991. He went on to produce additional novelty collections, including a 2002 version of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer under his own name, and introduced a Halloween entry in 2006 with the title song from Redneck Dracula. By 2007 he was touring with his wife Rita Abrams, previously known as Miss Abrams of Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class, the group responsible for the 1972 single “Mill Valley.”