TBT: Chuck Berry, "Run Rudolph Run".

"Chuck Berry's got to be the the greatest thing to come along." So sang the Beach Boys, as well they should have, since many of their early hits rode on Berry riffs.


Chuck brightened the 1958 Christmas season with "Run Rudolph Run". The song, which has parallels to other Berry hits "Johnny B. Goode" and "Little Queenie", was written by Johnny Marks and Marvin Brodie. Marks had, in 1949, written the song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", based on a children's coloring book created for the Montgomery Ward company in 1939 by Marks's brother-in-law, Robert L. May. May's book originated the character Rudolph, whom May earlier considered naming Rollo or Reginald. I think he made the right choice.

Rudolph image: FM99.com.