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In 1946, Robert L. May (creator of the story of Rudolph) received an offer from RCA Victor, which wanted to do a spoken-word record of the poem. He could not give his approval, however, because Montgomery Wards (May's employer) held the rights to his poem. At the encouragement of Wilbur H. Norton, a company vice-president, Ward's president, Sewell Avery, gave May the copyright to the poem, free and clear. The transfer did not take effect until January 1, 1947, so that Ward's could again distribute the book as a 1946 Christmas giveaway. It is this record recording that sparked off the wide-spread popularity of the infamous little reindeer. |
The narration was by Paul Wing (who also narrated the 1948 cartoon), over the music by Russ Case and his Orchestra. The original recording came on two yellow 45 records that had instructions on how to stack them on the record player correctly. This recording (and the original 1948 cartoon), did not contain the famous song about Rudolph sung by Gene Autry. This was not recorded until 1949. |
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The RCA line of records were colorful, with each color particular to a specific genre. Yellow vinyl was used for RCA's series for children, Country and Western Music was offered in green vinyl, dark blue for Popular Classics , red for The World's Greatest Classics, Rhythm and Blues was on cerise colored vinyl and International Favorites were on sky-blue pressings, while Popular Hits were the only 45s found on black vinyl. |
