Johnny Bond (1915 - 1978) was a popular country music entertainer from the 1940s through the 1960s, and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Bond got his first break working for Jimmy Wakely in the late 1930s and went on to join Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch in 1940. Johnny Bond was Gene’s singing duo “pardner” and did the comedy, too. Meanwhile, Bond was also a member and leader of Tex Ritter’s studio band, the Red River Valley Boys, and was playing on his records as well as those of other West Coast country stars.
He also acted in over 30 films, and was a regular on the 1950s country music television series “Town Hall Party,” and “Ranch Party.”
Bond had his first big solo hit in 1947, with “Divorce Me C.O.D. In 1965 at age 50 he scored the biggest hit of his career with the comic “Ten Little Bottles” which spent four weeks in the #2 position.
Bond’s other hits include “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed,” and “Sick Sober and Sorry.” As a songwriter, he was responsible for several compositions that have become country standards, including “Cimarron,” “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight,” “Conversation With a Gun,” “Tomorrow Never Comes,” and “I’ll Step Aside,” which became hits for everyone from Billy Vaughn & His Orchestra to Johnny Rodriguez.
Unlike a lot of country artists of his generation, he wasn’t threatened by the coming of rock & roll, and even tried to adapt his sound to the new beat, which, he recognized wasn’t too far from country music.
In September of 1950, Johnny Bond also released a Christmas record on Columbia (HCO4254), called “I Wanna Do Something For Santa Claus,” which was later covered by 13 year old Ruby Bateman, also known as “Sunshine Ruby.” In a shamefully obvious attempt to cash in on other Christmas novelty records, the song includes creepy references to “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (which was first made popular by Johnny’s old partner, Gene Autry), and giving Santa a present of a box filled with teeth and noses. Here is the song, as performed by an animated plush bear:
LISTEN TO SONG:
DOWNLOAD MP3:
Johnny_Bond_-_I_Wanna_Do_Something_For_Santa_Claus.mp3
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