Frosty and Rudolph? Originally Crooned by a Texan?

Any Coloradan will tell you that we Texans don't know much about snow, and I imagine the good folks of Lapland, in Northern Europe, would tell you that we don't know a lot about reindeer either. But apparently Texans are pretty good at singing about snowmen and reindeer. In fact, Gene Autry, the singing cowboy from Tioga, Texas (population 529), recorded the original version of two American Christmas classics about those very subjects. 

In 1949, Gene Autry topped the charts with "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer." Then, considering the overwhelming success he had with "Rudolph," Autry decided to record "Frosty the Snowman." Frosty the Snowman, as we all know, is an infrequent visitor to the Lone Star State. His cousin, Sleety the Sludgeman, stops by sometimes, but Frosty tends to winter up north a ways. Still, despite the fact that Gene Autry probably didn't know much about snow, he immortalized the song about the jolly old soul in 1950. Today, almost seventy years after "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman" were recorded, the songs are considered Christmas staples nationwide.

Here is good ol' Gene Autry singing an American Christmas classic: