1 on Billboard‘s Christmas Songs chart, then graduated to toys, films and TV shows. But Shropshire, who owned the master-recording rights, turned out to be an aggressive DIY record man, recording a full-on album containing “Grandma” and lining up distribution through big drug-store chains. Trigg’s parents published “Grandma” through their Tennessee gospel-music company, Kris Publishing, which meant Brooks made money every time it sold. Then it took off - first on KSFO in San Francisco, which played it as a lark, then at more and more radio stations around the country. Elmo & Patsy performed it as part of their act, then booked studio time and recorded it as a single. Brooks met them outside a Lake Tahoe hotel in 1979 and wound up playing them the song.
The others were Elmo Shropshire, a veterinarian, and his wife, Patsy Trigg, a bluegrass duo that performed at casinos in the Southwest under the name Elmo & Patsy. One was Randy Brooks, nephew of the late comedian Foster Brooks, who wrote the song but couldn’t convince his own group to play it. At first, “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” made three people laugh.
