The classic Christmas carol “Joy to the World” is synonymous with the Yuletide season, but there’s another song of the same name that was immortalized in rock and pop music history in the 1970s. And it has local connections.

The latter “Joy to the World” (which opens with the quirky lines “Jeremiah was a bullfrog”) was penned by the late Hoyt Axton, a musician and movie star who hailed from Duncan, Oklahoma. While Duncan is some 125 miles away, Axton has family ties to Seminole.

Axton was a first cousin to David Boren, an alumnus of Seminole High School, who went on to serve as governor of Oklahoma, a United States Senator then president of the University of Oklahoma. There’s another Seminole connection to Axton, albeit a slight one. Axton was a cousin by marriage to Arlo Guthrie, nephew of the late Hulett and Mary Jo Edgemon, longtime Seminole residents.

That’s the story of how Axton is connected to Seminole, but have you ever wondered how he came up with the tale of a wine-drinking bullfrog?

According to Hoyt’s son, Matt Axton (a successful singer/songwriter in his own right), the song’s lyrics were penned quickly as “placeholder” words and weren’t meant for release.

“I think he was either with Capitol or A&M records. This was 1970, and he was doing a recording session down here in Los Angeles, and they had run out of material,” Matt said in a recent Zoom call with the Producer.

“They still had half an hour left in the studio time, and my dad said, ‘all right, we’re done for the night.’ And his bass player at the time, a guy named Arnie Moore, legendary L.A. bass player, said ‘hey, what about that song, that little rhythm we were messing with the other day in practice, that goes (singing) ‘duh-duhdun?’ And my dad said, ‘well, it’s not a real song. We don’t have words,” Matt said.

The bass player encouraged Hoyt to “just make some words up” for the moment, thinking they would replace them at a later time.

“My dad’s said, ‘that’s fine.’ He sat there, took a sip of some wine, and started writing ‘Jeremiah was a bullfrog.’ It went straight from his head to the paper, right?

There was no deep thought process. He was talking about life, having fun, you know, all the joyous things in his head at the moment,” Matt recalled.

As fate would have it, the rock group Three Dog Night heard the song, unchanged lyrics and all, and asked Hoyt if they could record it.

“Before he could change the lyrics, he was shooting pool with all the guys in Three Dog Night. My dad had a house at the mouth of Laurel Canyon in the 60s and 70s, which was the coolest place in the universe at the time. And his house was one of the party houses,” Matt said. “So anytime you saw more than more than two cars in the driveway, you’d stop by and hang out. It was a rotating cast of who’s who in the industry. And my dad had a big pool table, so everyone would stop and play,” Matt related. “Three Dog Knight was there just hanging out at my dad’s house. And he had Joy to the World on in the background, just on a little reel to reel, just listening to it. And they’re like, ‘what is that song?’ And my dad said ‘no, no, it’s not a real song,’” Matt recalls.

The guys in Three Dog Night kept pleading with Hoyt to let them record it, thinking not much would come out of it. But they were wrong…it soared to the top of the charts and stayed there for over a month. Plus, it became Hoyt Axton’s first number one song.

“Before he could change the lyrics or they could even take another breath, that became the number one song in the world for six weeks and became his biggest hit,” Matt said proudly.

The Axton legacy Hoyt’s mother—and Matt’s grandmother—Mae Boren Axton (who moved from Texas to Oklahoma when she was two), penned Elvis Presley’s first number one hit “Heartbreak Hotel.” With a family tree like that, it’s no wonder Matt turned to (Continued from Page 1) the musician’s life. He tours incessantly, sharing the music of his dad and grandmother, as well as own.

Not only was Hoyt a gifted songwriter and legendary performer, he also starred in several classic movies, including the classics “The ‘Black Stallion” and “Gremlins.’’

“We watch Gremlins every Christmas so we can get our fix,” Matt said. “And my touring bus is named ‘Cass Ole’ after the horse in The Black Stallion.”

Hoyt Axton passed away Oct. 26, 1999 at the age of 61. He and Mae (Sept. 14, 1914 – April 9, 1997) were inducted posthumously into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in Muskogee in November 2007.

Matt’s mother, Donna, is a lifelong educator in many fields including music, math and psychology. She met Hoyt in Lake Tahoe, California and joined his band as the pianist. She toured many years with him. She was head of the music department at Sierra Nevada College, wrote a musical of Dante’s Paradise Lost, is the go-to piano accompanist for the Tahoe Symphony Orchestra’s Toccata musical performances and continues to lead the North Tahoe Community Choir.

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