Helms was born in Helmsburg, Indiana, the son of Hildreth Esther and Fred Robert Helms. His family was musical. Helms began performing as a duo with his brother, Freddie, before going on to a successful solo career in country music. In 1956, Helms made his way to Nashville, Tennessee, where he signed a recording contract with Decca Records. The following year was filled with successes. His first single in 1957, titled "Fraulein", went to No. 1 on the country music chart and made it into the Top 40 on the BillboardBest Sellers in Stores chart. Later that same year, he released "My Special Angel", which also hit No. 1 on the country charts and entered the Top 10 on Billboards pop music chart, peaking at No. 7. His song "Jingle Bell Rock", which was released in the late fall of 1957, was a big hit and was being played and danced to on Dick Clark's teen dance showAmerican Bandstand by mid-December of that year. It also re-emerged in four out of the next five years, and sold so well that it repeated each time as a top hit, becoming a Christmas classic still played today. It took five years for the song to become a second million-seller for Helms. It reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent 21 weeks on the chart. The record gained gold disc status. Accounts that Helms wrote the song with Hank Garland, who played guitar on the original recording, seem to be apocryphal. At the end of a television performance of the song toward the end of his life, Helms said, “I didn’t want to do the song when they first brought it to me, but now I'm sure glad I did.” ASCAP and AllMusic list the writers of the song as Joseph Beal, Joseph Carlton, James Ross, and James Boothe. Another record by Helms was "Schoolboy Crush", which was a hit in the UK. It was released in the United States on June 23, 1958 on Decca. The same song was then covered by UK teen star Cliff Richard about the same time as the UK release. Helms continued touring and recording for the next three decades. His pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Helms spent most of his later years living just outside Martinsville, Indiana, until his death from emphysema and asthma at the age of 63 in 1997. He was portrayed by actorBrad Hawkins in the 2007 filmCrazy. On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Bobby Helms among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
