New Jersey-native Lou Monte (born Louis Scaglione April 2, 1917–June 12, 1989) was an Italian American singer/guitarist best known for a number of best-selling, Italian-themed novelty records which he laid down in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Among his recordings were "Lazy Mary (Luna Mezzo Mare)" in 1958 (#12 on the Hot 100 in 1958) and "Pepino The Italian Mouse," ( #5 on the Hit 100 in 1963).

Monte first recorded this tale of a donkey that helps Santa Claus bring presents to children in Italy in 1960 and in time it became a Christmas staple in many Italian-American households. It was little known in the UK until BBC Radio 1 morning program presenter Chris Moyles began playing it as a recurring festive motif on his show. In the week leading up to Christmas of 2011, the DJ casually suggested that listeners might like to download the song from iTunes and Amazon to get it into the charts. The result was that the song made its first ever UK chart appearance at #3. Said Moyles: "We've been playing Dominick the Donkey on our show every Christmas for years - our listeners love it. I'm so excited that it's made it into the charts - consider it my Christmas present to the nation. But don't blame me if you hear it every Christmas from now on."