Brenda
Lee
One
of the biggest pop stars of the early '60s, Brenda Lee hasn't
attracted as much critical respect as she deserves. She is sometimes
inaccurately characterized as one of the few female teen idols.
More crucially, the credit for achieving success with pop-country
crossovers usually goes to Patsy Cline, although Lee's efforts
in this era were arguably of equal importance. While she made
few recordings of note after the mid-'60s, the best of her first
decade is fine indeed, encompassing not just the pop ballads that
were her biggest hits, but straight country and some surprisingly
fierce rockabilly.
Lee was a
child prodigy, appearing on national television by the age of
ten, and making her first recordings for Decca the following year
(1956). Her first few Decca singles, in fact, make a pretty fair
bid for the best pre-teen rock & roll performances this side
of Michael Jackson. "BIGELOW 6-200," "Dynamite,"
and "Little Jonah" are all exceptionally powerful rockabilly
performances, with robust vocals and white-hot backing from the
cream of Nashville's session musicians (including Owen Bradley,
Grady Martin, Hank Garland, and Floyd Cramer). Lee would not have
her first big hits until 1960, when she tempered the rockabilly
with teen idol pop on "Sweet Nothin's," which went to
the Top Five.
The comparison
between Lee and Cline is to be expected, given that both singers
were produced by Owen Bradley in the early '60s. Naturally, many
of the same session musicians and backup vocalists were employed.
Brenda, however, had a bigger in with the pop audience, not just
because she was still a teenager, but because her material was
more pop than Cline's, and not as country. Between 1960 and 1962,
she had a stunning series of huge hits -- "I'm Sorry,"
"I Want to Be Wanted," "Emotions," "You
Can Depend on Me," "Dum Dum," "Fool #1,"
"Break It to Me Gently," and "All Alone Am I"
all made the Top Ten. Their crossover appeal is no mystery. While
these were ballads, they were delivered with enough lovesick yearning
to appeal to adolescents, and enough maturity for the adults.
The first-class melodic songwriting and professional, orchestral
production guaranteed that they would not be ghettoized in the
country market.
Lee's last
Top Ten pop hit was in 1963, with "Losing You." While
she still had hits through the mid-'60s, these became smaller
and less frequent with the rise of the British Invasion (although
she remained very popular overseas). The best of her later hits,
"Is It True?," was a surprisingly hard-rocking performance,
recorded in 1964 in London with Jimmy Page on guitar. 1966's "Coming
on Strong," however, would prove to be her last Top 20 entry.
In the early
'70s, Lee reunited with Owen Bradley and, like so many early White
rock & roll stars, returned to country music. For a time she
was fairly successful in this field, making the country Top Ten
half a dozen times in 1973-74. Although she remained active as
a recording and touring artist, for the last couple of decades
she's been little more than a living legend, directing her intermittent
artistic efforts to the country audience.
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