Brenda Lee Biography

Checking in at four feet, eleven inches tall, Brenda Lee was dubbed "Little Miss Dynamite" early on in her career. The reference, though, was as much about her singing style as it was about her height. When she was ruling the pop charts in the '60s, she could be convincing with an almost straight-pop approach to a heartbreaking ballad, then swing into an uptempo number that would reveal a deep streak of blues and honky-tonk in her style. A protŽgŽ of Patsy Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, Lee recorded her first pop hit in 1960 -- "Sweet Nothin's," which peaked at #4 -- and then set about becoming one of the dominant female vocalists of the decade. Pop hit after pop hit ensued, all charting the rocky course of love and its accompanying angst. Bradley, who has been criticized for his extravagant use of strings on Cline's recordings, found a more appropriate vehicle for his lush arrangements in Lee; in fact, it can be said that he made all the right moves in the studio in terms of his decisions to lay on the strings or to let Lee wail with only a basic rock band pushing the beat. The two-volume Anthology series collects Lee's most essential sides in their original form (Bradley had a habit of having his artists rerecord their hits for album releases). In particular, "All Alone Am I," "As Usual," "Thanks a Lot," "Break It to Me Gently," "Sweet Nothin's," and "Johnny One Time" are superb examples of the different styles Lee employed in getting a lyric across. Among female pop artists in the '60s, Lee, Lesley Gore, and Dionne Warwick are pretty much alone in terms of their ability to affix an individual stamp to first-rate material.


Anthology's annotation is also superior to that of the other sweeping greatest-hits collection, The Brenda Lee Story: Her Greatest Hits, which is otherwise an exemplary gathering of Lee's choice cuts, dating from 1956's "Jambalaya" to 1966's "Coming On Strong." The Millennium Collection is a solid but truncated tour of Lee's hit singles. Ten songs and 10 songs only cannot do justice to such an overpowering history, but an album containing "I'm Sorry," "Sweet Nothin's," "Emotions," "Break It to Me Gently," "Fool #1," and especially "All Alone Am I" must be reckoned with, however fleeting its pleasures. Choice cuts these, to be sure, but more like half an entrŽe than a full platter.

If Lee's album tracks had been less compelling, there would be no advocating Hip-O's In the Mood for Love: Classic Ballads. But these 18 cuts spanning the years 1961-71 add an important dimension to Lee's in-print catalogue in collecting some powerful nonsingle sides on one disc. She ranges far and wide here, tackling Bacharach-David's "(There's) Always Something to Remind Me," Clarence "Frogman" Henry's 1961 hit "You Always Hurt the One You Love," "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," the Dusty Springfield evergreens "Wishin' and Hopin' " and "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," and Willie Nelson's "Funny How Time Slips Away," among others.

And what would a Brenda Lee catalogue be without Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree? This remastered, 18-track version of the original 12-track vinyl album Merry Christmas From Brenda Lee could be seen as a companion volume to In the Mood for Love in that most of its tracks are known only to hard-core Lee fans, and it shows off Lee's assured way with different styles of song. All in all, this is a winner among Christmas albums, its warm atmosphere and fanciful arrangements sounding ever fresh as the years go by