After recording "Dynamite" in 1957 at the age of 12, 4' 9" Lee was given the name Little Miss Dynamite due to her explosive singing stlye.
Brenda Lee
After recording "Dynamite" in 1957 at the age
of 12, 4' 9" Lee was given the name Little Miss
Dynamite due to her explosive singing stlye.
Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley in 1944 in Lithonia, Georgia. In 1949 she began as a child prodigy on the radio in Conyers, Georgia and has been singing professionally since age six. She began a three-year stint on the TV program Ozark Jubilee [later called Jubilee USA] in 1955 and signed with Decca Records the following year. She appeared on television shows in the 50's such as Perry Como, Steve Allen, and Jack Good's Oh Boy in the United Kingdom. She had some minor hits on the Country & Western charts in the 50's including One Step at a Time and Dynamite. She soon picked up the name of Little Miss Dynamite.
Brenda Lee was one of the most successful singers
of the 60's. The song that enabled her to break through in a big
way from C&W to pop was Sweet Nothin's, a top ten hit in 1960
and the first of twelve top ten pop songs she recorded in a
four-year span. It was followed by two songs that reached #1
later in 1960 [before she reached her 16th birthday]-- I'm Sorry
and I Want To Be Wanted.
She married Ronnie Shacklett, her childhood sweetheart, while
still a teenager and they raised two daughters in Nashville,
Jolie and Julie. The most successful artist to cross over from
C&W to pop in the 60's, Brenda Lee was a small girl with a
big voice. She continued to put pop songs in the top forty up
until 1967, and by 1971 began to appear strictly as a country
singer, which she is still doing today. She has had commercially
successful songs on one chart or another nearly every year from
1956 up until the present. She has recorded many, many tunes and
worked with many of the top country stars of the past and
present.
Following is a list of the pop songs recorded by Brenda Lee in
the 60's that reached the top ten:
Sweet Nothin's
I'm Sorry
That's All You Gotta Do
I Want To Be Wanted
Emotions
You Can Depend On Me
Dum Dum
Fool #1
Break It To Me Gently
Everybody Loves Me But You
All Alone Am I
Losing You
With the writing assistance of Robert K.Oermann and Julie Clay,
Brenda Lee issued her autobiography in 2002. The title,
appropriately enough, was taken from a nickname that has stuck
with Brenda for years: Little Miss Dynamite: The Life And Times
Of Brenda Lee.
