Artist Information
The award-winning vocalist is beloved around the world for a litany of her classic hits. Songs such as “I’m Sorry” (which has sold over 20 million copies) and “Break It To Me Gently” “All Alone Am I,” “Losing You,” and “Emotions,” were chart toppers, while her perennial holiday classic, “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” wins new fans every year. The latter song in fact reached #1 on the Billboard Christmas charts in 2015—a remarkable fifty-five years since its’ initial release in 1960. A member of the prestigious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, Lee has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and has received both the rarely presented NARAS Governor’s Award and a Lifetime Achievement Grammy from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
A musical prodigy, Lee began winning singing contests at age 6 and performed on a series of radio shows until Decca Records signed her to a contract in 1956. The next year, she hit the pop and country music charts with “Dynamite,” earning the diminutive singer the lifelong nickname Little Miss Dynamite.
She went on to land a string of hits on the pop, country, R&B and easy listening charts, making her the top charting female artist of the ’60s and winning countless awards globally including multiple wins of World’s #1 Female Artist from the New Musical Express in the UK, Billboard magazine’s Top Female Vocalist and a place in Newsweek magazine's "Top 20 Artists of the Past 20 Years" list.’
With a string of major chart hits, sold-out performances and television propelling her throughout the 60’s, Brenda Lee became the rare “teen idol” to translate from radio success into world-class performer in concert. Her performances at the biggest venues of the day—from the stages of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, to the Latin Quarter in New York, Blinstrub’s in Boston, the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, and Royal Albert Hall in London—she was established her as a young performer who wowed an array of sophisicated audiences.
To date, Brenda has performed in 52 foreign countries and recorded hits in six different languages — English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese. She has served her own creative music community in Nashville on the Country Music Association's (CMA) Board of Directors the Board of Governors for the Nashville Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science (NARAS) and the Nashville Board SAG/AFTRA, as well as serving the interests of hosts of charity and humanities organizations. Now into the new millennium. Brenda Lee continues to tour in concert settings that offer audiences the “world class” performances that come only with “legend.”
