Yahoo Lifestyle The Real Story of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree Singer Brenda Lee
Brenda Lee was just 13 with a voice beyond her years when she recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” the 1958 Rockabilly hit that’s become standard on any holiday playlist worth its salt. When the song was featured in another Christmas classic—1990’s Home Alone—it found a new generation of fans and has only gotten more popular since. In December 2023, it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, making Brenda, at 79, the oldest artist to earn the distinction.
Of course, the now-80-year-old Lee is used to that sort of thing. She was the first woman in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—and in the Country Music Hall of Fame. And if all you know about her is her famous Christmas song, you need to watch the new documentary, American Masters – Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around, which premiered Monday, December 16, on PBS (check local listings). You can watch on pbs.org/americanmasters and the PBS App too.
Rockin’ Around documentary filmmaker Barbara Hall has always loved the music and stories of the legacy women of country music and has created features on many of them, including the recent tribute concert Patsy Cline: Walkin’ After Midnight.
“Women like Brenda, Patsy, Tammy, Loretta, all those women, like Cher and Madonna, we know them by their first name, and they created these careers and this legacy and this foundation for women to follow,” Hall says. “I find them so inspirational, living here in Nashville, knowing what young female artists, even today, have to navigate to make their way into this very competitive business. I think about these women in the ’50s and ’60s and think, how did they do it?”
Country Living sat down with Hall to glean behind-the-scenes insights into Lee’s life, then and now.
The early life of “Little Miss Dynamite”
Born on December 11, 1944, in Atlanta, Lee cut her teeth on Hank Williams songs, which her mom would sing to her, and loved listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. Her father died when she was young, and her mother began working 14-hour days in a cotton mill to support the family.
Singing, Lee discovered, was a way she could contribute to the family income. She got a gig performing with a gospel quartet and would travel by Greyhound bus after school to Springfield, Missouri, to perform on the television show Ozark Jubilee. By age 11, the pint-sized singer from Augusta, Georgia, had a manager.
“Her story of coming from where she came from, no dad, which at that time is a big deal—there were siblings [a brother and sister], they didn’t have very much money, they were scraping by to make ends meet—and through all that, she figured out how to have a musical career. It’s amazing,” Hall says.
Lee’s nickname is “Little Miss Dynamite,” which comes from the title of a song she recorded in 1957. “She’s that through till today,” Hall tells Country Living. “She is a dynamite. She’s tiny. She’s like four foot nothing—but a spitfire in the greatest sense of the word. She’s full of energy and full of joy. You can’t help but smile when you’re in the room with her.”
Her family moved to Nashville where she attended public high school and was a cheerleader—all while leading the most extraordinary rock and pop career and being the family breadwinner. At an early age, she was friends with Elvis Presley and the Beatles (she was especially fond of John Lennon). Patsy Cline was a dear friend too and like a big sister. Lee recalls clomping around in Cline’s too-big boots and dresses.
“These women that were in the country music field, Patsy included, took Brenda under their wing,” Hall says. “Patsy, Minnie Pearl—they watched out for her because she was a kid in a male-dominated culture. They watched over her, kind of mothered her.”
Her life as a doting mom
In 1963, Lee, 18, married Ronnie Shacklett, who was not in the music industry. She gave birth to the first of the couple’s two daughters the next year.
“She loved being a mom,” Hall says. “I think because she didn’t have a whole lot of stability as a kid, she wanted that kind of home life. She knew that that was important—I want a house. I want to bake in my kitchen. I want my kids to smell the cookies. She wanted all of that and sacrificed so that she could have that kind of life.” With not a lot of help, Hall says, “She figured it out to keep that career going and be a mom and stay at home and cook dinner. She baked the biscuits.”
She even once passed on meeting Frank Sinatra to attend her daughter Julie’s statewide science fair.
From rockabilly to rock and pop… to country
Brenda Lee’s country music career is what put her on Hall’s radar. When making the film Iconic Women of Country for PBS, Hall says, she noticed how much the younger artists revered Lee. “I dove into her story a little more, which encompasses so much more than just country. She started off as one of the great rockers,” Hall says.
As much as Lee influenced today’s biggest country stars, including Keith Urban and Trisha Yearwood (both interviewed for the doc), Rockin’ Around reveals that her music and example also shaped rock legend and singer-songwriter Pat Benatar.
While Lee’s childhood musical influences were country, she found international stardom in rockabilly, rock, and pop first. She didn’t breakthrough on the country charts, Halls explains, until her 1973 song ‘Nobody Wins,’ written by Kris Kristofferson, was discovered by country radio. That pushed her into the country realm, and Lee embraced it.
The glowing things Keith Urban said about her in the outtakes
With only 52 minutes for an episode in the American Masters documentary series, cuts to interviews were inevitable. “Brenda has had this huge career starting as a little kid and is still going strong today. Pushing that down into 52 minutes is not an easy thing,” she says.
For example, in the final cut of the Rockin’ Around documentary, Keith Urban says of Lee, “She’s got a sass in her tone. So you immediately like her, even before you know who she is, what she looks like, what her name is, anything. That voice has just the right blend of fun, spirit, toughness, sexiness, relatability.”
That had to stay, Hall says: “You know, when Keith Urban says you’re hot, I feel like you have to keep that in.” Also in? Urban’s anecdote about playing in a cover band and singing the Golden Earring song “Radar Love,” which references Lee in the lyrics. To keep those gems, Hall trimmed other parts—specifically just how much Keith Urban loves Brenda Lee.
“Keith Urban is obsessed with her. He loves her,” Hall says. In fact, he kind of went on and on—in the most charming way—during his interview. Upon recalling meeting Lee for the first time, he talked about how excited he was and what an honor it was. The filmmaker had to cut a lot of the terms he used to describe Lee. But to sum it up: “There was a genuine, Oh, my gosh, I’m here in the presence of Brenda Lee and I’ve been singing her Christmas song since I was a little kid,” Hall says.
What Brenda Lee would be like if you had a chance to meet her
Hall describes Lee today as “very authentic, very grounded, very down to earth. Pretty honest, really funny—really funny.” She recalls that when filming started, the Rockin’ Around film crew did one full interview at Lee’s house. Within a week, Lee had fallen and broken her leg and had to go into rehab.
“So I went and met with her multiple times while she was in rehab and just saw her,” Hall says. “People would come around, [and] she made everybody that came by her feel like they were her best friend, like she recognized them, she acknowledged them, she took the time. She is one of those people that is very grateful for the career that she’s had, doesn’t take it for granted, knows that it stands … with people who buy music, consume music.”
If she were to meet me, for example, who in full disclosure opened my interview with Hall by fangirling over Lee (it’s my duty being from Augusta, Georgia, where Lee’s family lived before moving to Nashville), Hall says, “If she was here right now, she’d be looking you in the eye, asking you about you. Well, tell me about your mom. Is she still in Augusta? She’s a genuinely decent human being.”
In short, if you met Brenda Lee, you would most likely adore her. But most of all, what Hall wants people know about her is that this new documentary can only barely skim the surface in 52 minutes, so she hopes you’ll go out and learn more.
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