Brenda Lee

One of the major figures in early-'60s pop, Brenda Lee has never quite received the critical attention her catalog merits. Observers sometimes label her, rather narrowly, as a female teen idol, yet that description overlooks much of her range. While Patsy Cline is routinely credited with pioneering successful pop-country hybrids, Lee's parallel attempts during the same period were just as consequential. Her strongest material from those first ten years spans the sentimental pop ballads that defined her commercial peak, along with pure country outings and several remarkably intense rockabilly tracks.

A genuine prodigy, she reached national television by age ten and entered the Decca studios the next year, in 1956. Those initial singles still rank among the most compelling preteen rock & roll performances outside Michael Jackson's early work. "BIGELOW 6-200," "Dynamite," and "Little Jonah" stand out for their forceful rockabilly drive, supported by sharp vocals and incendiary playing from Nashville's elite session crew, among them Owen Bradley, Grady Martin, Hank Garland, and Floyd Cramer. Major chart success arrived only in 1960, when she blended her rockabilly edge with teen-oriented pop on the Top Five single "Sweet Nothin's."

The frequent parallel drawn between Lee and Cline stems naturally from their shared producer, Owen Bradley, during the early '60s, which placed both artists in front of many of the same musicians and backing vocalists. Lee nevertheless reached a wider pop listenership, partly because she remained a teenager at the time and partly because her song choices leaned more pop than country. From 1960 through 1962 she scored an extraordinary run of smashes: "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" each climbed into the Top Ten. Their broad appeal is easy to understand; although ballads, they conveyed enough adolescent longing to resonate with younger fans while projecting sufficient emotional depth for older listeners, all wrapped in polished songcraft and orchestral production that kept them from being confined to country formats.

Her final Top Ten pop entry came in 1963 with "Losing You." Subsequent singles continued to chart through the mid-'60s, yet they grew smaller and less frequent as the British Invasion took hold, even though she retained strong overseas popularity. One of her strongest later efforts, the hard-rocking "Is It True?," was cut in London in 1964 with Jimmy Page on guitar. By contrast, 1966's "Coming on Strong" marked her last appearance inside the Top 20.

In the early '70s she rejoined Owen Bradley and, like numerous other pioneering white rock & roll artists, shifted focus back to country music. For several years she enjoyed solid success in that market, notching half a dozen country Top Ten hits between 1973 and 1974. Although she has stayed active on record and on the road, her profile in recent decades has largely been that of a revered veteran whose occasional new projects have been aimed primarily at country audiences.