The festive season just would not be the same without Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. So it’s hard to believe that such a cracker flew like a turkey on its first release…
Words by Douglas McPherson

All Brenda Lee wanted for Christmas in 1958 was a hit with Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree. Sadly, Santa didn’t deliver that year, or the next . However, after a couple of false starts the record became arguably the best-known of Lee’s career, as well as one of the most popular festive songs of all time.

LeAnn Rimes, Kacey Musgraves and Justin Bieber have all released hit versions, the latter reaching UK No.4 in 2020. But Lee’s original remains  the one you are most likely to hear blasting from a radio this Christmas.

Even Brenda was taken aback by her record’s staying power and its ubiquitous presence at this time of year. “It’s crazy to be shopping in a department store and hearing yourself sing at the same time. It’s pretty surreal,” she told Billboard in 2019, when her 61-year-old record was back at No.2 in the US.

Christmas Cracker

The song was the third of three yuletide classics from the pen of Johnny Marks that have all proved to be as evergreen as holly. In 1949, he wrote Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, a No.1 hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry. The lyric was based on a poem of the same name that Marks’ brother-in-law, Robert L. May, wrote a decade earlier as a promotional item for the retail giant Montgomery Ward.

Marks went on to write A Holly Jolly Christmas, which Burl Ives took into the American Top 5 in 1964. He wrote at least 17 other festive songs and even got a credit on Chuck Berry’s Run Rudolph Run, by virtue of it using the character of Rudolph, to which Marks owned the copyright.

Ironically, Marks was Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas. Nor was he a teenage rock’n’roller. He was 48 when he wrote Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree while sunning himself on a beach. After penning the first verse, he retired to his motel for a nap, woke up and completed the song. When he was done, he called publisher Al Gallico and told him that he wanted Brenda Lee to sing it.

Lee later attributed his choice to “a God thing”, since she was not at the time an obvious singer for an established writer to pitch a song to. “I was only 13, and I had not had a lot of success in records,” Lee told The Tennessean many years later. “But for some reason he heard me and wanted me to do it.”

Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree

Little Miss Dynamite

Born Brenda Mae Tarpley, Lee had been singing since she was five, when she began entering talent contests in her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Following her father’s death when she was eight, the pint-sized vocalist became her family’s sole breadwinner.

She released her first single, Jambalaya, as an 11-year-old in 1956 and staked her claim the following year when One Step At A Time reached No.43 on the Hot 100 and No.15 on the US Country chart. The follow-up rocker, Dynamite, gave her the nickname Little Miss Dynamite, but fizzled out at No.72 in the US. Lee’s next five singles failed to chart, including the scorching Let’s Jump The Broomstick, which resurfaced as a UK hit in 1961 but was ignored on its initial American outing in 1958.

Gallico gave Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree to Lee’s producer Owen Bradley and a session was convened on 19 October 1958, when Lee was 13 years old. The recording featured the cream of Nashville’s session musicians: Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Boots Randolph on sax, Bob Moore on bass, and Buddy Harman on drums, with the Anita Kerr Singers on backing vocals.

The record wasn’t an immediate success. First released on 24 November 1958, it sold only 5,000 copies. Re-released the following Christmas it again failed to make a mark. However, in early 1960 Lee broke onto the international stage with the smouldering slow rocker Sweet Nothin’s. Showcasing her growling, beyond-her-years voice, the disc subsequently hit No.4 on both sides of the Atlantic. Aching ballad I’m Sorry and I Want To Be Wanted followed, both topping the American pop list.

Perennial Hit

With those hits behind her, the world was ready to give Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree another listen. In December 1960 it rose to US No.14. Getting its first UK release in 1962, it climbed to No.6 in the wake of Lee’s hits Speak To Me Pretty and Here Comes That Feeling. By then a seasonal favourite, the record hit a US peak of No.3 in 1965. Lee was one of the most successful artists of the 60s and after switching to country in the 70s she enjoyed a string of hits that stretched into the 80s. Her big Christmas hit, however, kept coming back – and her fans demanded that she sing it in the summertime, too!

In 1987, Marty Wilde’s daughter Kim teamed up with comedian Mel Smith to cover the song. Released in aid of Comic Relief, their version made the UK Top 5. Lee’s original was also discovered by a new generation in 1990 when it was featured in the film Home Alone.

In the age of digital downloads, the song has had a renewed run of success, returning to the Top 10 every year. Last Christmas, in 2022, it hit No.2 in the US and No.4 in the UK – two places higher than on its original UK release more than 60 years before.

For more on Brenda Lee click here

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