Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Fans of Brenda Lee have been “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” more than a billion times setting a streaming record and surpassing Mariah Carey.
“It is a good song,” the 80-year-old singer says. “It’s a song that anybody can sing. You can join in, you can sing it, everyone is happy. I sure am glad that I have it. I never thought in my life that a Christmas song would be my legacy. But I’ll take it.”
The song remains one of the most popular Christmas hits each year. It even reached Billboard’s #1 spot for Christmas 2023, 65 years after its original release.
At just 13 years old, Lee hit the studio on a warm Nashville day, recalling at the time that producers were helping in any way they could to get the musicians into the Christmas spirit, even setting up decorations. The effort was deemed successful, because the musicians — Hank Garland and Harold Bradley on guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano and Boots Randolph on saxophone — nailed the song in just a couple of takes.
Last year, Lee dethroned singer Mariah Carey for the top spot on the December Billboard Hot 100 chart. Carey had held the position with her single “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The feat cemented Lee as the oldest musician to achieve the top spot, with 2024 proving no different in her accomplishment.
Born in 1944 in Atlanta, Lee was raised in a musical environment and at a young age rose to stardom when she released her first major hit, “I’m Sorry” in the late 1950s, also reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Over the years, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” became a holiday staple, but it wasn’t until 1990, when the song was featured in the film “Home Alone,” that its popularity grew, spreading Christmas cheer in homes near and far.
In 2019, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, had nearly seven million copies sold globally and was certified platinum. Lee was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002 and honored with a star on the Nashville Walk of Fame.
When asked how she plans to spend the Christmas holiday, which coincides with her birthday month, Lee told “The Epoch Times” celebrating and having a good time are what she looks forward to the most.
“I’m kind of old fashioned,” she said. “I like to have my family and all my friends come over. I always have a live, green tree. I like the smell of it. I have ornaments from the time my kids were little. We always put those on, along with the new ones that we add every year.”
In 2007, Lee spoke of her faith and asked what has kept her going. “My belief in Him,” she told CBN. “My love of Him has been constant. And His belief in me, and His love for me has been constant.”
That year, she also released a major new Christian effort –Gospel Duets With Treasured Friends. “Growing up in the church in the South, those are songs that I sang as a little girl. And my mom loved these songs, and she always wanted me to do a Gospel album. That was mainly the reason I did it, and I was blessed that she was able to hear it before she passed away last November. She was able to hear it, and she loved it,” she said.
Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around is streaming now on PBS as part of its American Masters series.
–The Epoch Times | used with permission
