Brenda Lee was, and is, much more than a Happy Days artifact. Her husky timbre and gut-wrenching intensity was actually ill suited to much of the material that made her famous in the Fifties. She might have better been born to sing tragic chansons in some Parisian bistro, or bluesy ballads with the Count Basie band.
This isn’t to say that Lee should feel ambivalent about the hits she cut as a rockabilly prodigy, beginning with a hyperventilated rendition of “Jambalaya” that she waxed at age twelve. “Emotions,” “Fool #1,” “I Want to Be Wanted,” “All Alone Am I,” “Sweet Nothin’s” and all her classic discs did help define the sound of her generation – or, actually, the generation that preceded hers, since she was a fixture on the charts before reaching legal age.
She was strongest where she could sing with the greatest freedom. With each listening, her “wha-ho-ho” vocal fills at the end of each verse in “I’m Sorry” get more annoying, even as her treatment of lines like “I’m sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool” and “You tell me mistakes are part of being young” deepen with each repeated play. One can only imagine what she would have done with more substantial material, especially after she had experienced a bit more of life herself. Imagine her, with full voice and her gift for animating a lyric, trying out some Leonard Cohen or Jacques Brel. Instead, she embraced the most commercial aspects of country music in the Seventies; The superfluous key changes of “Broken Trust” and the tired rhythm track on “Tell Me What It’s Like” comport with the conformity of the genre rather than the individuality of the artist, leaving us with a sense of something having been missed.
Born in a charity ward, the daughter of a poor carpenter who died in a construction accident when she was just eight years old, Brenda Mae Tarpley knew hard times as a young girl. She was raised with two sisters and a brother in Georgia, where her precocious talents helped put food on the family table. She was singing on the radio by the time she was eleven and made her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 with “One Step at a Time,” just two years later.
While helming CMA Close Up magazine, I was privileged to meet and interview many of country music’s brightest superstars. Many of them seemed genuinely engaged in our conversation. Some were less so. But after our first meeting, Lee felt almost like family to me. It was easy to imagine her as a warm and loving aunt or grandma, unsullied by the music industry. This interview took place before our acquaintance; she was in Tennessee and I was in my office in Ann Arbor, staring out the window at the University of Michigan campus but feeling like I was in her kitchen, savoring the aroma of biscuits, gravy and other down-home delicacies.
[Note: This transcript offers a good example of combining research with encouraging the artist to take her thoughts further than maybe she’d intended, in effect latching onto a key word in her reply and asking for amplification on it. For example, after Brenda’s nostalgic memories of doing early gigs in record shops, the natural follow-up was to ask how the absence of those opportunities affects young artists today.]
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You were born in Atlanta. Were you raised in the city?
I was raised in and around the city, but then it was more rural. We were in a small town outside of Atlanta, called Lavonia and Conyers – two little towns, actually. We lived in one or the other. We moved around some too. When Dad was out of work, we would move around. At one point, we sharecropped. My dad picked cotton and we lived in this tenant house on these people’s place. And we lived with relatives at some point when wedding’t have enough money; I remember those types of scenarios too.
Did that background affect how you learned to sing?
Well, I don’t think it hurt. I know it had an impact on me personally, on the way I think and the way I feel. I’m sure it had some impact on the way I sing.
Even on your earliest recording, you sang with a lot of feeling.
I don’t know where that came from, other than as a blessing. A lot of those songs I was singing … I’ve always listened to the lyrics because I’m a lyric singer. But a lot of those things that I was singing about, I had never experienced. So the well that I drew from to put that emotion in there, I don’t know.
So you were basically a happy kid.
I think so, yeah. I was happy, even though our circumstances were dire at times. We had a lot of love. We knew that. I’m a basically happy person anyway.
On the Air
Do you remember your earliest days as a performer, before you were ten years old?
Well, the really early days, when I was doing the talent shows and the local TV shows and the radio shows, some of that is a little blurred. I remember it a little bit. But after I was discovered by Red Foley and I moved to Springfield, Missouri, and started doing The Ozark Jubilee, which was the national television show – the only country one, to my knowledge, at that time. I remember those days. I remember when I started recording in ‘56 and onward from there.
Was it always your dream to become a professional singer?
I don’t know that it was ever my dream. When I was a child, my aunt recognized that I could sing, apparently, and I was entered into all these talent things. Then because of those types of shows, I got onto a local television show out of Atlanta, Georgia, on WAGA. Then I just kept on singing. Then my dad died and it became kind of a way to help the family out, working little shows with the band that was on the television show. So music became, more or less, a way of survival, although I loved it. I loved what I was doing. I loved to sing and I felt very comfortable doing it. But it just became a way to help.
What was it like to sing as a child on those local radio and TV shows?
It was a lot of fun. I used to sing at one in Augusta, Georgia, when my family lived there. The radio show came from a record shop on the weekends. And we had, of course, the Jimmy Skinner thing that I did inCincinnati.
He also broadcast his show out of his record store.
Well, much like Ernest Tubb had his shows out of his record shop in Nashville, Jimmy used to do that too. I would do shows with Jimmy and his band around Kentucky and Ohio. They meant a lot to me. They sure helped me out. As a listener, I loved those shows. I miss that era of listening to radio, which I don’t think exists any longer like it did.
What kinds of songs were you singing in those days?
Oh, gosh. I was doing things like “Your Cheating Heart” and “Jambalaya.” Some gospel things, like “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” I did a lot of Hank Williams stuff. Why, I don’t know. I just liked it.
Are listeners today missing something that audiences for more localized broadcasts enjoyed years ago?
Well, I guess it’s changed for the better. I’m sure it’s changed a lot. Jocks used to play what they wanted to play, or what the audiences wanted them to play. And you knew who was being played. Today, a lot of times, you don’t even know who’s being played. That bothers me a lot, because I listen to radio and I hear things, and sometimes I don’t know who the artists are. They don’t tell you anymore. That’s one giant way it’s changed.
Sammy Barton gave you your stage name.
Right. He was a producer or a director, I can’t remember which, on a television show in Georgia called The Peach Blossom Special, I believe. [Barton was actually station manager at WRDW / Augusta.] I was on that show, and he thought that my name would be easier to remember or maybe look better on a billboard if we shortened my last name, which was Tarpley, to Lee.
Did it take you a while to get used to having your name changed?
I don’t remember having a problem with it. If it had happened later on, when I was older, I probably wouldn’t have done it. I would have said, “No, I’m not changing my name. That’s my name. That’s the way it’s gonna be.” But at that age, I just went with the flow, I guess.
Going National
You were still very young when you began appearing on national television. What was that like?
My first trip to New York was just overwhelming. I had never been to a big city like that before. Of course, going up there to do The Perry Como Show and The Steve Allen Show, and then The Ed Sullivan Show, it was all just unbelievable to me. It still is. When I look back at my age and being on those things, and even being featured, I can’t believe that it actually happened.
Who did you share the bill with on the Sullivan show?
I know that one time Bob Dylan was supposed to be on with me, but that didn’t work out because they wouldn’t let him sing a song about the John Birch Society [“Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues’]. So he walked out.
Were you star-struck in those days?
Oh, I’ve always been star-struck. I’ve always been a fan of other entertainers. When I would travel on, like, the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars, when he had so many people on the shows, I’d stand in the wings and watch every act. I loved it.
Was there a downside to getting so much exposure and working so hard as a child entertainer?
Well, I didn’t look at it as hard work, ever. Singing, to me, has always been fun. I’ve always felt real at home on the stage. I guess that some people would say, you know, “Maybe she shouldn’t be doing that. She’s too little. This is not right. She should be going to school.” But I was going to a regular school and working just on the weekends. I was involved in all my school activities. So I didn’t miss out on that part of life. And my mom was never like a stage mother; she never really pushed me. I knew at an early age that I could help my family and I could get out of some of the circumstances that we were in. I just felt blessed to have a voice to be able to do that.
“I had good people around me … who really cared about me as a person and not just a product, even though I was a commodity and a product.”
Certainly there are stories about child stars who are being mishandled or, worse, exploited and abused.
Oh, there’s definitely that possibility. That has happened, more times than not. You do wonder about that because you hear these horror stories about Michael Jackson’s childhood and things like that. Mine just didn’t happen to be like that. I can’t put my finger on one little thing and say, “Well, that’s why mine didn’t turn out that way.” But I had good people around me, who really cared about me as a person and not just as a product, even though I was a commodity and a product.
Influences
I hear the spirit of two artists who seem to have inspired you in your singing. One would be Dinah Washington, whose string arrangements and concise material bring to mind many of your hits. And the other seems to be Edith Piaf, whose chanteuse quality has been part of your sound even on some of your earlier recordings.
Oh, thank you! Two of my favorites. I used to listen to Edith Piaf. I loved her.
Did you speak French at the time?
I did. I still can, if I put my mind to it, because I used to go over there all the time. I’ve sung in French and had hits in French. I used to listen a lot to Dinah Washington too. I still love her. I used to listen to people like Bessie Smith and Ruth Etting.
What about Billie Holiday?
I loved Billie Holiday. I loved people like Sophie Tucker. I loved those kinds of singers. Edith Piaf was kind of tragic. I loved that, but then I loved that red-hot mama thing about Sophie Tucker. My manager at that time would always have me listening to those kinds of people. So would Owen [producer Owen Bradley].
As you continue to sing material that you performed in the Fifties, do those songs take on different shades of meaning for you?
I think time enhances the way you sing ‘em because I probably know my instrument better now than I’ve ever known it in my life. I was lucky in the fact that I had Owen Bradley as a producer, because he helped me choose these great songs that I was able to record, that have withstood the test of time. They are really good songs that I don’t ever get tired of singing, that I’m not embarrassed to sing. I do them every night in my show. They’re really well-written, good songs that would have been hits for anybody. I was just lucky to get ‘em.
Some of them probably hold up better for you than others.
Yeah, I would say that. But I’ve had a lot of them that have held up unbelievably over the years. You know, when you’re talking about forty years later, and you’re singing songs that people still know, it says something about those songs.
Did you work with Owen in scouting new material?
We always worked together on song selection. A lot of times, you know, he would be very adamant about a song that I didn’t like so well. Usually I went along with him … because he was always right [laughs].
What’s an example?
Oh, gosh. My second Number One record. It’s called “I Want to Be Wanted.” I loved it, or I wouldn’t have recorded it. But the first time he played it, I wasn’t crazy about it. But he heard something in it that I didn’t hear. That’s where he was so wonderful: He could take the rawest demo record and really hear things in it. A lot of times, he would have to play it for me on the piano and let me envision how it was gonna sound, because sometimes, if the demo was just a real raw thing, I couldn’t hear it.
What happened next, after you’d picked out something you’d like to record?
Owen and I would choose the song. Then we go into the studio with the guys, with [drummer] Buddy Harmon and [bassist] Bob Moore and [guitarist] Grady Martin, [pianist] Floyd Cramer. [saxophonist] Boots Randolph, [guitarist] Hank Garland during the earlier part of my career, [multi-instrumentalist] Ray Edenton, [guitarist] Harold Bradley … I think I’m covering them all. Owen would have in his mind what he wanted. Then the guys would all contribute. They would say, “Well, I think this would be good here,” or “Maybe this lick would sound good there.” It was like a little family that was trying to do something together – a joint effort, with all of us. Everybody had an opinion, and everybody’s opinion was valued.
Why did you feel the need to find new tunes, rather than stick with more familiar material?
I guess it was because my reputation was already being built with new songs.
You did record an early album of standards, called Grandma, What Great Songs You Sang.
Well, I hadn’t had any hit records, really, at that point. I don’t know why the decision was to not do the standards all the time, although on every album that I ever had, there were always standards. That was a biggie with Owen. And I enjoyed singing those songs a lot.
Inspired Arrangements
Every now and then, something unexpected would be added to your arrangements: a harpsichord, for instance, on “All Alone Am I,” a solo trumpet on “Losing You.”
Owen was always so big on doing things differently like that. He was always trying to get a little bit of a different approach, like the horns on “Comin’ On Strong” and the bluesy kind of feel on “Break It to Me Gently.”
Would he just say, in the middle of a session, “Get me a trumpet player?”
Yeah, it was pretty much that spontaneous, because the demos that came in, none of that stuff was on there. It came out of his genius mind, because I certainly was not a musician and didn’t have that know-how. I knew how to sing ‘em and what I wanted to interpret, but I couldn’t say to Owen, “Here’s what I want here.” When I heard it, I knew if I liked it or not, but he was the one who would say, “I think a harpsichord would sound good here.” We would all say, “Owen!” And he would say, “No, trust me I really think this would be good.” And he was always right.
These details would certainly affect your interpretation of these songs.
Exactly. For some reason, we always got a lot of foreign songs. “All Alone Am I” was a Greek song. “I Want to Be Wanted” was Italian. “Losing You” was a foreign song. We always had great success with those types of things.
Maybe that was one reason why you were so popular in Europe.
Yeah. We courted that European market pretty heavily. When I started recording, I wasn’t doing a whole lot here. I’d had some success in Europe with some songs that didn’t do anything here. So I started traveling and working over there.
When you did your first session in England, with Mickie Most producing and Jimmy Page on guitar, you were about twenty years old – the right age to relate to the British Invasion scene. Did it seem kind of exotic to you?
No, because I had been traveling over there since 1958 and I had been working with British bands on my shows. I felt a real kinship with them. That was a lot of fun, to go over there and work with some of their great musicians.
What was it like to headline with the up-and-coming Beatles opening for you?
We used to play at a place called the Star Club in Germany, places like that. They opened a couple of times. I recognized right off that they were talented.
Was Pete Best with them at the time?
He was at one point, but then Ringo came in. I worked with them both.
Were they doing much original material at the time?
They were doing some of it. In fact, I took back a demo tape by the Beatles to Decca, my recording company at the time, and a picture on how they looked. And they passed on ‘em! But I thought these guys were gonna be huge because they were really, really good.
Those venues were kind of rough. Was it hard for a sweet young Georgia girl to deal with them?
Well, I was known completely over there as rock & roll. It was a rocker crowd, so there wasn’t really any problem.
So who’s your favorite Beatle?
I liked ‘em all. I thought John’s sense of humor was wonderful; he was so irreverent. I really liked him. And I liked Paul. George was very quiet and introspective; he kept to himself. They were all very sweet.
Nashville, Old and New
Talk about some of the changes you’ve observed over the years in the Nashville music world.
I miss a lot of the camaraderie that we had back then. I guess it’s just the way things go. When things start poppin’ and happening, the big boys come to town and everything changes. I miss a lot of the recording atmosphere that we used to have, although that still exists in some places here. It’s not as prevalent as it once was. It’s changed quite a bit business-wise, of course. It’s booming. I guess that’s good. We all have to change with the times.
A lot of musicians have come to Nashville from L.A. and elsewhere. Do they play with a different feel than the”A-team” players you used on your earlier records?
I’m sure they do, but I’m sure they can do both [types of feel], you know. I’m sure that’s had an effect on the industry – different people coming in with their different ideas on how to do things, the sounds they want and the different musicians they’re bringing in. But all in all, it’s helped the growth, and that can only be good for Nashville.
Even with all that talent, it must be difficult to recreate that groove you got on songs like “Sweet Nothin’s.”
Yeah, well, that was magic, a little bit of magic sprinkled in from those people. I guess that’s why the Nashville Sound was what it was. The records that I hear coming out of Nashville today, I love a lot of them, but I don’t think that some of them have the same … what’s the word I’m trying to find? Not “feel.” Maybe there was a rawness about them. Everything now seems to be … everybody wants everything perfect. You go in, you put an arrangement in front of some of the people – number charts or whatever it is they use – and they just play it. Sometimes the guts are kind of taken out of it. And sometimes that’s not the best thing to have on a record.
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