Primarily performing rockabilly, pop, country and Christmas music, she achieved her first Billboard hit aged 12 in 1957 and was given the nickname "Little Miss Dynamite".

[9] Standing 5 ft 7 in (170 cm), he was an excellent left-handed pitcher and played baseball while serving for 11 years in the United States Army.

[citation needed] Though her family did not have indoor plumbing until after her father's death, they had a battery-powered table radio that fascinated Brenda as a baby.

[10] Her father died in 1953 (when she was 8 years old) in a construction accident and by the time she turned ten, she was the primary breadwinner of her family by singing at events and on local radio and television shows.

In 1955, Grayce Tarpley married Buell "Jay" Rainwater, who moved the family to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked at the Jimmie Skinner Music Center.

Lee performed with Skinner at the record store on two Saturday programs broadcast over Newport, Kentucky, radio station WNOP.

The family soon returned to Georgia but this time to Augusta and Lee appeared on the show The Peach Blossom Special on WJAT-AM in Swainsboro.

[12] Lee's breakthrough came in February 1955, when she turned down $30 ($334 in 2022 value[13]) to appear on a Swainsboro radio station in order to see Red Foley and a touring promotional unit of his ABC-TV program Ozark Jubilee in Augusta.

There I stood, after 26 years of supposedly learning how to conduct myself in front of an audience, with my mouth open two miles wide and a glassy stare in my eyes.

Although her five-year contract with the show was broken by a 1957 lawsuit brought by her mother and her manager,[15] she nevertheless made regular appearances on the program throughout its run.

Lee's total of nine consecutive top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits from "That's All You Gotta Do" in 1960 through "All Alone Am I" in 1962 set a record for a female solo artist that was not equaled until 1986 by Madonna.

Lee recorded the song "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" in July with a prominent twanging guitar part by Hank Garland and raucous sax soloing by Nashville icon Boots Randolph.

[22] Even though it was not released as a country song, it was among the first big hits to use what was to become the Nashville sound – a string orchestra and legato harmonized background vocals.

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was finally noticed in its third release a few months later, and sales snowballed; the song remains a perennial favorite each December and is the record with which she is most identified by contemporary audiences.

[24] "Is It True" was composed by noted British songwriting team Ken Lewis and John Carter, who were also members of UK hitmakers the Ivy League.

[citation needed] Lee also toured in the Republic of Ireland in 1963 and appeared on the front cover of the Irish dancing and entertainment magazine Spotlight in April that year.

[citation needed] After appearing at the annual Royal Variety Performance before Queen Elizabeth II at the London Palladium on November 2, 1964, Lee toured the United Kingdom again in November and December 1964, supported by (amongst others) Manfred Mann, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, the John Barry Seven, Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders, Marty Wilde, the Tornados and Heinz Burt.

In a 1996 memoir, television producer Sam Lovullo stated that Lee's 1972 appearance on his variety show Hee Haw had been instrumental to her comeback.

Two follow-ups also reached the Top 10 in 1980: "The Cowgirl and the Dandy" and "Broken Trust" (the latter featuring vocal backing by the Oak Ridge Boys).

Her last well-known hit was 1984's "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" in duet with George Jones (Lee sang this song individually before and released it in 1960 on This Is...Brenda).

[citation needed] Lee is often called upon to announce the annual inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame and then officially present them with their membership medallions at a special ceremony every year.

[28] On the Hot 100 chart dated December 21, 2019, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" reached a new peak of #3 in the United States with 37.1 million streams and 5,000 digital sales sold.

[31] In November 2023, to celebrate the song's 65th anniversary, Lee released a music video featuring her lip-synching to the original recording at a house party with Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood.

[37] In December 2024, Spotify revealed that "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" is among the Top 10 most streamed holiday songs of all time, [38] reaching more than a billion downloads.

[39] [40] The Recording Industry Association of America also certified "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" that month for 7× Platinum for US sales of 7 million copies of the digital single.

She was named among many other recording artists including: Riley Puckett, Gid Tanner, Dan Hornsby, Clayton McMichen and Boots Woodall.

[43][44] Celebrating over 50 years as a recording artist, in September 2006 she was the second recipient of the Jo Meador-Walker Lifetime Achievement award by the Source Foundation in Nashville.

[5] The Grammy Awards is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry.

Lee met Charles Ronald "Ronnie" Shacklett in November 1962 at a concert by Bo Diddley and Jackie Wilson hosted at Nashville's Fairgrounds Coliseum.