For the second week in a row, Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is main the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the unofficial Queen of Christmas, Mariah Carey, is taking observe.
Lee first recorded her Christmas hit in 1958 on the tender age of 13. She launched a brand new music video for the tune this 12 months to mark its sixty fifth anniversary. The video options cameos by nation stars Tanya Tucker and Trisha Yearwood, and the tune has been experiencing considerably of a renaissance this vacation season.
Carey, whose hit “All I Want for Christmas” normally leads the charts this time of 12 months, despatched Lee a congratulatory flower association with a handwritten observe, Lee (*1*)shared on X.
“Dear Ms. Brenda,” the cardboard nestled within the white flowers reads. “Congratulations on your history #1. Have a merry Christmas. Love, Mariah.”
Lee’s hit was among the many first main Christmas songs launched through the rock ‘n’ roll period. It was penned by Johnny Marks — who additionally wrote “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Holly Jolly Christmas” — and produced by Owen Bradley.
In a latest interview with Salon, Lee advised the outlet that whereas she had been “disappointed” the tune did not initially chart following its launch, it definitely got here again round.
“I might have been a little disappointed, because we all loved the song so much. And we wanted it to do really good. And when it just didn’t for a minute, we thought, ‘Oh, lordy, lordy,'” she advised Salon. “But it came through, as good songs do, and now it’s one of the songs that I have to sing every time I sing anywhere.”
Lee even just lately carried out her vacation hit at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena at an occasion benefiting the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
In the Salon interview, Lee additionally revealed that her producer, Bradley, tried to make it really feel like Christmas after they recorded the tune within the sweltering Nashville summer season warmth approach again in 1958.
“But my precious, precious producer Owen Bradley — I walk in the studio, he must have had the air conditioning down to zero,” she advised Salon. “He had a big Christmas tree. It was all decked out in Christmas lights and everything. And it was just a magical time.”
She added that she thinks the tune reached a brand new era when it confirmed up within the iconic movie “Home Alone.”
She mentioned she “got a call one night” from her buddies asking if she’d seen the movie but, which she hadn’t.
“They said ‘Well, your song’s all over it!'” she mentioned.
“I went to the theater and saw it and I was so joyous because I love the songwriter, I love this song,” she mentioned. “Of course I loved all my buds that played on it. I was just so proud.”
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