Brenda Lee - Merry Christmas (1964)

It's conceivable that many people are sick of Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" because it's played incessantly every holiday season. While it's not my favorite Christmas song I've actually grown to like it more as I got older. I guess it's because this now mature classic rock fan has mellowed.

Even though few young people today know Lee outside of her Christmas classic she's among the more popular American recording artists of all time, having sold over one hundred million records around the world. Billboard named her the Top Female Artist of the 1960s. With her song "I'm Sorry" (1960) she became only the second woman to ever hit #1 on the Hot 100. (Connie Francis was first with "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" in 1960.)

Her perennial Christmas chestnut is the lead track on Lee's first album of seasonal tunes, simply titled Merry Christmas. The star recorded "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" in 1958 when she was only thirteen years old. It was already an established holiday classic when it became the leadoff track on this 1964 LP that was released when she was only nineteen. It's a twelve-song set that clocks in at under thirty minutes. So, if there's a song you don't like you don't have to wait very long for the next one to come along.

The music found on the LP is a product of its time. Many of the tracks included a male and female chorus that sounds dated today, but they were quite common in the late 50s and early 60s. Many of the top singers of the era featured them on their records - including Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole - and they definitely added some color to the arrangements.

Lee was wise enough to not just rely on the most famous Christmas songs. There are four tracks that I've never heard elsewhere: "Strawberry Snow," "This Time of Year," "Christmas Will Be Just Another Lonely Day," and "The Angel and the Little Blue Bell."

Lee was always classified as a country music singer, but that label is much too restrictive because her pop sensibilities broadened her appeal. Produced by hall-of-famer Owen Bradley and recorded in Nashville, Merry Christmas is a lightweight but enjoyable Christmas record that appeals to many older country and pop music fans.

Comments

  1. Perplexio4:00 PM, January 15, 2026

    Chicago's cover of this with vocals by now former guitarist Keith Howland, was/is one of the few tracks on Chicago's "O Christmas Three" that I felt was worth listening to. It is truly a classic that has seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years. My 16 year old daughter loves Christmas music and this past holiday season I was relieved when she would play the Brenda Lee original because it meant she WASN'T playing the much more overplayed Mariah Carey "All I Want For Christmas Is You"-- given the choice, I'd take Brenda Lee over Mariah Carey any day of the holiday season and twice on Christmas. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Perplexio4:03 PM, January 15, 2026

    My 16 year old daughter played "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree" a lot over the holidays. I was thankful when she played it as it meant she WASN'T overplaying Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

    Also, I really like Chicago's cover of it on their "O Christmas Three" album-- one of the few tracks on that collection that I feel is worth listening to. Former guitarist Keith Howland gave it a good go on vocals.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All-Time Popular Posts

Slower Than Slow: 16 RPM Records

Image
Have you ever heard of a long forgotten vinyl format, the 16 2/3 RPM record? They were half the speed of the 33 1/3 RPM albums that were the traditional standard for recorded music. Most record players in the 1950s and 1960s came with a speed setting to play these long forgotten discs that were considered novelties even during the years they were available. Because most, but not all, 16s had big holes and were 7" in diameter many of them were mistaken for 45 RPMs and at that size the speed allowed for up to 20 minutes of playing time per side. However, there was no true standard size and they were also manufactured to be 9, 10, or 12 inches in diameter, and these larger records played even longer. Just like the other speeds and formats 16s could be played one record at a time or stacked on a changer for continuous play. Radio stations often used the discs for pre-recorded radio shows containing interviews, dramas, and documentaries. More frequen...
Read more

Why Do 45 RPM Records Have Big Holes?

Image
Today we're going to find out why 45 RPM records have much larger holes than 78s and 33s. Believe it or not I often wondered about this burning question when I was collecting hundreds of these little seven inch gems back the 1960s. According to several websites, including Answerbag , the reason for the large hole used by 45s was simple. It was difficult for the old 78s, with their smaller holes, to find their way onto jukebox spindles. The large hole effectively eliminated that problem. Strangely, seven inch 45s were often pressed with the smaller holes used for LPs in many countries outside the United States, especially in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Overseas the inserts (commonly know as spiders) were manufactured into the large holes at the factories but they could be punched out if desired. The Beatles' British single of "Love Me Do," pictured here, is a typical example. Why were the spiders built into English 45s? I was unable to fi...
Read more

10 Great Beatles Songs You May Have Never Heard

Image
I recently paid a visit to a blog that I read regularly published by my British cyber-buddy, Martin Warminger. At his site, Music Obsessive , he just listed what are, in his opinion, the worst Beatles songs of all time . It's an idea I wanted to steal, and I could come up with a short but bad list, but for the sake of originality I decided to do something completely different instead. So, here is a list of ten songs by my all-time favorite band that deserve a better place in the annals of Beatles history. Most of them are only known by their hardcore fans. Here they are in chronological order. You can listen to a few of the rarer ones below. 1. I'll Be On My Way The only known recorded version of this very early, 1963, Lennon-McCartney ditty appears on Live at The BBC . The Beatles never put it on vinyl. Yes, it's simplistic and the lyrics even have the audacity to rhyme the word "moon" with "June." However, the song has one of those undeni...
Read more