Brenda Lee - Queen Of Rock’n’Roll

Little Miss Dynamite’s explosive beginnings

Long before she embraced the cosier teen pop of her spiritual big sister Connie Francis, Lee was the excitable tomboy more likely to be found smoking under the bleachers than swooning over the star quarterback. The later ballads may have brought her 100 million record sales before she was 21, but it was the untamed roar of her first records that inspired John Lennon to declare her the greatest voice of the rock’n’roll era.

Sweet Nothin’s and Let’s Jump The Broomstick opened her chart account, perhaps because tracks such as her cover of Hank Williams’ Jamabalaya (when she was just 12) were too raw for radio. There’s some restraint to her reading of Ray Charles’ Talkin’ ’Bout You, but it’s still a ferocious sound to come from such a small – and young – woman.

In lesser hands, novelty tunes such as Ring-A-My Phone and My Baby Loves Western Guys might have passed by unnoticed, and it’s to Lee’s credit that she manages to instil such energy and attitude into workaday material. A tobe- cherished collection from a time when child stars didn’t necessarily have us reaching for the off-button.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Ace | CDCHD 1222

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
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