#TBT: Teen star Brenda Lee charmed at Corpus Christi's Memorial Coliseum concert in 1961
Brenda Lee is topping the charts with a Christmas classic right now, but some might remember more than a few decades ago when a teenage Lee brought her chart-topping songs to Corpus Christi.
Lee performed June 16, 1961, at Memorial Coliseum, the headliner on a roundup that included Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, Bob Beckam, Garry Miles, The Casuals and The Texans. Radio station KEYS sponsored the concert of the teenage singing sensation, with tickets 99 cents in advance or $1.25 at the door.
Herb Canales remembers attending the concert with his family when he was almost 7 years old. One of Lee's hits was "I'm Sorry," which made it to No. 1 in 1960. He recalls having an emotional reaction to this line she sang from that song: "But love is blind and I was too blind to see." Canales said he felt sad for the singer, taking the line at face value, and believing she was blind. But his mother later explained that she wasn't actually blind, it was just an expression.
The concert was initially supposed to take place on June 2, but Lee postponed the concert when she suffered a knee injury. Later that month the concert was back on. Thousands turned out for the event, although the article following the concert didn’t give much of a review of the performance. However, it did give lots of details about the 16-year-old sensation and how she coped with the grueling demands of a touring musician at such a young age.
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Born Brenda Mae Tarpley in 1944, she began her career at the age of 6 in her hometown of Atlanta, but it was her distinctive and decidedly adult-sounding voice that caught the world’s attention. She made her network debut on “Ozark Jubilee” and got her first contract in 1956 when she was 11.
By the time of her Corpus Christi concert, the teen was a star. She performed two shows in Amarillo on Thursday night, going to sleep at 1 a.m. and then was up at 4 a.m. to fly to Corpus Christi for her Friday night concert. She took the teens asking for autographs and the camera flashes in stride, telling the crowd she loved performing. Following her Corpus show she was off to Harlingen, before heading to Nashville and then California to continue the tour. She told the reporter she had about 100 songs in her repertoire.
While traveling for her career, she had a private tutor and attended the Hollywood Professional School the previous year when she was filming a movie. Before that she attended public high school in Nashville. When asked of her future plans she said college and marriage eventually, but said she was in no hurry. Two years later at 18, she married Ronnie Shacklett, 19, of Nashville.
Her career continued for the ensuing decades, but modern audiences know her best for her 1958 hit, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2019, and officially hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month, 65 years after its release. Last week, Lee performed the hit live on NBC's "Christmas at the Opry," getting the crowd dancing and singing along and proving she's just as big a hit as she was at her coliseum concert so many years ago.
Allison Ehrlich writes about things to do in South Texas and has a weekly Throwback Thursday column on local history.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: #TBT: Teen star Brenda Lee charmed at 1961 concert in Corpus Christi
