Brenda Lee
Year Association Category Nominated Work Result
1961 Grammy Awards Best Female Pop Vocal Performance I 'm Sorry Lost
1962 NME Awards World Female Singer Herself Won
1963 NME Awards World Female Singer Herself Won
1964 NME Awards World Female Singer Herself Won
1970 Grammy Awards Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Johnny One Time Lost
1980 Grammy Awards Best Female Country Vocal Performance Tell Me What It 's Like Won
1999 Grammy Awards Hall of Fame Induction That 's All You Got ta Do /I 'm Sorry Won
2007 Academy of Country Music Cliffe Stone Pioneer Award Herself Won
2008 Dove Awards Country Album of the Year Gospel Duets with Treasured Friends Won
2009 Grammy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award Herself Won
Awards and nominations
Brenda Lee (born Brenda Mae Tarpley; December 11, 1944) is an American performer and the top-charting solo female vocalist of the 1960s. She sang rockabilly, pop and country music, and had 47 US chart hits during the 1960s, and is ranked fourth in that decade surpassed only by Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles. She is known for her 1960 hit I'm Sorry, and 1958's Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, which has become a Christmas standard. At 4 ft 9 inches tall (approximately 145 cm), she received the nickname Little Miss Dynamite in 1957, after recording the song Dynamite when she was 12, and was one of the earliest pop stars to have a major contemporary international following. In 1969, Lee returned to the charts with her recording Johnny One Time penned by A.L. Doodle Owens and Dallas Frazier. The song reached #3 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart and #41 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also earned Lee her second Grammy nomination for Best Pop Female Vocal. Later success came with a return to her roots as a country singer, with a string of hits through the 1970s and 1980s. She is a member of the Rock and Roll, Country Music and Rockabilly Halls of Fame. She is also a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Lee is the only woman to be inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame.