Brenda Lee has an admirer in Amy Grant. During Grant and husband Vince Gill‘s opening night of their 2023 Christmas at the Ryman residency in Nashville on Wednesday (December 13), Grant performed a cover of Lee’s signature hit, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Grant introduced the song by noting how she’s been singing it in her holiday shows for “many years” and shared how Lee released it in 1958. In 2023, it made history when it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in its 65-year history.
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[Christmas at the Ryman with Amy Grant and Vince Gill: Get Tickets]
“She is the most mature woman to ever have a song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,” Grant laughed, adding that she hopes they can convince Lee to come out and sing the song with them at one of the Ryman shows. “Brenda Lee, what a treasure. She’s alive and well and in this town tonight. We are sending lots of love to her from the Ryman Auditorium.”
Grant isn’t the only one heaping praise onto Lee. Trisha Yearwood recently spoke about Lee’s legacy at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s All For the Hall event co-hosted by Gill. After Lee came out and surprised the crowd at Bridgestone Arena with a performance of “Rockin,’” Yearwood acknowledged her role in country music history. “She’s our history,” Yearwood asserted. “She is to be revered and remembered. What this woman has done in her career is astonishing and she’s a true legend and hero.”
“Rockin’” serves as the longest climb to No. 1 on the all-genre chart, knocking Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You” out of first place, which took 25 years to get to No. 1 following its 1994 release. “The producer cut the air wat down in the studio. He had a big Christmas tree and everyone was there—the Anita Kerr Singers and the A-team, as we called them,” Lee recalled of the recording process. “It was like a little touch of magic kind of sprinkled in, and it turned out to be magic. It really did.”
Lee’s hit remained at the top of the Hot 100 for a second consecutive week on December 11, her 79th birthday.
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
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