Brenda Lee Rarities Collection 'Love You!' Makes Streaming Debut
Listen to the long out-of-print collection, which includes 20 incredibly rare tracks making their streaming debuts.
By: Josh Sharpe Feb. 14, 2025
In honor of Valentine’s Day, the legendary Brenda Lee’s long out-of-print 1963 early career collection, aptly titled Love You!, is now available via MCA Nashville/UMe as an expanded digital Deluxe Edition with 20 incredibly rare tracks making their streaming debuts. With this release, every one of Lee’s recordings that she made for Decca between 1956-62 are finally now available digitally.
Subtitled “Early hits that made her famous,” Love You! was originally released in 1963 in the UK by Ace Of Hearts, Decca UK’s label whose purpose was to release Decca’s back catalog of US repertoire in the UK. The collection combined the A & B sides of non-album singles that were released in the US between 1957 and 1961, starting with “Love You Til I Die,” the B-side to her hit “Dynamite,” recorded by “Little Miss Dynamite” when she was just 12 years old. Some of the many highlights on the original collection include the rockabilly classics “Dynamite,” “Ring-A-My Phone,” “Rock-A-Bye Baby Blues,” “Rock The Bop,” “I’m Learning About Love,” “Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home” and “One Teenager To Another.”
Love You! has now been expanded to include 20 additional non-album singles, rarities, and unissued recordings, all recorded between 1956 and 1962. The tracks, which have been released over the years on various international compilations of Lee’s early years, including 1974’s German compilation, The Legends Of Rock Vol. 2 Rare Items; 1984’s UK collection, The Early Years; and Germany’s Bear Family Records’ 1995 comprehensive box set, Little Miss Dynamite, are all now available to stream for the first time. The new additions include many of Lee’s earliest recordings such as her incredible cover of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” recorded in 1956 but not released for nearly three decades, as well several “alternate versions,” “first versions” and “second versions” of tracks like “Bigelow 6-200,” the B-side to her first single, “Jambalaya,” the teenage heartbreaker, “Careless, That’ All” and her take on the Ink Spots’ classic “If I Didn’t Care.” Other standouts include “Some People,” “Funny Feelin’,” “Time Is Not Enough” and “Sweet Lovin’.”
When Love You! was released in 1963, the essay on the album sleeve exclaimed about Brenda Lee, “Still in her teens, she can look back on a long, and continuous, succession of hit records,” but the writer couldn’t have known how right they were, as the future Rock and Roll and Country Hall of Famer was just getting started on what would become a more than seven decade career. Now Brendators and lovers of early rockabilly and country can stream some of Lee’s most formative recordings.
ABOUT BRENDA LEE
Brenda Lee signed with the legendary Decca Records label before her 12th birthday and went on to record such landmark hits as “Sweet Nothin’s,” “All Alone Am I,” “Break it to Me Gently” and “I’m Sorry.” Though she had success in multiple genres including rockabilly, pop and rock, Lee found her home in country music. Lee’s best-loved hit, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2023 and continues to top the charts year after year. Not only has Lee sold more than 100 million albums globally, throughout her career she shared stages and earned the respect of the world’s most revered performers. The Beatles opened for her and the lads from Liverpool became good friends with the Southern belle from Atlanta, and Elvis Presley and Lee made their Grand Ole Opry debut on the same night.
Lee had nine consecutive top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits from 1960 to 1962 and set a record for a female solo artist that was unequaled until over two decades later. Lee churned out country hits such as “Sunday Sunrise” and “Big Four Poster Bed” and continued to have country hits into the 80s, including “I Love Her So,” a duet with George Jones. Lee was the first woman inducted into both the Rock and Roll and Country Music Hall of Fames and she is a recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award. Her hit song “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” is certified 7x Platinum by the RIAA and has reached over 1 billion streams on Spotify. In November 2023, “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time ever, 65 years after the song’s debut, and was at the top spot for three weeks. By hitting the No.1 spot, Lee broke several records, many of which were held by Mariah Carey and “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” whom Lee beat out for the top. Lee claims just the third holiday No. 1 ever on the Hot 100.
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