Brenda Lee on Hitting No. 1 With ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ After Record-Breaking 65-Year Climb: ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Song Down’
variety.comChris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s hard to quite think of someone who was as big a veritable child star as Brenda Lee was in the late ’50s and early ’60s a “late bloomer.” Nor can “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” really be considered an underdog song, after its accrual of quintuple-platinum sales over the decades.
And yet it’s spent the last several years peaking at No. 2 each December, after spending most of its lifetime not annually charting at all.
Now it’s finally No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, 65 years after its release. The previous record-holder for the longest climb to the top?
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which took a mere 25 years to accomplish what took “Rockin'” nearly three times as long.
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