1956- "I'm Gonna Lasso Santa Claus"

.....Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley on December 11, 1944. This makes her the youngest artist I've posted so far, but the field of Christmas pop music is peppered with child performers, especially in the 1940's and 1950's, and I doubt she set any records with this first of several Christmas singles. It could be, though. Augie Rios would be a few months older when he recorded "¿DONDE ESTA SANTA CLAUS?" in 1958. Jimmy Boyd, although he started his career earlier, was about a year older when he recorded "I SAW MOMMY KISSING SANTA CLAUS" in 1952. Yet, for some reason, her label felt it necessary to lie about her age on this early single. Both sides are originals, I think, but I'm focusing on the B-side, which I have in front of me.

• -N/A- CHRISTY CHRISTMAS (Marty Symes, Tony Starr)
• 02:17 b/w I'M GONNA LASSO SANTA CLAUS (Frankie Adams, Wilbur Jones)
• performed by Brenda Lee
• original source: 7" Decca 30107 (US) Oct. 29, 1956
• as well as: Decca Children's Series 9-88215 (US) 1956
• and my source: VACD ROCKIN' LITTLE CHRISTMAS MCA Records MCAD-25084 (US) 12/90

.....The A-side, just for the record, has a running time of 2:22 according to Amazon. The first evidence I can find of it ever being made available on CD is as part of a Bear Family box in 1997. It then surfaced again on CD ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE: THE DECCA CHRISTMAS RECORDINGS MCA 70090-2 (US) 10/05/99, which was repackaged as CD THE BEST OF BRENDA LEE: THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION MCA Nashville/Chronicles B0000520-2 (US) 09/23/03. Since then it's been licensed for a handful of hastily assembled compilations of familiar holiday recordings. The song was filed for copyright in 1952, but unless it was released regionally by a small country label somewhere I'm going to have to guess that Lee was the first to record it.

.....I first heard the B-side on the vinyl counterpart, MCA-25084 (US) 11/86, of the CD in the citation. I upgraded to the CD when it became available because it's a concentration of great singles in different styles in the Eisenhower-Kennedy era from several labels which were later absorbed into MCA. It also has a note of introduction by Brenda Lee written for the LP. But the compilation also has a number of flaws that have always bugged me. For one thing, it's less than a half hour long. The LP could have comfortably accommodated nearly twice as much playing time and the CD just less than three times as much. What makes the skimpiness even more egregious is that nearly all of the songs on the album were from singles whose flip sides were also Christmas themed. That's just a relatively minor example of something that was a chronic problem at MCA before the merger with PolyGram. When MCA dragged its feet in regards to putting Brenda Lee's 1964 Christmas album (MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BRENDA LEE) back into print, Lee recorded a new album for Warner Brothers, CD A BRENDA LEE CHRISTMAS Warner Bros. 9 26660-2 (US) 10/24/91. MCA responded by taking the 1964 album, removing two songs from it, and issuing it on CD as CD JINGLE BELL ROCK MCA Special Products MCAD 20728 (US) 1992. The program order is otherwise intact. To add insult to insult, the two tracks that were removed became the lead tracks on a CD issued on a subsidiary called Hand the following year. CD MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BRENDA LEE Hand/MCA HAND 22098 (US) 08/93 (which you may note uses the original title) not only was made entirely of tracks from the 1964 album again, but removed two different songs and rearranged the program order so that Lee's fans would first see the two songs not previously available and, perhaps, buy it before they realized that they already owned the rest of it. In other respects, ROCKIN' LITTLE CHRISTMAS avoids some of the characteristic sleaziness of MCA's vinyl days. For example, there are producer credits for some of the songs, yet no songwriting credits, something most major labels would consider a matter of basic competence. But even there MCA falls short. The song "I'M GONNA LASSO SANTA CLAUS" is credited to producer Owen Bradley, who took over production of Lee's sessions in 1958. This post's single was the second of Lee's first six, which were produced by Paul Cohen (except for the third, produced by Milt Gabler) from 1956 to 1957.

.....The 'lasso' image was in keeping with her Nashville recording locale, but like many young people who grew up immersed in country music during the fifties Brenda Lee leaned towards pop and rockabilly, eventually finding a broader audience than the one to whom she was marketed, as did The Everly Brothers and Buck Owens. But even the catchy, canter-like rhythm is not as memorable as her powerful voice. It's like getting hit on the head with a hammer by the sweetest little girl you've ever seen. Only five years later that same booming twang would be used to heartbreaking effect on the more adult song "BREAK IT TO ME GENTLY" while Lee was still in her teens. And the difference between her actual age and the mature sound of her voice certainly fueled interest in her records. This single, which was only her second release remember, carried the phrase "9 years old" on the label of the Children's Series copies although she would turn 12 just two months after its release. It may have been a ploy to make her obvious talent seem that much more remarkable but it caused a few headaches years later after she and her boyfriend, both 18 at the time, got legally married but had to continuously disprove poorly researched scandal sheet articles that claimed otherwise. For a saner and more concise look at her career, her official website has a clean look and is easy to navigate. It also has some brief notes specifically about her Christmas recordings.