On This Day in 1955, Brenda Lee Turned Down a Paying Gig and Unexpectedly Got Her Big Break

On this day (February 23) in 1955, Brenda Lee passed on a $30 paycheck to perform on a local radio station because she wanted to see Red Foley in concert. Later that evening, she performed alongside Foley. The performance sparked a series of events that led to her landing a recording contract with Decca Records and becoming one of the most successful pop singers of her time.

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Lee’s singing talent surfaced early. She began singing along with the radio before her first birthday. By the time she was eight years old, the future star was appearing on local television and radio shows. When she was nine years old, she became one of her family’s breadwinners after her father died in a construction accident. Her mother worked at a cotton mill, and Lee brought in money with her various singing gigs.

“When dad died, I know it had to have been hard on my mother, to have three children and have to go to work at a cotton mill 16 hours a day. It was never cemented in stone that we were poor, but we knew,” she told Rolling Stone. In February 1955, Lee turned down a $30 radio station appearance because she wanted to see Red Foley and the other members of his Ozark Jubilee road show perform. While turning down what would be roughly $365 in today’s money couldn’t have been an easy thing to do at the time, it turned out to be the right decision.

Brenda Lee Gets Her Big Break

Before attending the show that evening, a local radio DJ convinced Foley to hear Lee sing. He was immediately impressed and invited her to sing Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya” during his concert that night. She did so well that he made her a permanent cast member of his Ozark Jubilee TV show the next year.

Later in 1956, Foley urged decision-makers at Decca Records to watch Brenda Lee perform. While Decca, along with every other label in Nashville, was hesitant to sign an 11-year-old child, they were so impressed with her performance that she was soon offered a deal.

She landed her first charting single the next year with “One Step at a Time,” which reached No. 15 on the country chart and No. 43 on the Hot 100. She found consistent chart success in the early 1960s with hits like “That’s All You Gotta Do,” “I Want to Be Wanted, and “You Can Depend on Me.”

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