Hey y'all, welcome to Biscuits and Jam from Southern Living. I'm your host, Sid Evans,

and today I'm talking with a legendary singer whose voice you've surely heard before, especially

around the holidays. Brenda Lee spent the early years of her life in Georgia.

Though her family didn't have a lot of money,

they always made sure she had batteries to run the radio so she could listen to the grand ol'opry.

Between that and singing at their Baptist church, her interest in music became clear, and her

extraordinary talent became even clearer. She was still a kid when her mother

moved the family to Missouri so she could be part of a TV program called Ozark Jubilee,

and she was signed a deck of record soon after that. Over the next handful of years, she set a record

for the number of top ten hits by a woman, and she also

recorded one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time when she was just 13 years old,

rocking around the Christmas tree. We'll talk about all that, plus her own Christmas traditions,

her friendships with artists like Tanya Tucker and the late Chris Christopherson,

and her thoughts on the increased prominence of women in music over the course of her long

career. All on this week's Biscuits and Jam.

Brenda Lee, welcome to Biscuits and Jam.

Well, thank you.

It's great to see you, and it's really an honor to have you on the show.

Where am I reaching you right now?

You're reaching me in Nashville, Tennessee.

Oh, right up the road from us.

We're down here in Birmingham.

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