ABSTRACT
Brenda Lee, a Georgia-bom country artist who began her professional singing career at age six, charted two Top 100 national hits before her thirteenth birthday. Her most noted holiday-related song—“Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree”—was recorded for Decca records prior to her fourteenth birthday. Before Brenda Lee's success, another thirteen-year-old youngster scored a No. 1 hit record with the Christmas novelty tune “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” Little Jimmy Boyd followed this hit-making 1952 debut with three Billboard-charted songs during the next six months: “Tell Me a Story,” “The Little Boy and the Old Man” (both duets with Frankie Laine), and “Dennis the Menace” (a duet with Rosemary Clooney). But even younger children have produced popular hit recordings. Seven-year-old Barry Gordon sang the 1955 holiday humor song “Nuttin' for Christmas” and Jo Ann Morse, a youngster of the same age in 1962, produced a Kennedy-ribbing recording titled “My Daddy Is President.” Appearing with his father on the 1974 RCA recording “Daddy What If,” five-year-old Bobby Bare Jr. is undeniably one of the youngest hit makers ever. Finally, numerous recordings such as Pink Floyd's “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II),” Buzz Clifford's “Baby Sittin' Boogie,” and Tom Glazer's “On Top of Spaghetti” have featured children's choruses of wide-ranging ages.
