Brenda Lee grew up in a string of three-room homes without running water where she shared a bed with her brother and sister. Her priorities in life were her family, helping her parents find work, and attending the Baptist church, where she started singing solos every Sunday.
Lee’s voice, face, and stage presence won her wider attention from the time she was five years old. At age six, she won a local singing contest sponsored by local elementary schools. The reward was a live appearance on an Atlanta radio show, Starmakers Revue, where she performed for the next year.
Brenda Lee’s parents: Meet Annie Grayce Yarbrough, Ruben Tarpley
Annie Grayce Yarbrough and Ruben Lindsey Tarpley are the parents of Brenda Lee. Her parents were poor. Lee’s father was a farmer’s son from the red-clay region of Georgia. He pitched well left-handed and played baseball while serving in the US Army for 11 years. He stood 5 ft 7 inches (170 cm). In Greene County, Georgia, her mother came from a working-class family. Her father died in 1953 in a construction accident.
Though her family did not have indoor plumbing until after her father’s death, they had a battery-powered table radio that fascinated Brenda as a baby. Both her mother and sister remembered taking her repeatedly to a local candy store before she turned three. One of them would stand her on the counter and she would earn candy or coins for singing.
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Source: celebfaqs.com
