WORDS BY JULIE BURNS
Later known as Little Miss Dynamite, as a child star from a dirt-poor background, the former Brenda Mae Tarpley certainly had an incendiary start. She signed with Decca aged 11 in 1956, charting her first pop hit One Step At A Time, the following year. At 17 she was a millionaire. The 4ft 9” firebrand first shot to international fame in Europe. At the end of a triumphant headline tour of France, she was invited by producer Jack Good onto Oh Boy!. Belting out Bill Bailey, Won’t You Please Come Home?, her appearance on the UK’s must-see TV show catapulted her career into the cultural stratosphere.
Brenda’s rockabilly back catalogue already included blasts such as Bigelow 6-200, Let’s Jump The Broomstick, Rockin’ The Bop, Ballin’ The Jack, Hummin’ The Blues Over You, and her nickname-giving Dynamite. The biggest multi-million seller of her career would be ‘58’s jaunty evergreen Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.