In 2023, sixty years after the wedding her family had feared, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” finally reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Brenda Lee was seventy eight, the song had waited sixty five years for that position and Ronnie Shacklett had been there for sixty of them.
She regretted that part of the wedding for the rest of her life, yet the marriage itself endured.
In November 1962 Brenda Lee sat inside Nashville’s Fairgrounds Coliseum watching Jackie Wilson perform. She was seventeen, already earning her family’s living, already traveling farther than most adults and already known around the world as Little Miss Dynamite.
Then she noticed a tall young man named Ronnie Shacklett. Brenda tore off a piece of paper, wrote down her name and telephone number and added one complication because she was leaving for Europe and would be gone for three months.
She passed the note across the crowd and returned to the life waiting for her with airports, hotel rooms, television studios and stages. When she came home, Ronnie called.
A Young Man From Outside The Music Machinery
He was nineteen and worked outside the music business. He had not grown up inside the machinery that had surrounded Brenda since childhood, when her father’s death helped turn a gifted little girl into the chief provider for her household.
By the time she met Ronnie, Brenda had already recorded “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” topped the charts with “I’m Sorry” and performed across America and Europe.
Adults scheduled her days, negotiated her contracts and worried over every decision that might affect the career supporting the family. Her relationship with Ronnie developed beyond their approval.
A Secret Engagement And A Small Wedding Without Her Family
Brenda kept their engagement secret for three months. Her mother and manager opposed the marriage, believing she was too young and had too much at stake.
Brenda and Ronnie went ahead anyway. On April 24, 1963, less than six months after meeting, they married in a small Nashville ceremony. Brenda’s family did not attend.
She later acknowledged the pain that decision caused her mother and said she regretted that part of the wedding for the rest of her life.
Ronnie worked primarily as a contractor away from the spotlight, though he later helped manage Brenda’s career. They raised two daughters, Julie and Jolie, while Brenda moved from teenage pop phenomenon into a lasting place in country and rock and roll history, with the husband she chose as a teenager still beside her when that childhood Christmas recording finally topped the chart six decades later.