Brenda Lee’s Rare Early Collection, ‘Love You!’ Gets Digital Deluxe Release

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Brenda Lee’s long out-of-print 1963 early career collection, Love You!, is out today (Feb. 14) via MCA Nashville/UMe as an expanded digital Deluxe Edition.

The project features 20 rare tracks, every one of Lee’s recordings she made for Decca between 1956-62, in their streaming debuts. Love You! was first released in 1963 in the UK by Ace of Hearts, a label under Decca UK. This compilation brought together the A and B sides of non-album singles that were issued in the U.S. between 1957 and 1961. It begins with “Love You Til I Die,” the B-side to her hit “Dynamite,” recorded by “Little Miss Dynamite” when she was only 12 years old.

Love You! has now been expanded to feature 20 additional non-album singles, rarities and previously unreleased recordings, all recorded between 1956 and 1962. These tracks, which were previously included in various international compilations such as the 1974 German release The Legends Of Rock Vol. 2 Rare Items, the 1984 UK collection The Early Years, and Germany’s 1995 comprehensive box set Little Miss Dynamite from Bear Family Records, are now available for streaming for the first time.

The new additions include many of Lee’s earliest recordings such as her cover of Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” recorded in 1956 but unreleased for nearly three decades, as well as several alternate versions, first versions and second versions of tracks like “Bigelow 6-200,” the B-side to her first single, “Jambalaya,” the teenage heartbreaker, “Careless, That’ All” and her take on the Ink Spots’ classic “If I Didn’t Care.” Other standouts include “Some People,” “Funny Feelin’,” “Time Is Not Enough” and “Sweet Lovin’.”

Love You! Track List:
DISC 1
1. “Love You Till I Die” (B-side to 1957 single “Dynamite”)
2. “Ring-A My Phone” (1958 single A-side)
3. “Hummin’ The Blues Over You” (B-side to 1958 single “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home”)
4. “Rock A Bye Baby Blues” (1957 single A-side)
5. “Rock The Bop” (B-side to 1957 single “Rock The Bop”)
6. “It’s Never Too Late” (B-side to 1961 single “You Can Depend On Me”)
7. “I’m Learning About Love” (B-side to 1961 single “Emotions”)
8. “Bill Bailey Won’t you Please Come Home” (1958 single A-side)
9. “Dynamite” (1957 single A-side)
10. “Little Jonah” ( B-side to 1958 single “Ring-A-My-Phone”)
11. “One Teenager to Another” (B-side to 1957 single “Ain’t That Love”)
12. “Ain’t That Love” (1957 single A-side)

DISC 2
1. “Bigelow 6-200” (Alternate Version) (unissued 1956 recording) ^
2. “Some People” (unissued 1956 recording) *
3. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” (unissued 1956 recording) *
4. “Doodle Bug Rag” (unissued 1956 recording) **
5. “Fairyland” (1957 single B-side to “One Step At A Time”)
6. “The Golden Key” (unissued 1958 recording) **
7. “The Stroll” (unissued 1959 recording) **
8. “Careless, That’s All” (First Version) (unissued 1960 recording)
9. “If I Didn’t Care” (First Version) (unissued 1960 recording)
10. “Careless, That’s All” (Second version) (unissued 1961 recording) **
11. “Tables Are Turning” (unissued 1961) **
12. “Funny Feelin’” (unissued 1961 recording)
13. “Let Me Be The One #095” (unissued 1961 recording)
14. “Time Is Not Enough” (unissued 1961 recording) **
15. “Here Comes That Feeling” (B-side to 1962 single “Everybody Loves Me But You”)
16. “Just Forget” (unissued 1961 recording) **
17. “Let The Four Winds Blow” (unissued 1961) **
18. “She’ll Never Know” (unissued 1962 recording)
19. “It Takes One To Know One” (unissued 1962 recording)
20. “Sweet Lovin’” (unissued 1962 recording)

^ first appeared on 1987 LP, Rockabilly Classics Vol. 2 (MCA)
* first appeared on 1984 LP, The Early Years (MCA UK)
** first appeared on 1974 LP, The Legends Of Rock Vol. 2 Rare Items (MCA Germany)

Lorie Hollabaugh
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