Lee achieved her biggest success on the pop charts in the late 1950s through the mid-1960s with rockabilly and rock and roll-styled songs. Her biggest hits included "Jambalaya," "Sweet Nothin's" (number four) (written by country musician Ronnie Self), "I Want to Be Wanted" (number one), "All Alone Am I" (number three) and "Fool #1" (number three). She had more hits with the more pop-based songs "That's All You Gotta Do" (number six), "Emotions" (number seven), "You Can Depend on Me" (number six), "Dum Dum" (number four), 1962's "Break It To Me Gently" (number 2), "Everybody Loves Me But You" (number six), and "As Usual" (number 12).
The biggest-selling track of Lee's career was a Christmas song. In 1958, when she was 13, producer Owen Bradley asked her to record a new song by Johnny Marks, who had had success writing Christmas tunes for country singers, most notably "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (Gene Autry) and "A Holly, Jolly Christmas" (Burl Ives). Lee recorded the song, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," in July with a prominent twanging guitar part by Hank Garland. Decca released it as a single that November, but it sold only 5,000 copies, and did not do much better when it was released again in 1959. However, it eventually sold more than five million copies.
In 1960, she recorded her signature song, "I'm Sorry", which hit number one on the Billboard pop chart. It was her first gold single and was nominated for a Grammy. Even though it was not released as a country song, it was among the first big hits to use what was to become the Nashville sound - a string orchestra and legato harmonized background vocals. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" got noticed in its third release a few months later, and sales snowballed; the song remains a perennial favorite each December and is the record with which she is most identified by contemporary audiences.
Her last top ten single on the pop charts was 1963's "Losing You" (number 6), while she continued to have other chart songs such as her 1966 song "Coming On Strong" and "Is It True?" in 1964. The latter, featuring Jimmy Page on guitar, was her only hit single recorded in London, England and was produced by Mickie Most.
