LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Brenda Lee: Brenda Mae Tarpley
built 614 days ago
Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley on December 11, 1944, in the charity ward of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and was raised in Conyers and Lithonia. After winning a talent show at the age of five, she began to appear regularly on local Atlanta radio and television. When she was nine, her father died following a construction accident, and she became the family's primary breadwinner. In 1955 the family moved to Augusta, where the young singer shortened her last name to "Lee" at the suggestion of a local television producer.
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Brenda Lee was born Brenda Mae Tarpley [I]n the charity ward of Grady Memorial Hospital, part of the Emory University Hospital complex, in Atlanta, Georgia, the second daughter of Rubin and Grace Tarpley. Her father, a carpenter and semi-professional baseball player was killed in a construction accident in 1953.
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BORN BRENDA MAE TARPLEY in Atlanta, Georgia, on 11 December 1944, Brenda Lee is rumoured to have taken to the road with a singing group at the age of five to help support her family. Certainly, she admitted to playing shows in Atlanta sports arenas and school-houses well before her tenth birthday, and to having her own radio spot on a station in Augusta, Georgia.
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Brenda was born Brenda Mae Tarpley in the charity ward of Grady Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 11, 1944. She weighed 2126 g (4 pounds 11 ounces) at birth. She attended grade schools wherever her father found work, primarily in the corridor between Atlanta and Augusta. Her family was poor, living hand-to-mouth; she shared a bed with her two siblings in a series of three-room houses without running water. Life centered around her parents' finding work, their extended family, and the Baptist Church (where she sang solos every Sunday).[1]
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Brenda Mae Tarpley