Brenda Lee returns to Las Vegas

Youngest? Longest? Brenda Lee has a double shot at Las Vegas entertainment history.

If it helps you win at trivia, remember the 70-year-old Nashille icon, who sings at the Golden Nugget on Friday. She may not be a name you'd think of when it comes to entertainers closing in on a 60-year span in Las Vegas.

Lee has a competitive advantage on Tony Bennett or Don Rickles. She celebrated her 12th birthday at the Flamingo when she was part of a Christmas-themed revue in December 1956.

"I still hold the record (as) the youngest to ever star on the Strip," she says of her billing as "The Moppet of the Perry Como Show" on the bill with the Ink Spots.

She wasn't even "Little Miss Dynamite" yet. That nickname came with the "Dynamite" single she recorded the next year.

Just a phone chat with Lee makes you realize how many generations of performers she has worked with over the years. Some, like Jimmy Durante, were in their twilight years when she was a child.

"Then into the rock era with Elvis and all of those," she says of Little Richard and Las Vegas lounge pioneers The Treniers. "Boy, the Treniers were great, weren't they? Such energy. If we could bottle that, we'd be millionaires."

And then, the British invasion. But before that, "the Beatles used to open for me in '60, '61 and '62 when I was touring Europe," she says.

"They were just a group starting out and I was trying to get them a record contract here in America. We couldn't pull it off," she adds, but it all worked out in the end.

"I still keep in touch with Ringo and occasionally if Paul comes here to perform I try to at least call him or go to the concert," she says. Same with her pal Elton John.

Lee's career was overseen by two of the best. The recording side was covered by legendary Nashville producer Owen Bradley, while her stage shows were overseen by Dick Barstow, choreographer for Judy Garland and the Ringling Bros. circus.

"He really knew how to put a show together and not make it look like a show," she says. Barstow helped her avoid the awkward "ex-child star" phase as she aged. "It was very natural. He took me right from Coney Island to the Strip in Las Vegas."

Lee had a monster hit with "I'm Sorry" in 1960, followed by other hits such as "Break It to Me Gently" and "Fool." But the one more people still hear most often at the mall is "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" from 1958.

"It's always in my show no matter what time of year," she assures us.

But like other entertainers of the day, you had to have an "act" to work in Las Vegas.

"We did a whole thing on 'The Music Man' where we acted it out, almost like a little play," she says. "Those people came expecting to see a show, and if you didn't give it to them, they didn't hesitate about letting you know it," she adds with a laugh.

Lee now says she does only about 20 shows a year, and Las Vegas is one of the few cities that can get her on to an airplane instead of working close to home in Nashville.

And yes, she says an invitation from the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend festival next year should ensure that she makes it back here to nail that 1956-to-2016 milestone.

But retire completely?

"We can't. We can't do it," she says, laughing again. "We all say, 'Oh, when I get to so-and-so an age I'm just gonna hang it up.' And then that age comes and you're like, 'Well I'm still feeling pretty good. I'll go on a few more years.'

"And before you know it, you're old. And you're still doing it," she says.

But look at Merle Haggard at 78, winning a round against lung cancer and also set to play the Golden Nugget in December.

"You can't take that voice away from the Hag or a lot of people who are still doing it," she says. "You know what? It's a gift that we've been given, and if we're able to do it, and the audience still wants us to? Then why not?"

Read more from Mike Weatherford at bestoflasvegas.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com.