Lee, whose voice defied her diminutive stature at only 4 foot 9, became a fan favorite when she was only 12.

Brenda May Tarpley, born in 1944, got her start in the late 1940s, became huge in the 1950s, and over her career–that started before she left elementary school–she topped the charts 55 times, earning the title as the most successful female recording artist of the 1960s.

Taking care of her younger brother, big sister, and mother–a cotton mill worker–was not a duty, but something she wanted to do. She said that she was thrilled when she made her first $2so she could help her family: “Even at that young age, I saw that helped our life,” Lee said, adding “It put some food on the table. It helped, and I loved it.”

The Atlanta-born chanteuse, called a early rock and roll,” by the Georgia Encyclopedia, achieved “unprecedented international popularity in the 1960s.”