After Liberty Records released this single, Jackie Dee switched to Fraternity Records to release “Just Another Lie.” But this time she the song was credited to Jackie Shannon and The Cajuns. The other tune, “Buddy,” imitated Brenda Lee and got Jackie Dee some attention on a few radio stations. The song was set to a beat that could be danced to either The Stroll or Calypso. The “Strolypso Dance” was a tune that borrowed from both Brenda Lee and Paul Anka in vocal style. Then, in 1958, Jackie Dee recorded two songs she wrote in Nashville. Her single for Gone Records was “I’ll Be True,” a 1953 R&B hit for Faye Adams, and “How Wrong I Was.” With her single release, Jackie Dee appeared at the Uptown Theater, Philadelphia on 3rd July 1957, and at the Paramount in Brooklyn, New York, with Alan Freed’s Big Rock’n’ roll Show in mid-July. Billboard wrote in their June 10, 1957, issue that Sherry Lee Myers is a “16-year old C&W singer of Batavia, Illinois.” Music writer Bill Sachs reported that Myers had been “recently signed as a rockabilly artist by George Goldner’s Gone Records in New York, out of the Gale Agency in the Big Town.” Her managers, Irving Schacht and Paul Kallett, had changed her name to Jackie Dee. The single, “Baby Honey,” featured Sherry Lee attempting a fast paced country waltz with ringing steel guitar behind that got out of synch with the rhythm with each successive verse. Lee was described as a confident young girl with a clear, warm voice. On the Mar-Vel label, their singles bore the motto: “Hits of Tomorrow Recorded Today.” Mar-Vel Records had her billed as “Sixteen year old Miss Country Music” on the label credits. In 1956, Sherry Lee recorded her first single on Mar-Vel Records based in Hammond, Indiana. Following her television appearance this Saturday night, the young Batavia artist will appear at the West Aurora Junior High School auditorium on Sunday, March 4th for three shows, 2, 4, and 8 P.M.” She had made appearances with the Pee Wee King Show at Ottawa, Rockford and LaSalle in recent weeks. Each Saturday morning at 9:30 she is on the WMRO radio show, Saturday nights she is the vocalist with the valley’s Square Dance Band, Don Lee and his Fox Valley Boys. In anticipation of her upcoming TV appearance, the Batavia Herald wrote: “Sherry Lee is a busy young lady. The following year, now billed as Sherry Lee Myers, the young singer appeared on a TV broadcast of CBS affiliate in Chicago on March 3, 1956. Also she has sung on radio with a rhythm band for 2 years and has appeared on television 3 times.” A headline in on May 5, 1955, in the Batavia Herald read “Sharon Lee Myers, Only 13, Is Talented Batavia Vocalist.” The paper enthused, “Though only 13, the youngster can boast almost 11 years of voice training and experience and in the past she has toured most of the south making personal appearances. Her dad became a barber and young Sharon got instant recognition in the local paper. A year later, when she was in 8th grade, the family moved to nearby Batavia, Illinois. In 1954, with the family farm posing mounting challenges, the family moved to her mother’s home town of Aurora, Illinois, a seven hour drive north of Hazel. And by 1952, Sharon Lee Myers was hosting her own radio show. By 1947, she was appearing on a local radio station as a child country and western singer. When she was only two years old she received her first vocal training. Sharon Lee Myers was born in Hazel, Kentucky, in 1941, a town on the Tennessee and western Kentucky border. #642: Needles And Pins by Jackie DeShannon
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