Brenda Lee, 77, is the American singer who found fame in 1960 with I’m Sorry. She has sold more than 100 million records and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree has become a Christmas standard.

She has had 19 UK Top 40 hits and was the fourth most successful recording artist in America in the 1960s after Elvis Presley, the Beatles (who opened for her in Hamburg) and Ray Charles.

Today she lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband.

How did your childhood influence your attitude to money? 

We didn’t have any money, so there wasn’t much of an attitude for it. I had a happy childhood but it was not filled with a lot of material things. I had sisters and a brother and grew up in Georgia. My dad was a carpenter and my mother worked in a cotton mill. My dad died in 1953 when I was eight, and my mom taught me everything I know about life.

Was she surprised when you wanted a career in music? 

Well, I had been singing since I was three years old and both my mom and dad always said that one day I would be a star.

What was your first job? 

Probably on a television station called WAGA-TV out of Atlanta, Georgia. I was singing. It was called the TV Ranch show with Jon Farmer and the TV Wranglers. I was about nine or 10.

My first big break was with Red Foley, out of Springfield, Missouri, when I was 10. He had a national television show called Ozark Jubilee and I became a regular on that. And that’s, basically, how it all started.

How much were you paid?

I never knew anything about that. My mother handled all that and my manager, Dub Allbritten. I never knew about money and I didn’t want to know. All I wanted to be was a singer.

Are you a saver or a spender?

I save it. It was the court’s jurisdiction. Any money that I made went into the court to be kept for me until I was 21.

Have you invested?

Yes. We’ve invested in a lot of property and land, but we don’t dabble in the stock market.

Does money make you happy?

No. My family makes me happy. My friends make me happy. It’s nice to not worry about money so much, but no I don’t think that’s what makes you happy.