Like almost all of
Brenda Lee's early albums,
Brenda, That's All was a mix of material that seemed designed to highlight her versatility. Pop music was at the center, but there were various shades of country, R&B, and the adult pop market. It's not a scintillating record, but it's pretty good, in part because it avoids the overemphasis on adult pop standards that hurt some of her LPs from the period. "Fool #1" and "You Can Depend on Me" (which had actually been released as singles the year before most of the sessions for
Brenda, That's All took place) are the only hits, but there are some good tracks here, whether the buoyant "I'm Sitting on Top of the World," the bluesily arranged "White Silver Sands," the orchestrated country-pop of "Just Out of Reach," and the mildly swinging "Why Me?" (co-written by
Brook Benton). "Someday You'll Want Me to Want You" is the kind of classy, impeccably produced pop ballad in which she specialized in the early '60s, and sounds like it could have had a chance of being a hit single on its own steam. The whole album is impressively sung and immaculately produced, in fact, in common with much of what
Lee recorded under
Owen Bradley's direction. ~ Richie Unterberger