| Barbara
Mandrell, thanks to a string of hit
singles and a popular television variety
series, was arguably the biggest female
star in country music in the late '70s
and early '80s. Born the oldest daughter
into a musical family in Houston, TX, on
Christmas Day, 1948, Mandrell was
already reading music and playing
accordion by the age of five. Just six
years later, she was so adept at playing
the steel guitar that her father
escorted her to a music trade convention
in Chicago, where her talents caught the
attention of Chet Atkins and Joe Maphis.
Soon after, she was a featured performer
in Maphis' Las Vegas nightclub show,
followed by television performances and
tours with Red Foley, Johnny Cash, and
Tex Ritter.
When Mandrell was 14, her family
formed its own group, with her father
Irby on vocals and guitar, her mother
Mary Ellen on bass, and Barbara handling
pedal steel and saxophone. The band also
included drummer Ken Dudney, whom
Mandrell would eventually marry. The
Mandrells toured the U.S. and Asia
before Barbara made her first recordings
in 1963, among them the minor hit "Queen
for a Day." After a few more years of
touring, Mandrell briefly retired in
order to become a housewife, but she
soon grew restless and returned to the
music business. After signing with
Columbia in 1969, she notched her first
chart hit, a cover of the Otis Redding
classic "I've Been Loving You Too Long."
In 1970, Mandrell scored the first of
many Top 40 hits with "Playin' Around
With Love." In the same year, she began
performing with singer David Houston,
and their partnership also generated
considerable chart success.
In 1975, Mandrell jumped to the
ABC/Dot label, and under the guidance of
producer Tom Collins reached the Top
Five for the first time with the single
"Standing Room Only." After a series of
successive hits, she earned her first
number one with 1978's "Sleeping Single
in a Double Bed," which was immediately
followed by another chart-topper, "(If
Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be
Right," in early 1979. Later in the
year, "Years" also reached number one,
as did three more singles -- "I Was
Country When Country Wasn't Cool,"
"'Till You're Gone," and "One of a Kind
Pair of Fools" -- between 1981 and 1983,
a period during which Mandrell also
received numerous industry awards and
accolades.
In 1980, the TV program Barbara
Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters
premiered on NBC. In addition to hosts
Barbara, Louise, and Irlene Mandrell,
the show featured musical guests and
comedy sketches. Each broadcast also
closed with a gospel song, and in 1982
Mandrell released her own inspirational
album, He Set My Life to Music. As a
result of her busy schedule, she began
suffering from vocal strain, and on
doctor's orders pulled the plug on the
television program in 1982. In 1983, she
premiered The Lady Is a Champ, a Las
Vegas stage show, and released two LPs,
In Black & White and Spun Gold.
A collection of duets with Lee
Greenwood, Clean Cut, followed in 1984.
Tragedy struck later in the year,
however, when Mandrell and two of her
children were involved in a nightmarish
head-on car crash that left the other
driver dead. Though Mandrell and her
kids survived, all three faced a long
period of recovery. When she finally
returned to performing a year later, the
country music landscape had changed
dramatically, with the "new
traditionalist" movement gaining
dominance while the glitzier, more
pop-influenced music Mandrell favored
began falling out of favor. As the 1980s
became the 1990s, she began focusing
almost exclusively on live performing,
where she remained a significant draw;
she also published her autobiography,
Get to the Heart: My Story. |
