A succession of chart-topping singles paired with a hit NBC variety series established vocalist Barbara Mandrell as arguably the most prominent female artist in country music throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s. The oldest daughter in a musical household, she entered the world in Houston, Texas, on Christmas Day, 1948, and had already learned to read music while mastering the accordion by age five. Six years after that milestone she displayed such command of the steel guitar that her father brought her to a music-industry convention in Chicago, where her playing drew notice from Chet Atkins and Joe Maphis. She soon joined Maphis as a featured act in his Las Vegas nightclub revue and later shared stages and television appearances with Red Foley, Johnny Cash, and Tex Ritter.
At fourteen Mandrell’s family launched its own touring ensemble, with father Irby on vocals and guitar, mother Mary Ellen on bass, and Barbara herself handling pedal steel and saxophone. Drummer Ken Dudney, who would later become her husband, completed the lineup. The group traveled across the United States and Asia, and in 1963 Barbara cut her first recordings, including the minor hit “Queen for a Day.” After several more years on the road she stepped away briefly to focus on domestic life, yet restlessness soon drew her back to performing. Signing with Columbia in 1969, she scored her initial chart entry with a cover of the Otis Redding classic “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” The following year she reached the Top 40 for the first time via “Playin’ Around with Love” and began a successful duet partnership with David Houston that produced additional hits.
In 1975 she moved to ABC/Dot, where producer Tom Collins guided her to the Top Five for the first time with “Standing Room Only.” A string of further successes culminated in her debut number-one single, 1978’s “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed,” which was quickly followed by the chart-topping “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right” in early 1979. Later that year “Years” also reached the summit, as did three more singles—“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,” “’Til You’re Gone,” and “One of a Kind Pair of Fools”—between 1981 and 1983, a stretch that also brought her numerous industry awards.
The NBC program Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters debuted in 1980, featuring Barbara alongside sisters Louise and Irlene as hosts of musical guests and comedy sketches; each episode closed with a gospel number. In 1982 she released the inspirational album He Set My Life to Music. Exhaustion and vocal strain prompted her to end the series that same year on medical advice. She launched the Las Vegas production The Lady Is a Champ in 1983 and issued the albums In Black & White and Spun Gold. Clean Cut arrived in 1984.
Later that year a head-on collision claimed the life of the other driver and left Mandrell and two of her children seriously injured, requiring an extended recovery period. When she resumed touring a year later, the country-music scene had shifted toward the “new traditionalist” style, diminishing demand for the polished, pop-inflected sound she had popularized. Throughout the transition into the 1990s she concentrated primarily on live performances, which continued to draw strong audiences; she also published her autobiography, Get to the Heart: My Story, in 1990. Two further studio albums followed—1991’s Key’s in the Mailbox, her final Capitol release, and 1997’s It Works for Me—along with occasional television appearances, before she formally announced her retirement in 1997.
