Barbara Mandrell Biography

Fast Facts

• Learned to read music and play the accordion by the age of 5
• At 11, demonstrated the steel guitar at a music trade show in Chicago, where she was discovered by country performer Joe Maphis
• Her family formed its own group when she was 14
• A member of the band was drummer Ken Dudney, whom she would later marry
• Signed with Columbia Records in 1969, scoring her first hit with a cover of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long
• " Inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1972
• After her family band broke up, she formed the Do-Rites with her sisters, Louise and Irlene
• In 1979, won Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year
• Headlined the NBC variety series Barbara Mandrell & the Mandrell Sisters (1980-82)
• Was the first artist to win CMA Entertainer of the Year for two consecutive years (1980 and '81)
• Penned her autobiography, Get to the Heart: My Story (1990), which was later made into a TV movie, Get to the Heart: The Barbara Mandrell Story (1997)