Barbara Mandrell

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… Show more 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). ~ Rovi

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