1976 Let Your Love Flow
Barbara Ann Mandrell (born December 25, 1948) is an American country music singer and actress. She is known for a series of Top 10 hits and TV shows in the 1970s and 1980s that helped her become one of country's most successful female vocalists of that period. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. Born in Houston, Texas, the eldest daughter into a musical family, Mandrell was already reading music and playing accordion at age five. Six years later, she had become so adept at playing steel guitar that her father took her to a music trade convention in Chicago, where her talents caught the attention of Chet Atkins and Joe Maphis. Soon after, she became a featured performer in Maphis' Las Vegas nightclub show, followed by tours with Red Foley, Tex Ritter, and Johnny Cash. Her network TV debut came on the NBC-TV series Five Star Jubilee in 1961. While growing up, Mandrell learned to play the pedal steel and lap steel guitars and many other instruments, including the accordion, saxophone, and banjo. She played steel guitar for the legendary Patsy Cline, who once wrote to a friend that Mandrell was, "a 13-year-old blonde doll who plays the steel guitar out of this world! What a show woman!" Mandrell toured at age 13 with Cline, Johnny Cash, and George Jones. She also played guitar for Joe Maphis in Las Vegas and on the Town Hall Party show in Los Angeles. A couple of years later, Mandrell and her sisters Louise and Irlene, as well as her parents, founded the Mandrell Family Band. They toured across the United States and Asia. Their drummer, Ken Dudney, became Mandrell's husband shortly after graduating from Oceanside High School. Dudney later enlisted in the Navy, serving as a pilot, and was sent overseas. Mandrell decided that she would become a country singer and moved to Nashville. Her father was then her manager and with his help, she signed with Columbia Records in 1969. Over the next couple of years, Mandrell had a few minor hits. Her producer at the time was Billy Sherrill, known for producing other well-known singers in country music such as Tammy Wynette, Charlie Rich, and Tanya Tucker.
Barbara Mandrell married Ken Dudney on May 28, 1967. Dudney had been the drummer in the Mandrell Family Band. Mandrell and Dudney have three children, Kenneth Matthew Dudney (b. 1970), Jaime Nicole Dudney (b. 1976), and Nathaniel Mandrell Dudney (b. 1985).
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