Probably more so than any other performer, Barbara Mandrell, who will perform at 6 and 9 p.m. today at the Allentown Fair with the Thrasher Brothers, represents the ideal female country music entertainer. She’s petite, pretty, happily married and fabulously successful.
She is, along with Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn, certainly one of the best-known female country singers. Unlike her counterparts, though, she had success at an early age. Her’s is not the story of backwoods, poverty- stricken youth.
Born into a musical family in Houston, Mandrell’s mother Mary taught her to play the accordion and she learned to read music before English. Her first public appearance was at 5, playing “Gospel Boogie” at her uncle’s church.
When she was 11, her father Irby took her to a music trade convention in Chicago, where she demonstrated the steel guitar. At the convention, Chet Atkins was impressed by her talent (she had also learned to play the saxophone) and invited her to join The Joe Maphis Show at the Showboat Hotel, Las Vegas.
She soon became a regular on “Town Hall Party,” a local TV show in Los Angeles. Her network debut was on Red Foley’s “Five Star Jubilee” on ABC-TV. She toured with the Johnny Cash show, featuring Patsy Cline, George Jones and June Carter.
It was then that the family formed The Mandrells, which included Irby, Mary and Barbara. The family toured the West Coast and 18 foreign countries, including Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, entertaining at military bases and for civic groups.
The Mandrells hired Ken Dudney, a drummer. After joining the Navy and becoming a pilot in 1967, he and Barbara married. When he was stationed overseas, Mandrell stopped performing. But one night, while she and her father were attending the Grand Ole Opry, she told him, “Daddy, I wasn’t cut out to be in the audience.”
Following a performance at a club near the Opry, Mandrell received offers for recording contracts from six record companies. She signed with CBS. Her first hit was a recording of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
Mandrell became a regular at the Opry. She recorded a succession of hit country singles, switching to ABC (which became MCA), including “Midnight Oil,” “Standing Room Only,” “Sleeping Single in a DoubleBed,” “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right).” “Sleeping Single” also became a big crossover hit for her, scoring on the pop charts.
In 1979, she was named the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year. Also that year, she began her successful “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” NBC-TV show, which introduced sisters Louise and Irlene. After two years, she had to give up the show because of the constant strain on her voice. She resumed touring in 1982. Her father Irby runs her Mandrell Management firm.
She continues to record successful albums. Her recent hit is a duet with Lee Greenwood, “To Me.” She has received acclaim for her Las Vega revue, “The Lady is a Champ,” telecast on HBO. And she has won numerous awards, including the Country Music Association’s Entertainer Of The Year and Female Vocalist Of The Year for two years, and four People’s Choice awards, including favorite all-around female entertainer for two years.
She has received national recognition for her sponsorship of an annual celebrity softball tournament, a yearly golf tournament, a youth hockey league and a softball team. She’s an avid golfer, skier and fisherman. She and her husband have two children, Matthew, 14, and Jaime, 8.
Blonde, blue-eyed, 5 feet 2 inches, and weighing less than 100 pounds, Mandrell has strong beliefs and standards. She told The Saturday Evening Post that she considers herself a “public employee who has an obligation to look and act her best for the people who buy her albums, stand in line to see her in concert or tune her in on television.”
Probably the biggest thrill of her career was receiving a Grammy Award last year for her gospel album, “He Set My Life to Music.”
That album best reflects her positive outlook on life:
“If there’s a decision to be made, I simply put it in God’s hands . . . and things just begin to fall into place.”
Barbara Mandrell, backed up by the Do-Rites, will perform at 6 and 9 p.m. today at the Allentown Fairgrounds Grandstand. Opening the show will be the Thrasher Brothers. Tickets are $13 and $9, track seats, and $13, $9 and $7, grandstand seats.
