Roughstock Legend Spotlight: Barbara Mandrell

In the country music world very few artists, let alone female artists were able to achieve as much as Barbara Mandrell did in her 39 years of performing hits. In a candid interview, Barbara discusses her career, family and her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In the country music world very few artists, let alone female artists were able to achieve as much as Barbara Mandrell did in her 39 years of writing, recording and performing hits and acting in television programs.  From a prodigious musical childhood where she was a side performer to her venue-filling turn as the front-woman for many tours, Barbara Mandrell was able to have her father and family and in a candid discussion with Roughstock, she opens up about the various aspects of her career as she is enshrined into the Country Music Hall of Fame on May 18, 2009. 

Matt Bjorke: Your career started while you were just 11 years old and your career didn’t stop until you decided to retire in 1997, at age 49.  Did you think when you started out that you would be making music and entertaining for that many years?

Barbara Mandrell: Not really.  When I started learning to play steel guitar, I was 10 and Norman Hamlet, who has played with Merle Haggard for over 30 years, was my teacher and I started learning saxophone in the school band a few weeks later and then I’d been playing for six months before I was hired to work in a show in Las Vegas (for Joe Maphis).  I then appeared regularly on a local television show in Los Angeles and it just went on from there.  I had worked for 9 years in the business with many people like Red Foley and my first tour was with Johnny Cash, when I was 13, and on that tour he had George Jones and Patsy Cline.  I had done the most wonderful, fun and exciting things but I never really thought of a big picture of a lifetime, I was just enjoying and grateful for it in the moment.

Matt: After retiring at age 18 to focus on your life as a Navy wife to Ken Dudney, you returned a little while later to the stage, only this time you were with Columbia Records and Billy Sherrill.  What made you want to come back?

Barbara: My father took me to the Grand Ole Opry, when it was in the Ryman Auditorium, and I remember sitting in the balcony center watching the Opry, I think it was Dolly Parton, anyway I decided then and there that I could do this and I said ‘Dad, I can do this.  I want to get back in the business, will you manage me?’  He said, “Yes, I will. I would bet my last penny on you.”  So we pursued the career at that point and that’s when I started to envision

Matt: What made you want to retire from performing at age 19?

Barbara: I married Ken Dudney, who was a navy pilot at the time, when he got sent overseas on the aircraft carrier, we had no children and only a cat and my family had moved to Tennessee and I then followed them to Tennessee. 

Matt: What did you learn from your time away from performing?

Barbara: I learned what was necessary to be an officer’s wife.  (laughing) I had to read a book on being an officer’s wife, the protocol, the manners, to learn it.  I had to learn to play bridge, I was busy and at that time I had just finished my last tour, with my daddy’s band in Vietnam.  So I was ready to just be a new bride at the Navy base in Whidbey Island, Washington, before he deployed.

Matt: From that point forward your career really took off.  In 1972 you were invited to join the Grand Ole’ Opry.  Was that a dream come true for you?

Barbara:  Oh, you bet ‘cha!  I am very privileged to be a member of the Grand ole opry.  It’s the most amazing show that there is.

Matt: You became one of the most influential artists, let alone female artists in country music history.  In fact, prior to you, there hadn’t been a repeat winner for the CMA Entertainer of the year.  What did winning those awards mean to you, particularly to become the first two-time Entertainer of the Year winner?

Barbara:  The first time I won, it was so exciting for me that I couldn’t sleep that night.  We had rented a huge suite with a big living room that night for friends and family to come and celebrate, and we did. When everybody had left Ken wanted to go to sleep.  And I said’ “let’s don’t go to bed” but he did anyway and I just couldn’t because I was so giddy, just thrilled.  I was supposed to leave in less than a week to go to California to start my television variety show “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” with my sisters Louise and Irlene.   And In my mind I thought, “This is really big time, I’m the entertainer of the year, this is just the coolest thing that could ever be!” I was beside myself with joy. 

We started the show and we averaged 40 million viewers a week. That was mind-boggling.  My sister’s and I were just blown away about what it did when we went anywhere.  From all ages, little bitty children, it was precious. They’d come up and hug us because they thought they knew us from watching us every week.  It was a wonderful experience and I had to quit after the 2nd year of doing it because it was really taking a toll physically on my throat. I was involved in every aspect of that show. I Did everything on that show, editing, writing, musical arrangement, you name it, I did it.

The second time I won the award, it really was a shock to me.  It was unforgettable, indescribable because what you just said to me.  It had never been done, not by anybody before so I knew I wouldn’t get it.  The first time I won it, I was in high hopes and I thought,” “boy, I really had a great year and I worked really hard. I might have a shot at it; maybe…”  But the second year, I was hosting and busy, so my mind was occupied anyway, but I knew I wasn’t gonna win it because nobody did win (twice before), nobody had won so that just blew me away.

Matt: Well, then it did start a trend where it happened.  But nobody can take away the fact that you were the first person to have it happen.

Barbara: Oh, thanks for saying that it really makes me feel good to hear you say that. 

Matt: You’re welcome.

Matt: The television and movie appearances lead to your creation of the “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” show on NBC.  How much fun was it for you to do this show, not only with the success you achieved from it, but to do the show with your sisters? 

Barbara: Oh, that was the best.  My sister’s and I are like best friends and we don’t get to see each other so much because they’re not retired so the telephone is our friend to get to talk to each other.  But to be with them everyday, working, you gain strength from each other too.  When you’re really tired or concerned with something working or not, it’s nice when it’s with people you’re so close to and concentrated time working together is a real special thing. 

I wanted to say about them, early on in my recording career with Billy Sherrill, I of course (laughing remembering the good old days), you would not believe how hard it is when you don’t get the big bucks.  Early on, in the beginning, we were in a car with a trailer, my father Irby Mandrell, who was not only my father but my manager was with me every step of the way he was my everything and did everything together. We had worked at clubs and I remember one night that was the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak.  Anyway, I was playing with a band and it was so bad, outside of my father who was playing acoustic rhythm but that’s not a band.  Because I am such, when I listen to music I listen to everything, all the parts, this band was bothering me, you know what I mean?

Matt: Like a producer…

Barbara: Yes, it was killing me and I couldn’t stand it so I told dad that night, “If I can’t get a band, it’s not gonna work, because it’s not good.”  Anyway, Louise and Irlene, they were in grade school and they started learning instruments, Irlene the drums and Louise the bass and fiddle and she sang.  They were my first band, and all we had to do was hire a guitar player for me to afford a band because they didn’t get paid, I didn’t get paid, my daddy didn’t get paid, unless we had a show.   And that’s how we managed it.  It’s a corny expression but it really was “all for one and one for all” back then and even now.  We would do anything for each other, to help each other out. And they did it all for me, so I was a really lucky girl to get to work with my sisters on the show and in my band. 

Matt: Around this time you also started acting.  How did that new career opportunity come about?

Barbara:  His name is Gill Cates; he was the president of the Director’s Guild.  He is a really nice man, and now a really nice friend too and he approached my people and asked me to do this movie, it was a starring role which was in all but six scenes of a television movie, and I really had a great time doing it.  After that, whenever I got something good submitted to me, I would say yes.

And (laughing), for what it’s worth, there are more bad movie scripts than there are bad songs…

Matt:  Oh, I agree with that (laughing too)…

Barbara: So I didn’t get to do as many as I would’ve probably enjoyed doing but I did ones I wanted to do.
Matt: In 1984 you and your children survived a horrible car accident. How did this event change your life?

Barbara:  Well, at that time we had two children but it changed my life big time. Certainly my personal life and also my business life.  We kept it quiet at the time, but along with all the injuries, I also had a really serious head injury and unless you’ve had a head injury or know somebody close to you that has a head injury you have no idea how it changes you. 

At one point in time, we lived on the lake at that time and my bedroom had had black-out drapes and rarely wanted to leave the room and everything opposite of how I’d been and how I am now. Minnie Pearl had come up to visit me and get me out of the room to try and help, to talk me into being me again and while being very appreciated and wonderful and loving, it didn’t work. 

Then my father came to me later on and said, ‘Barbara, I want you to do one more show, just tell me you’ll do one more show. Do not let a car hitting you and the kids head on be what dictates your life.  Just do one more show; then if you don’t want to do any more, then great, make that decision but don’t let the car make the decision for you.’ So I honored my father’s wishes and it was such an ordeal.  It took me three years to get my mind back to me, the way I was before.

Matt: What has been the hardest thing in your life to do?

Barbara: I was very candid about the car accident in my autobiography that I wrote in 1990. That book was the hardest thing to write.  George Besey wrote it with me, after I wrote the first chapter.  He helped me because I knew I wouldn’t get the book finished without help because I was so busy.  It was the hardest thing I ever did and it was one of the top selling books of 1990 and that just blew my mind. 

Matt: After another 13 years of hits and successful tours you retired from that part of your career.  What truly was the motivation behind retiring from music? 

Barbara:  To spend more time with my family was a big factor but many, many things went through my mind.  I wasn’t unhappy and in fact I was at the top of my game and everything was perfect and wonderful.  But I was 49 years old or something and I never really wanted to see me on stage in old age…I have to be careful what I say, no I don’t I’m retired, I can say what I want…(laughing). 

Men have it made because as they get older, they get more handsome but women, we just get older.  Physically, I am still a tomboy and very strong and lift 40 pound bags of sunflower seeds to feed the birds every day…

Matt: So that’s how you stay on People Magazine’s “Most Beautiful People” lists…

Barbara: (laughing) You have a nice way with words… But my point is, I’d never really, if you think about it, I’d never had, “a normal life” and people don’t want to see me on stage past 50 anyway, at least for me.  I thought, my youngest son was getting ready to go into high school and I really wanted to consider it.  I prayed about it and my husband prayed with me and it was the perfect decision.  I’ve been very happy with it and people are still so nice to come up to me and talk to me and remember my work, which is a compliment.  The part I was worried about the most, not seeing the people anymore, isn’t really true.  God made my decision easy. 

Matt: You’re now being honored with an induction into the country music hall of fame.  What does this mean to you?  

Barbara: I don’t think there’s anyone in our business, as a performer who wouldn’t be honored to be selected and honored into the magnificent Country Music Hall of Fame.  That’s the ultimate goal.  It’s overwhelming, a highly charged emotional thing. 

I am so grateful to lord Jesus, I am so thankful to him that before he took my father home with him that my father got to go to the press conference for the inductions to the Hall of Fame.  The award is as much his as it is mine. I will miss him so much that day.  It will augment the emotion that day.  It is with great anticipation to be at these events.  It’s an amazing ceremony to watch, a phenomenal evening with these great stars there to perform for each inductee, their hits; it’s a one time kind of thing.  Unbelievable.

Matt: It was wonderful talking to you and congratulations on your award.

Barbara: Matt, thank you very much and you know I love your name as I named my first child Matthew.  Take care of yourself and your beautiful name. 

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