Women in Country: Living Legend Barbara Mandrell

March is Women’s History Month, so in celebration, each week we’ll take a look at some of the many women who broke barriers in the industry and helped pave the way for female artists today. This week we take a look at the Sweetheart of Steel, Barbara Mandrell.

She grew up in a family of musicians and she could read music as well as play the accordion when she was only 5, according to Wikipedia. By the time Barbara was 11, she could play the pedal steel so well that her Dad took her to a music convention to demonstrate the instrument and only 2 years later she played pedal steel in Patsy Cline's band. She can play both the pedal and lap steel, accordion, saxophone, banjo, among others.

She moved to Nashville in 1969 and started working with legendary producer Billy Sherrill, who had produced Tammy Wynette and Tanya Tucker. In 1975, she switched producers and record labels and the hits started coming, beginning with this her first number 1 song in 1978, 'Sleeping Single in a Double Bed',

This was quickly followed by this hit in 1979, 'If Lovin' You is Wrong, I don't want to be right'.

In 1980, she expanded into television with the variety show  'Barbara Mandrell and The Mandrell Sisters" on NBC. It only ran for two years, as she was ordered by doctors to go on vocal rest in 1982, but during it's run it featured many of Country's biggest stars.

Two years later, in 1984, Barbara and her two children were involved in a head-on car accident. Barbara suffered severe head trauma and multiple leg fractures. The driver of the other vehicle, a teenager, died in the crash. It took her over a year and a half to recover. She made headlines when she sued the family of the deceased teenager. According to Wikipedia, many of her fans left her and her career never fully recovered. At the time, under Tennessee law, she had to sue them to force her insurance company to cover her bills, but the public never knew that she had sent the family a note saying she wanted no money from them, only for her insurance company to pay.

Barbara Mandrell was the first performer to win the coveted CMA Entertainer of the Year award twice, and was the first female to ever do so. She would go on to win 6 ACM awards, 6 American Music Awards, 4 CMA's, 2 Grammy awards, 9 People's Choice awards. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009, the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2014, and received a Woman of the World award from Oprah Winfrey in 1992.

She expanded the definition of what people thought a female country artist could do, and we thank her for that.