Barbara Mandrell has been thanking people this week. The country legend, now 77, posted a heartfelt message on Instagram on Nov. 2, and the order of her thank-yous said a lot about her.
She thanked God first. “First and foremost, I give thanks to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whose grace has guided me throughout my life and career,” she wrote.
Her family came next. “I’m grateful to my family, the musicians and songwriters who have been part of this journey, and the fans who have supported me through every season.”
Barbara starred in the NBC show “Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters” from 1980 to 1982. She was the first woman to win the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award two years in a row, in 1980 and 1981. She joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1972 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
But her family story starts long before any of that.
Barbara is the eldest child of country guitarist Irby Mandrell and his wife, Mary. Mary taught her accordion and how to read music before Barbara even started first grade. By age 10, she was taking steel guitar lessons.
When she was a teenager, her dad formed the Mandrell Family Band around her. Barbara played steel guitar, Mary played piano and Irby sang lead. They played military bases across the U.S. and in Asia, and the family band later entertained troops in Vietnam. A San Diego TV station caught the family coming home from that trip.
The Mandrell family home from Vietnam in 1966
Every band needs a drummer. Irby hired a young man named Ken Dudney for the job.
That’s the hire that changed everything. As the Country Music Hall of Fame puts it, “She fell in love with the band’s first drummer, Ken Dudney, who eventually left to become a Navy pilot.”
Barbara met him as a teenager in her family’s band, and they married on May 28, 1967. Ken became a Navy carrier pilot. After the wedding, Barbara even stepped away from music for a while.
While Ken was deployed, she moved back in with her parents. Then she took a trip to the Ryman Auditorium with her dad. Her official biography says that’s when “She felt that she was not destined for a life of sitting in the audience.”
So she went back on stage. You know the rest.
Her younger sisters, Louise and Irlene, later became her TV co-stars. This 1980 episode puts all three sisters on screen together.
Barbara, Louise and Irlene on their TV show in 1980
Want to see the two younger sisters on their own? Here are Louise and Irlene about a decade later, sitting down for a 1991 interview.
Louise and Irlene Mandrell sit down together in 1991
Barbara and Ken have been married since 1967. They have three children: Matthew, born in 1970, Jaime in 1976 and Nathan in 1985. Her official site calls her a “Mother of three, grandmother and wife.”
In 2017, the couple marked 50 years of marriage with a party, and someone was there with a camera. It’s a sweet way to see the drummer and the steel guitar girl all those years later.
Barbara and Ken celebrate 50 years together
It’s no surprise that family came right after faith when Barbara said thank you. Her dad gave her a band, and that band brought her Ken.
She closed her note with this: “Country music has been a gift to me, and I’m humbled that the songs and performances we shared continue to mean something to people.”