Barbara Mandrell

Biography

Barbara Ann Mandrell (born December 25, 1948) is an American country music singer. She is best-known for a 1970s–1980s series of Top 10 hits and TV shows (1980-82) that helped her become one of country music's most successful female vocalists of the 1970s and 1980s. She was the first performer and is currently the only female in country music history to win the Country Music Association's "Entertainer of the Year" award twice, and she has also won the Country Music Association's "Female Vocalist of the Year" twice. Mandrell's first number-one hit was 1978's "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed" and immediately followed by "(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right" in early 1979. Later in the year, "Years" also reached number one, as did three more singles: "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool" (her signature song), then "'Till You're Gone" and "One of a Kind Pair of Fools"—between 1981 and 1983, a period also during which Mandrell received numerous industry awards and accolades.