By Tennille Ayers
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Thelma Louise Mandrell (born July 13, 1954) is an American country music singer. She is the younger sister of fellow country singer Barbara Mandrell, and older sister of musician Irlene Mandrell. Louise had a successful singing career in country music from the 1970s, with a string of hits during the 1980s.
Thelma Louise Mandrell was born in 1954, to Mary Ellen (née McGill; born 1931) and Irby Matthew Mandrell (October 11, 1924 – March 5, 2009) in Corpus Christi, Texas, United States. She is the second of three daughters. Sister Barbara is five and a half years older; sister Irlene is one and a half years younger. Her mother, Mary, was a homemaker and musician hailing from rural Wayne County, Illinois. Her father Irby was a World War II naval veteran and Texas police officer from Garland County, Arkansas. Irby Mandrell was an accomplished musician and entrepreneur as well. He used his impeccable social skills and knowledge of the music industry to manage all three of his daughters’ careers for over three decades.
Although Louise Mandrell never developed the scale of fan base or the worldwide recognition that her older sister Barbara gained in country music, she is still credited as one of country music’s more successful female vocalists of the 1980s. With their parents coming from a musical background, Barbara started off working as a singer, and playing the steel guitar and other instruments, and toured with Patsy Cline in the early 1960s. Mandrell learned to play the guitar and bass. Soon, their parents founded the Mandrell Family Band, which toured the United States and Asia.
Barbara’s professional recognition in country music in the early 1970s with hits like “Tonight My Baby’s Coming Home” and “The Midnight Oil” gave Louise opportunities at success. She started performing in Barbara’s band The DoRites in 1969. Her first time in the studio was on the recording “Always Wanting You“, a no. 1 hit for country singer-songwriter and Bakersfield sound pioneer Merle Haggard in 1975.[citation needed] In 1978, she signed with Epic Records.
1983 turned out to be her most successful year. She entered the top 15 with “Runaway Heart,” and had the two top 10 hits “Save Me” (originally recorded by Northern Irish singer Clodagh Rodgers) and “Too Hot to Sleep“. In 1984, Mandrell had two other Top 40 hits, “Goodbye Heartache” and “I’m Not Through Loving You Yet” (co-written by Holly Dunn), and in 1985 the song “I Wanna Say Yes” entered the top 5.
In 1985, RCA released her first music video for the hit single “Some Girls Have All The Luck“, a female-centric cover version of the 1973 hit song recorded by The Persuaders and Rod Stewart.
Mandrell’s last studio album Dreamin’ was released in 1987, with the single “I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips” and having her last top 40 hit with the single “Do I Have To Say Goodbye”. Her last charted single came in 1988 with a cover of the song “As Long As We Got Each Other”, a duet with Eric Carmen. The latter was the theme song of the 1985-1992 television sitcom Growing Pains.
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Born
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Died
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- Yousuf Karsh (photographer) –
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Events
- The American Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, establishing the procedure for the creation of new states –
- Current U.S. patent numbering system began –
- The first official cat show took place, in London –
- Theodore Roosevelt laid the corner stone for a new county courthouse in Mineola, New York, and spoke of the need for honesty in government. While he was talking, one man had his pockets picked of $140 and another man lost $103 –
- Women competed in modern Olympics for the first time –
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- Blackout strikes NYC at 9:34 P.M. and lasts until the next day. The sweltering evening turn into a night of near total chaos. Police arrest some 3,200 looters –
- Montreal hosted the first baseball All-Star Game outside the U.S. –
- Ken Jennings, a software engineer from Salt Lake City, won his 30th straight game on Jeopardy! which brought his earnings to $1,004,960. He was the first contestant to pass the $1 million mark. –
- A Maine fisherman caught a half-brown, half-orange lobster. The odds of catching this kind of lobster are 1 in 50 million –
Weather
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