Dottsy

Dottsy Brodt entered the world on 6 April 1954 in Sequin, a town close to San Antonio, Texas. Already performing by 1966, the twelve-year-old joined a local trio that played clubs throughout her immediate region. Four years later she advanced to the finals of a prominent KBER San Antonio talent contest and hosted her own television program. University studies in special education—focused on instructing handicapped or subnormal children—occupied her from 1972 onward at the University of Texas, yet she still assembled the band Meadow Muffin. During a San Antonio convention appearance, promoter Happy Shahan took notice, arranging high-profile slots alongside Johnny Rodriguez and securing her an RCA Records deal. Jessi Colter’s “Storms Never Last” served as her debut single and climbed into the Top 20 of the US country chart in 1975; Susanna Clark’s “I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose” followed promptly. Additional late-seventies successes included the Top 10 single “(After Sweet Memories) Play Born To Lose Again.” In 1979 Waylon Jennings supplied guitar and harmony vocals behind Dottsy’s lead vocal on his own composition “Trying To Satisfy You,” generating another Top 20 entry. Faced with the prospect of major stardom, she elected to scale back performances in order to finish her degree. By the early eighties her energies centered on autistic and mentally retarded children. Her final appearance on the charts came in 1981 with a modest Tanglewood Records release titled “Let The Little Bird Fly.”