Judy Rodman

Singer/songwriter Judy Rodman entered the world in Riverside, California, as the daughter of an air-traffic controller who also performed part-time bluegrass music. She first sang at age four and had become a capable guitarist by age eight, when she made her initial appearance with her father’s band at a cruise ship gathering. Repeated family relocations sparked her curiosity about an array of styles that stretched from classical through Cajun to calypso. At seventeen she began recording advertising jingles, one of which for Jeno’s Pizza aired nationwide. Later, while pursuing music studies in college, she and her roommate Janie Fricke supplied jingles for the Tanner Agency in Memphis; she also performed locally with the nightclub band Phase II.

Throughout the mid-’70s she contributed backup vocals to country and soul artists. Following her 1980 marriage to professional bass fisherman and drummer John Rodman, the couple settled in Nashville, where she continued jingle work for national clients and supplied backup vocals for Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, and Ray Charles. Mid-decade brought her first chart success, a Top 40 placement for the debut single “I’ve Been Had by Love Before.” The follow-up “You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone” performed more strongly, and before the year closed she scored a Top 30 hit with her own composition “I Sure Need Your Lovin’.”

Rodman made her Grand Ole Opry debut in 1986 and issued the album Judy, which yielded the number-one single “Until I Met You” and the Top Ten follow-up “That She’ll Marry.” Her second album, A Place Called Love, appeared in 1987 and generated multiple hits; additional singles intended for a third project also charted, yet the label ceased operations before the record could be released. She subsequently resumed backup singing and songwriting. In the mid-’90s she joined the Warner-Chappell Music roster as a writer while preparing another attempt at a recording contract.