In her six-year tenure at Columbia, Barbara reached the Top Ten of Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart four times, two of them duets with David Houston. In 1975, she signed with ABC/Dot and her first single for the label, “Standing Room Only,” climbed to #5.
Three more Top Ten singles later, Barbara scored her first number one record with “Sleeping Single In A Double Bed.” Her producer at ABC/Dot, Tom Collins, initiated the idea for the song. His wife’s grandparents slept together on a small bed and it seemed to him that they were “sleepin’ double on a single bed.”
He passed the idea along to two of his most-productive writers in his publishing company – Kye Fleming and Dennis Morgan – and Kye turned the idea around to “Sleeping Single In A Double Bed.” The song was pitched all over town with no takers, so Collins cut it on Mandrell. The record is buoyed by a Michael McDonald-like keyboard riff that Collins also used on several more of her singles.
Ultimately, “Sleeping Single In A Double Bed” spent three weeks at number one on Billboard’s country chart beginning November 4, 1978, and when the record company threw a “number one” party, Mandrell gave a diamond necklace to Fleming and a diamond ring to Morgan.
