Dottie Rambo (March 2, 1934 – May 11, 2008) was an American gospel singer and songwriter. She was a Grammy-winning solo artist and multiple Dove Award-winning artist. Along with ex-husband Buck and daughter Reba, she formed the award-winning southern gospel group The Rambos. She wrote more than 2,500 songs, including her most notable, "The Holy Hills of Heaven Call Me", "He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need", "We Shall Behold Him", and "I Go To the Rock".
Whitney Houston, Elvis Presley, Sandi Patty, Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and George Jones are among those who have recorded Rambo's songs. She also hosted a TV series on TBN that ran as their #2-rated show for six years, “The Dottie Rambo Magazine”.
In 1991 Dottie was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and in 1997 the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame. In 2000, Rambo was awarded the ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006 she was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. In 2007, she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter Association's Hall of Fame, becoming only the 10th female ever inducted. In 2008, she was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
On May 11, 2008, while on her tour bus headed to Texas for a Mother's Day concert, it crashed in Mt. Vernon, Missouri, killing her instantly.
She was born Joyce Reba Luttrell in Madisonville, Kentucky in 1934 to Jerald Vernon "Chick" and Elizabeth Luttrell. According to personal accounts, she grew up in poverty and developed an early affinity for country music. She learned to play guitar while listening at night to the Grand Ole Opry on WSM radio in Nashville. At age eight, she started writing songs while sitting on a creek bank near her Morganfield, Kentucky home. She had the support of her mother and father, and by age ten she was singing and playing country music cover tunes on a local radio program.
At twelve years old, she became a born-again Christian and made a commitment to write and sing Christian music. The decision turned out to be pivotal in more than one way; it did not sit well with her father who gave her an ultimatum – give up Christian music or leave. She left home and went on the road, with her first engagement being at a church in Indianapolis, Indiana. She formed a trio called the Gospel Echoes and traveled throughout the midwestern and southern United States. The Gospel Echoes would consist of different members over the years, including Pat Green and Little Joe Hatfield.
In 1950, at age sixteen, she met Buck Rambo at a revival meeting she was holding with evangelist Jimmie Russell. They married shortly thereafter and began traveling and singing together after years of her traveling alone and living with pastors' families.
The Singing Rambos became the group's name with the addition of their daughter Reba in the mid-1960s. Through an introduction by another gospel group, the Happy Goodman Family, Rambo sang for the then-governor of Louisiana, Jimmie Davis, who was also a popular country and gospel music recording artist. Davis signed her to a writing contract with his publishing company, Jimmie Davis Music (BMI).
She received a signing bonus of around $3,000, the most she had ever earned up to that time. Though Jimmie Davis appears as a co-writer on Rambo's compositions during this time, she publicly stated he did not write any music or lyrics to her compositions but required a writer's share upon the publishing agreement. Jimmie Davis Music is now owned by Peer Music.
Throughout the 1960s her star began to rise, mostly as a songwriter, but also as a soloist. As the leader of The Singing Rambos she traveled internationally, including a 1967 trip to Vietnam to perform for American troops. While there, Rambo ministered in field hospitals, the USS Kitty Hawk, and the USS Ticonderoga. In Vietnam the group was billed as the "Swinging Rambos", as the government feared that a Christian singing group's safety could be at risk. US soldiers presented Rambo with a Viet Cong flag and other personal mementos from the war. She also performed in other parts of the world for the USO including Thule, Greenland. Outside of the USO tours she also traveled behind the Iron Curtain, throughout Europe, West Indies, Bahamas, The Holy Land (Israel), and Canada.
Her songwriting break and Davis' company's promotion of Rambo's songs resulted in a Warner Bros. Records recording contract for her and the Gospel Echoes. After earning as little as $50 a week for years, and often working day jobs to make ends meet, Rambo's fortunes began to improve. Their records were selling and her songs were being noticed within the industry, with other gospel groups beginning to record them. In 1968 she won a Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance for her album It's The Soul Of Me. Poor record sales for the Gospel Echoes caused the Warner Bros. label to release the group. Warner Bros. saw something special in Dottie as a solo artist and asked her to sign on with a recording contract for R&B music, she signed instead with the Benson Records as a solo artist and as part of The Singing Rambos.
Rambo worked with Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, Benny Hinn, Kathryn Kuhlman, John Hagee, Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner, Paul and Jan Crouch, Paula White, Reinhard Bonnke, Pat Robertson, T. D. Jakes and others.
Her Down by the Creekbank is one of the most successful Christian children's records in history, earning platinum record status. In addition to her solo and trio recordings, Rambo appeared on other artists' recordings including Jimmie Davis, Barbara Mandrell, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, The Dunaways, David Robertson, Amy Lambert, Kristian Booth, and Walt Mills.
In 1987, Rambo suffered a ruptured disk which led to paralysis in her left leg. She underwent a series of surgeries that eventually reinstated limited mobility. Dottie and Buck divorced in 1994.
Although partially disabled, Rambo made major television appearances including The 700 Club, and as a regular guest performer on TBN. In 1994, TBN produced a Tribute Concert special that featured two hours of performances by Ricky Skaggs, Ricky Van Shelton, Vickie Winans, Jeannie C. Riley, Lulu Roman, and many others.
In 2002, Rambo reentered the studio to record her first solo album in eighteen years. The result was the award-winning hit Stand by the River. The title track, a duet with Dolly Parton, went to the number one spot of the Christian Country Radio Chart, as did its follow-up, "I'm Gonna Leave Here Shoutin'".
In 2004, a major live concert DVD/CD project, We Shall Behold Him: A Tribute to Dottie Rambo, was released. The concert was hosted by Barbara Mandrell and included performances by Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle, Larry Gatlin, The Isaacs, Jessy Dixon, Vestal Goodman, The Speers, The Crabb Family, and Albertina Walker.
In 2007, she performed nationwide and appeared in concert at country singer Dolly Parton's Tennessee theme park, Dollywood.