CMT News

Gospel Legend Dottie Rambo Killed in Tour Bus Accident

The Missouri Highway Patrol is continuing to investigate a Sunday morning (May 11) tour bus accident that claimed the life of gospel music legend Joyce "Dottie" Rambo, 74, of Nashville. Six other people in the bus, including her manager, were injured when the 1997 Prevost bus crashed into a guard rail and an embankment around 2:20 a.m. on Interstate 44 near Mount Vernon, Mo. At the time of the accident, the singer-songwriter was traveling to a Mother's Day performance at a church in North Richland Hills, Texas. Rambo began her gospel music career at age 12 and eventually wrote more than 2,500 songs and won a Grammy in 1968 for her album, The Soul of Me. Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007, she was inducted twice into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame -- as a solo artist in 1982 and with former husband Buck Rambo and their daughter, singer-songwriter Reba Rambo, as the Rambos singing group in 2001. Her new album, Sheltered, is scheduled to be released this summer. Her songs have been recorded by Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Whitney Houston, Barbara Mandrell and many others. She and Parton recorded a duet for the title track of Rambo's 2003 album, Stand by the River.