Mean Mary was born on March 22, 1980, in Geneva, Alabama, though her family lived near Bonifay, Florida, about two miles from Alabama. She was the youngest of six children. She could read music before she could read words and wrote original songs at age five. After recording her first original tune (and theme song), "Mean Mary from Alabam'", at age six, the song went public and it was then she was given the name Mean Mary by the press.

From 1986 – 1989 she was a regular on the Country Boy Eddie Show on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama.

On February 14, 2003, she was the passenger in a car accident. Her head broke the windshield and her neck cracked the dashboard leaving her right vocal cord paralyzed with little hope of recovery. She performed as just an instrumentalist for the next year until in 2004 she was informed by a specialist that there was slight movement in the vocal cord with a possibility of full recovery.^[