Mary Andrews has been a free-lance photographer for over 30 years. She was a nurse in the daytime and a photographer at night.  She started doing concert photography in Nashville, Tennessee in 1970.  Her next door neighbor was a little known singer, Sammi Smith, who had the hit with Kris Kristoffersons’ “Help Me Make It Through The Night”.  Sammi declared that Mary was her girl photographer and she has been shooting since that time. The friendship placed Mary in a very good position to witness the beginning of the country outlaw movement.  She was able to meet and photograph artists like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash during the transition period of country music. Mary has done various album covers and other media work. She is now working on a book on this subject. When she was not on the road with Sammi, Mary covered other concerts in Nashville.  One such concert was a new artist, Bette Midler, on the Divine Miss M tour.  Mary considered the album to be an exceptional release from a new artist, but she knew little else about Bette.  She managed to procure 4th row seats at the concert in a relatively small theater.  Barry Manilow opened the show with songs from his first album.  He was also the conductor.  "Bette was like an explosion when she hit the stage.  The audience was up, out of their seats with Bette the whole time. Bette made them laugh, cry and experience all the emotions in between. Bette declared 'They even have them in Nashville' as she looked into the audience.  Everyone knew what 'them' was. They screamed for more until Bette came out and said 'we don’t know anymore'."  It was the birth of a major star and everyone knew it.  Mary’s pictures were a recording of the event.