She began to perform publicly at age six at rodeos and talent shows, in church, and on pickup beds on the back of trucks stumping for local political candidates.
After graduating magna cum laude in 1969, she flew out to Los Angeles, California to become a pre-school music teacher, but decided to audition for Lawrence Welk since he and his band performed every Saturday night at the Hollywood Palladium.
She officially joined the Musical Family three shows into the 1969–70 season and over the course of the next twelve years, she sang solos, played piano, sang in duets with Dick Dale (famously singing Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over the Line") and in trios; first with Sandi Griffiths, and Mary Lou Metzger and later for "Gail, Ron & Michael" a mixed trio that featured her husband Ron Anderson and Michael Redman.
She reunited with fellow Welk castmates Ava Barber, Ralna English and Mary Lou Metzger for the four-woman revue, Four Wunnerful Women.
[2] Farrell married Ron Anderson on December 7, 1979; they live in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and have twin daughters, Erin and Lauren (born in September 1982).