Gospel singer Sandi Patty grew up in Phoenix, before relocating with her family to San Diego, where she attended Horace Mann Junior High and graduated from Crawford High, attended SDSU (1975-1977), and worked as a teaching assistant at Pershing Middle School. After performing with the family band (who recorded with future bass star Nathan East when he was only 14), the Ron Patty Family, she sang in a local band called Struttin' with her brother Mike and East's brother Marcel.

Patty self-recorded her first album in the late '70s, For My Friends. This brought her to the attention of the Singspiration! label, which released her album Sandi's Song.

Patty won her first two GMA Dove Awards in 1982 and began singing backup for Bill Gaither and the Bill Gaither Trio, though she was already headlining her first national tour by 1984. Ten years later, she was earning over $100,000 per appearance, largely due to massive touring and high-profile public appearances like singing the National Anthem at the re-dedication ceremony for the Statue of Liberty.

The 21st century found Patty expanding her range to include performances with the New York Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops, and the Dallas Symphony. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and was awarded the GMA Music in the Rockies Summit Award in 2007.

By 2017, she had won forty Dove Awards and five Grammys.