Reba McEntire

Singer, songwriter, actress

“Discovered” at Rodeo

Cemented Position With Whoever’s in New England

Beat Madonna

Found Solace From Grief in Music

Selected discography

Sources

Reba McEntire is not one to fall into a musical rut. While she built her reputation on traditional country music, she branched out from these roots soon after earning a few gold records. Since then, her music has blurred the lines between country and mainstream pop, and she has made forays into soul and even rhythm and blues. To McEntire, these distinctions simply don’t matter. “Lord knows, I’m country. Given who I am and where I come from, no matter what I do, it will be country,” she told Tim Allis and Jane Sanderson in People. “I don’t sing country songs, I don’t sing pop, I sing Reba songs.” No matter the material, it is McEntire’s remarkable voice that has made her, in the words of Stereo Review’s Alanna Nash, “arguably the finest female country singer since Patsy Cline,” or as Time dubbed her, the “velvet-throated diva of country music.” McEntire has, according to Bob Allen of Country Music, a “frightfully precise and supple high-range vocal power,” and in Nash’s estimation, she is “a no-frills singer with an uncanny gift for phrasing, a talent for sounding as if she’s lived every line, and an Oklahoma accent that’s as thick as warmed-over grits.”

McEntire was born on March 28, 1955, and raised on a 7, 100-acre cattle ranch ten miles outside of Kiowa, Oklahoma. Both her father and grandfather were champion steer ropers, the former a three-time world champion. McEntire’s mother was a singer, but unlike the men in the family, did not get a chance to pursue her art professionally. Instead, she taught her children to sing. The McEntire children spent a lot of time on the road, singing and following the rodeo circuit. Reba started her professional career early—at five—performing “Jesus Loves Me” for five cents in a hotel lobby. Throughout school she sang with her siblings, the Singing McEntires, in neighboring towns and at rodeos. In fact, Reba wasn’t the only future professional in the group; her sister Susie eventually became a gospel singer. McEntire also honed her skills with the barrel race—a rodeo obstacle course—at which she competed across the country. She attended Southeastern Oklahoma State University, intending to become an elementary school teacher. While studying, she continued to race, ranch, and sing.

“Discovered” at Rodeo

In 1974 McEntire got an unexpected break—singing the national anthem at the National Rodeo Finals. Her performance impressed country music star Red Steagall, who convinced her to record a demo tape. She was understandably apprehensive about the undertaking. But, as she explained to Jess Cagle in Entertainment Weekly, she put all fear behind her when her mother

For the Record…

Born March 28, 1954, outside Kiowa, OK; daughter of Clark (a cattle rancher and rodeo steer roper) and Jacqueline (a teacher); married Charlie Battles (a rancher), 1976 (divorced, 1987); married Narvel Blackstock (a musician and artist manager), 1989; children: (first marriage) two stepsons; (second marriage) Shelby (son); three stepchildren. Education: Degree in elementary education (with minor in music), Southeastern Oklahoma State University, c. 1974.

Sang with siblings in small towns in Oklahoma as the Singing McEntires, 1960s; competed as rodeo barrel racer, 1960s-early 1970s; performed national anthem at National Rodeo Finals, Oklahoma City, OK, 1974; signed with Mercury records, 1975; released debut album, Reba McEntire, 1978; signed with MCA, 1983; released My Kind of Country, 1984; became producer, 1985; formed management company Starstruck Entertainment, c. 1989; made debut as actress, appearing in film Tremors, 1990.

Selected awards: 12 gold albums, seven platinum albums; five Country Music Association awards, nine Academy of Country Music awards, nine American Music awards, three People’s Choice awards; six awards from Music City News; Grammy Award for best female country vocal performance, 1987, for My Kind of Country.

Addresses: Home —Nashville, TN. Record company —MCA, 1514 South St., Nashville, TN 37212. Management —Starstruck Entertainment, P.O. Box 121996, Nashville, TN 37212.

revealed, “What you’re fixing to do, I’m living my dreams through you.” In 1975 McEntire signed with Mercury Records. She wowed observers at her first recording session. According to Entertainment Weekly, “Her clear contralto was so big it nearly blew out the studio transistors.” McEntire remembered the event thus: “It was a real pretty ballad, and when I got to the powerful part, I stayed right on the microphone and the needles just disappeared. They asked me to back up.”

As her career took off, McEntire married Charlie Battles—another national steer wrestling champion and rancher—who managed her career while they also ran a cattle ranch in Oklahoma. She recorded a few singles, but they didn’t go far. Mercury released her first album, Reba McEntire, in 1978, but she only had minor hits until she teamed with singer Jacky Ward to record a number of duets. The first of these, “Three Sheets in the WindTI’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” reached the Top Twenty. With this boost, solo hits followed“(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven,” “Today All Over Again,” and a cover version of “Sweet Dreams,” a song made classic by Patsy Cline.

But throughout the early 1980s, McEntire could not hit Number One. To Stereo Review contributor Nash, the reasons were obvious; executives at Mercury “tried their darndest to obscure McEntire’s natural assets,” packaging a “genuine country article” as a “city sophisticate.” They dressed her in evening gowns, painted her with makeup, and had her try a variety of musical styles, though what she really wanted was to sing traditional country. Her image was so malleable that recognizing McEntire from one project to the next was not easy. In spite of these marketing gaffs, McEntire finally hit the top spot, in 1983, with “I Can’t Even Get the Blues” and “You’re the First Time I’ve Thought About Leaving” and pleased critics with the record Behind the Scenes.

However, little changed until McEntire took her career into her own hands and in 1983, moved to MCA and began choosing her own material. She soon traded the evening gowns for jeans, cowgirl skirts, and the belt buckle she received for singing the national anthem at the rodeo finals. In 1984 she released the aptly titled My Kind of Country. The album was, in the words of People ’s Ralph Novak, “straightforward country.” Billboard dubbed McEntire “the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells,” and reviewers likened her to her idol, Patsy Cline. My Kind of Country produced two Number One hits—“How Blue” and “Somebody Should Leave”—and was McEntire’s first gold album. 1984 also brought McEntire her first major award, the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year nod. The CMA honored her with the same award the following year, as did the Academy of Country Music and Music City News, and Rolling Stone’s critics put her on their list of Top Five country artists. With 1985’s Have I Got a Deal for You, McEntire took another giant leap in her career by becoming her own co-producer. The album also boasted the first song she wrote on her own, “Only in My Mind,” which Rolling Stone deemed a “promising debut.”

Cemented Position With Whoever’s in New England

If there was anyone in country music who hadn’t noticed McEntire by 1986, the release of Whoever’s in New England got their attention. The album earned a 1987 Grammy Award for best female country vocal performance, among other laurels, and a gold album. “There’s something about the catch and quaver in McEntire’s voice that suggests the purest kind of country sound,” Ralph Novak observed in his People review of the album. Nash placed McEntire in very good company, allowing, “She has confirmed her place alongside Wynette and Wells as one of the foremost woman singers in the history of country music.”

Whoever’s in New England cemented McEntire’s place in country music—every subsequent album she released went gold. Ironically, the album also marked the beginning of her departure from traditional country music and transition into what Country Music’s Allen called “Yuppie Country.” As her choice of music changed, her audience grew and broadened to include fans outside country music, though the singer did not yet move far enough to alienate traditionalists. Whoever’s in New England also established McEntire’s skills as a video artist when the album’s title track video won the Academy of Country Music’s award for video of the year and the Music City News’ award for country music video of the year. By the time she released her next album, What Am I Gonna Do About You, it seemed that critics had already begun to take her superiority for granted. Novak dubbed the album “routinely excellent.” Though she would soon change her tune, Nash proclaimed McEntire “the only modern female vocalist loyal to the true country tradition.”

1987 brought even more changes to McEntire’s life and music. She and Battles divorced, and she immediately moved to Nashville, later explaining to Allen, “I had to pack everything in one day and leave. I was totally starting over.” Instead of explaining her personal life to her fans, she put the emotions of the broken marriage into her next album, The Last One to Know. The result demonstrated that even in the grip of personal turmoil, McEntire could produce stunning music. In Rolling Stone, Rob Tannenbaum called the album McEntire’s best effort to date. Nash was also pleased; she called The Last One to Know “another winner of a record” and found that McEntire “[displayed] even more confidence in her already powerful delivery, nailing her notes with greater clarity, and honing a style that is at once urgent, emotional and forceful.”

Beat Madonna

Soon McEntire began to take even more control of her career, her music continuing to move away from traditional country. Some critics were less than thrilled. Nash for one, found little to praise; reviewing McEntire’s 1988 album, Reba, in Stereo Review, she complained, “After years of insisting that she’d stick to hard-core country ‘because I have tried the contemporary-type songs, and it’s not Reba McEntire—it’s just not honest,’ McEntire... has gone whole-hog pop. Okay, so maybe that’s not so terrible. But her rendition of the soul classic ‘Respect’ is.” Frustrated by the album, Nash called it a “disappointing bore, a waste of an exhilarating voice, and a somewhat disturbing harbinger of the fate of country music’s traditionalist movement.” Fortunately for McEntire, her rapidly growing audience did not agree; her rendition of “Respect” was a big hit in concert, and in 1988 she was named in a Gallup youth survey as one of teenagers’ Top Ten favorite female vocalists—she was the only country singer on the list. Even more outstanding was a 1989 People poll in which readers voted her their second-favorite female vocalist—behind Barbra Streisand, but ahead of pop superstars Madonna, Cher, and Whitney Houston.

In 1989 McEntire married her manager, Narvel Blackstock, on a boat in Lake Tahoe, and together they built a business. Dubbed Starstruck Entertainment, it brought together all aspects of McEntire’s career—management, booking, publishing, promotion, publicity, accounting, ticket sales, and the administration of her fan club. Eventually, the company would grow to include a horse farm and jet charter service, as well as trucking, construction, and book publishing divisions.

By 1990 McEntire had discarded her leather cowgirl skirts, her fiddles, and her steel guitar. On stage, she donned “sequins, flowing gowns, big hair... flashy costume changes, blue lights and synthesizers,” according to Allen. Though impressed by McEntire’s changes, the Country Music scribe was disappointed in her “glitzy, hip, high-tech, and flashily new age” performance. “The show smacks of Las Vegas, intricately choreographed, thoroughly rehearsed, and utterly lacking in warmth or spontaneity. It’s as if, sad to say, Reba has gone corporate with her music.” Despite such comments, McEntire had no regrets about her transformation; in fact, she was delighted. “I’m happier, more confident—though as you can see I still dress in jeans and denim,” she told Allen. “I’m not so dead set on making everyone else happy and pleased. I don’t listen to anybody’s input as much as I listen to my own gut feeling.” And in her view, she had not rejected traditional country. “I want to do what sells... I want to do what the majority of the public likes to hear,” she explained. “The funny thing of it is... they all say they want me to go back to traditional country. But the majority of people obviously don’t want to hear me sing traditional, even though I love to sing it and could probably sit and do it all my life.”

Rumor Has It, released in 1990, gave McEntire a chance to win back some critical praise. Though Allen found the recording predictable in places, he believed she “still leaves most of the competition in the dust.” The album also brought Stereo Review’s Nash back into McEntire’s camp; she called Rumor “glorious” and while finding little there for the traditionalist, she noted that McEntire “shines so brilliantly—regaining her good judgment and take-charge attitude, and communicating with everything she has—that she is bound to win over her recent critics. Rumor Has It is a powerhouse recording that should put McEntire back on top where she belongs.” Indeed, the album went platinum, selling over one million copies.

In 1991—at the top of her career, with a successful corporation and a new baby boy, Shelby—McEntire had the rug pulled out from under her. On March 16th, her tour manager and six members of her band were killed when their plane crashed on Otay Mountain in California. McEntire turned to music to assuage her grief, responding with For My Broken Heart, released late in the year. While it did not address the tragedy directly, it was a sorrow-filled work that “explores all measure of suffering,” as Nash wrote in Entertainment Weekly.

Found Solace From Grief in Music

“For My Broken Heart is charged with quiet, restrained emotion. It’s a moving reminder of how Reba excels at conveying the complexities of adult feeling and relationships,” Michael McCall wrote in Country Music. In the same publication, George Fletcher predicted that it would be her career album and assessed, “She wrapped her magnificent voice around a good collection of songs, putting her heart and soul front and center.” The disc also demonstrated McEntire’s talent at reinterpreting well-known material; singing Vicki Lawrence’s hit “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia,” she made the “campy white-trash” song, as Nash described it, “chilling and believable.” In McCall’s eyes, For My Broken Heart was “an affirmation of music’s ability to probe ticklishly complicated topics in a powerful, universal way. It also reaffirms that Reba McEntire is a remarkable talent.” Heart sold two million copies in nine months. By then McEntire was responsible for more album sales than any performer ever signed to MCA’s Nashville division. Still, success did not mitigate the tragedy. After the crash McEntire would find herself in the middle of a performance, turning to face the band and experiencing the shock all over again. “I expect other faces,” she told Mary H. J. Farrell and Sanderson in People.

McEntire followed For My Broken Heart with It’s Your Call in 1992, explaining in the album’s liner notes that it was the second chapter. It’s Your Call was another commercial triumph, selling over two million copies within the year. Critical reaction to the record, however, was mixed, many reviewers comparing it unfavorably to For My Broken Heart. “The truth is, it isn’t nearly as pessimistic as its predecessor—and unfortunately it isn’t anywhere as involving,” Nash complained in Entertainment Weekly. Country Music’s Fletcher called the first three cuts—the title track, “Straight From You,” and “Take It Back”—“superb,” but he bemoaned the “generally weaker batch of songs and an over-reliance on similar-type ballads that don’t really allow Reba the room to stretch.” In Time, Christopher John Farley agreed, opining, “It’s Your Call is marred by unadventurous arrangements... she should have been willing to shear away the instrumentation, tasteful as it is, and expose her voice and all the raw hurt it bears.”

Nonetheless, McEntire’s critics managed to find some praise. Qualifying her comments, Nash wrote, “Yet with even the most mediocre song, McEntire is a commanding performer. Singing ‘straighter’ these days, without so many vocal frills, she almost succeeds in turning average material into something extraordinary.” In Stereo Review, Ron Givens concurred, noting, “These smooth-as-butter arrangements could easily be mistaken for TV ads or elevator music if it weren’t for that crystalline voice breaking over and over again.”

Reviewing It’s Your Call, Farley also observed, “On this album McEntire adds something special: a sort of time-to-put-myself-first feminism.” This was actually not new, but something McEntire had developed for years. Throughout her career she had addressed most of her songs to women, celebrating, commiserating, and empowering. She is also willing to confront head-on the lives of contemporary women, addressing such topics as spousal abuse, in “The Stairs,” or the difficulties of returning to school as a parent, in “Is There Life Out There.” At her concerts many women have told her that the video for the latter song inspired them to get their degrees. “I do think I’ve made a conscious effort to record more songs for women,” she told Holly Gleason in Ladies’ Home Journal. “It’s about time someone focused on them. I think women are special, and I want to make them realize that.”

As if McEntire didn’t have enough on her plate, during the late 1980s and early ’90s she began building an acting career. Noted for her ability to convey character through her singing, she had developed this skill further in videos. According to a 1993 MCA press release, she enjoys using video to “explore the ambiguities of songs instead of as vehicles for simple retelling” and to create mini-movies. In 1992, Billboard reported that her enthusiasm did not thrill executives at Country Music Television, though, who complained to MCA that the video of “Is There Life Out There” was too long and featured too much dialogue. Still, the clip won the Academy of Country Music’s video of the year award in 1992, and critics hailed McEntire’s efforts. Billboard’s Edward Morris reported, “Many of her music videos are so finely conceived and executed that they become works of art quite separate and distinct from the songs that inspired them.”

McEntire’s acting did not stop at videos. In 1989 she appeared on television, co-hosting Good Morning America. She followed this with a stab at the big screen, earning kudos for her portrayal of an arsenal-wielding survivalist in the 1990 camp horror film Tremors. She then joined fellow country singer Kenny Rogers in television’s The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw in 1991, starred with Burt Reynolds in the small screen’s The Man From Left Field in 1993, and returned to theaters, filming North with director Rob Reiner.

By the mid-1990s it was abundantly clear that trying to pigeonhole McEntire was an essay in futility. She did not always please all her fans and critics, but she certainly kept them interested. In 1986, Nash made an observation in Stereo Review that characterized not only McEntire’s music, but her entire career: “One of the great surprises about McEntire is that on first listening to one of her records, you miss about half of what she’s doing because there’s so much quality stuff happening.... But about the third time around, it starts to hit you just how first-rate McEntire’s approach is.” Billboard’s Morris agreed that there is much more to McEntire than anyone first thought, venturing, “Few artist are as exciting to us five or 10 years into their careers as they were at the moment we ‘discovered’ them. With Reba McEntire, it’s just the opposite. Certainly, her music was alluring when she made her recording debut... but it is infinitely more spellbinding now.”

Fired by her love of music and competition, there seemed no course McEntire would not pursue. “I’m very competitive,” she told television’s 20/20 in 1993, as reported by Entertainment Weekly. “I want to beat the boys. I want to beat the girls. I want to beat rock & roll.” This seemed quite possible when that year It’s Your Call reached the Top Ten of the Billboard 200 pop album chart and her Greatest Hits Volume 2 debuted on Billboard’s chart at Number Eight, peaking at Number Five. In 1985, McEntire had told Nash in a Stereo Review interview that she didn’t feel she was yet a star. “Naw,” she corrected, “I’m still just a twinkle.” In 1994, with another feature film in the can, her albums staking their claim on various charts, and Bantam Books forking over a seven-figure advance for an autobiography, “the omnipresent McEntire,” as Nash dubbed her in Entertainment Weekly, was clearly more than just a twinkle. The only remaining question was just how she would redefine the boundaries of stardom.

Selected discography

Singles; on Mercury

“Three Sheets in the Wind”/“I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,” 1979.

“Sweet Dreams,” 1979.

“(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven,” 1980.

“You’re the First Time I Thought About Leaving,” 1983.

Albums

Reba McEntire, Mercury, 1978.

Out of a Dream, Mercury, 1979.

Feel the Fire, Mercury, 1980.

Heart to Heart, Mercury, 1981.

Unlimited (includes “I Can’t Even Get the Blues”), Mercury, 1982.

Behind the Scenes, Mercury, 1983.

Just a Little Love, MCA, 1984.

My Kind of Country (includes “How Blue” and “Somebody Should Leave”), MCA, 1984.

Have I Got a Deal for You, MCA, 1985.

Whoever’s in New England (includes “Whoever’s in New England”), MCA, 1986.

What Am I Gonna Do About You, MCA, 1986.

Reba McEntire’s Greatest Hits, MCA, 1987.

The Best of Reba McEntire: 1980-1983, Mercury/Polygram, 1987.

The Last One to Know, MCA, 1987.

Merry Christmas to You, MCA, 1987.

Reba (includes “Respect”), MCA, 1988.

Sweet Sixteen, MCA, 1989.

Reba Live!, MCA, 1989.

Rumor Has It, MCA, 1990.

For My Broken Heart (includes “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” and “Is There Life Out There”), MCA, 1991.

It’s Your Call (includes “It’s Your Call,” “Straight From You,” and “Take It Back”), MCA, 1992.

Greatest Hits Volume 2, MCA, 1993.

(Contributor) “Since I Fell for You,” Rhythm Country & Blues, MCA, 1994.

Sources

Books

Bufwack, Mary A., and Robert K. Oermann, Finding Her Voice: The Saga of Women in Country Music, Crown, 1993.

Stambler, Irwin, and Grelun Landon, The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music, St. Martin’s, 1983.

Periodicals

Billboard, June 10, 1989; February 1, 1992; May 8, 1993; September 4, 1993.

Country Music, November/December 1990; July/August 1991; January/February 1992; May/June 1992; July/August 1992; November/December 1992; January/February 1993; March/April 1993.

Entertainment Weekly, October 11, 1991; March 20, 1992; December 18, 1992; July 30, 1993, October 8, 1993; October 29, 1993.

High Fidelity, March 1985.

Ladies’Home Journal, November 1988; March 1994.

People, April 23, 1984; December 17, 1984; March 31, 1986; October 27, 1986; June 5, 1989; September 18, 1989; November 4, 1991; July 26, 1993.

Rolling Stone, August 29, 1985; December 3, 1987.

Time, June 19, 1989; January 22, 1990; January 25, 1993.

Recording Industry Association of America News, August 3, 1993.

Stereo Review, March 1984; April 1985; August 1985; July 1986; December 1986; December 1987; August 1988; January 1990; April 1993.

Wabash Plain Dealer (IN), March 18, 1992.

Woman’s Day, November 3, 1992.

Additional information for this profile was obtained from liner notes to It’s Your Call, MCA, 1992, and an MCA press release, 1993.

—Megan Rubiner Zinn