Every so often, Reba McEntire takes part in a dinner date with a collection of Nashville friends she calls her “little girl group.” When you’re Reba McEntire, the members of your dinner posse are the lineup of a country superstar tour: Trisha Yearwood, Suzy Bogguss, Terri Clark, Pam Tillis. “I love hanging out with my girlfriends in the music business,” McEntire says.
The gatherings are typically over Clark’s cooking and include dish about the industry. “We absolutely love that female camaraderie,” she says.
But McEntire is not always around for these get-togethers; for the Oklahoma-born daughter of a rodeo star, the road and stage are her second home. McEntire emerged from humble beginnings to become the undisputed top female country star of the 1980s and ’90s, and she’s out there with the fans who grew up with her songs and the younger generations whose mothers spun Reba tunes.
Victoria Stevens for Variety
“I thank God for the fans,” she says, “because they are people who travel, spend their hard-earned money to buy tickets, to buy albums. They’re faithful. And I don’t care what kind of entertainment business you’re in, whether it’s race cars or movies, singing or writing books. If you don’t have the fans, you might as well be singing in the shower, because they’re the ones that put food on our tables.”
During the past three years, McEntire, 70, launched a sitcom, “Happy’s Place,” on NBC, which followed a three-season stint as an adviser and coach on “The Voice.” She also released two albums, wrote a memoir, hosted a podcast and starred in and produced a Lifetime movie called “The Hammer.” Next month, she’ll host the Academy of Country Music Awards for the 18th time, and she’s prepping a film adaptation of Fannie Flagg’s novel “The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion” that she’ll star in.
There was never a master plan about acting, but working in film and TV has “made me a better entertainer by far,” McEntire says. “The more experience and the different things you get to be involved in, you learn. You learn from other people you’re working with, whether it’s directors or producers. I’m very observant of how they do things. I want to improve every time I take on a new project.”
McEntire’s reputation for being “a normal person” made her a natural choice to serve as a coach on NBC’s singing competition series “The Voice.” She has never forgotten the rush of getting discovered by Red Steagall as a teenager after belting the national anthem at a rodeo competition in 1974. She and her two sisters and brother had grown up singing in the back seat of the family car while their father, three-time world champion steer roper Clark McEntire, toured the circuit.
Reba went to Nashville two years later — accompanied by her mother — and began the slow climb to her first chart hits in the early 1980s. “When I started out in the music business, I didn’t know anything about it. What I did know is that in rodeo and ranching, it’s a man’s world: You insert yourself, you work your ass off; you don’t bitch about it, you don’t complain, you just work harder. When I got into the music business, that work ethic was still there,” she says.
Her job on “The Voice” of counseling aspiring artists on their musical journeys was more rigorous than she’d anticipated. She fretted about the fate of all the contestants. And she bonded quickly with her fellow coaches, including John Legend, Gwen Stefani, Michael Bublé, Niall Horan and Snoop Dogg.
“The thing I worry about is for the people that make it to the finals or win, how do they continue on after that?” she says. “I hope that they grab this as a learning experience, like a course they took in a college, instead of expecting the doors to open up and now here they go, they’re a superstar. It takes so much work. It takes luck. It takes that right song. It takes being at the right place at the right time and a huge team around you to make sure you don’t fall off the pedestals.”
Perhaps the purest expression of the Reba brand is found in a concert hall when she’s taking a fist-pumping, cellphone-waving, boots-wearing audience through her canon. For fans, McEntire’s stage shows are part therapy, part bitch session and part motivational pump-up.
McEntire’s fans don’t worship her, but they do adore her. At her March 20 performance at Yaamava’ Theater — a 3,000-seat venue in Highland, California — McEntire presents herself not as a larger-than-life rhinestone superstar but rather one of them: one of the many mature women in the audience wearing a combination of skinny jeans and T-shirts. Because the show is Los Angeles-adjacent, cast members and producers of “Happy’s Place” — including Melissa Peterman, who generously takes selfies with fans — are in the crowd.
McEntire hits the stage in black stretchy pants, a metallic-blue fringy Western jacket and matching cowboy boots, her famous big hair pulled into a ponytail. She wears two large cross necklaces that rest on her chest above a scoop-neck blouse and a few pieces of turquoise jewelry that reflect her Oklahoma roots.
Reba McEntire on “The Voice”
Griffin Nagel/NBC via Getty Imag
She saves her one costume change of the night for her encore, using it to great effect to enhance her performance of the anthemic “Fancy,” one of her story-driven songs.
There are a few hallmarks of a Reba McEntire song. She can be down but not out; she never needs to rely on anyone but herself and God to get by; she won’t suffer fools, or be made a fool (for long). She’s always equipped with a sense of humor and a sharp retort. (From her 2009 song “Consider Me Gone”: “If you think you can do better than this / Then I guess we’re done.”)
The underlying message is almost always one of hope and resilience — often with a catchy hook and feisty lyrics to lean on during the course of a crappy day. Consider the refrain from 1982’s “Can’t Even Get the Blues,” her first significant chart success: “You want to hurt me but it’s just no use / I can’t even get the blues.” Or a line from 2015’s “Going Out Like That”: “He thought she’d be sitting home crying / She ain’t going out like that.”
McEntire’s music became the soundtrack for an era in part because of the timing: She began fielding country hits about hardworking women and single mothers in the ’80s, when working women and single mothers were becoming a fixture of modern America.
At Yaamava’, McEntire sets the tone by opening with 2010’s sassy rocker “Turn On the Radio”: “Try to call, twitter me, text until your fingers bleed / The DJ’s the only way you’re ever going to hear from me.”
One of the biggest roars of the night is sparked by the chorus to 2001’s “I’m a Survivor,” the theme song to McEntire’s first TV comedy series, “Reba,” which ran from 2001 to 2007 on The WB. “With gentle hands and the heart of a fighter, I’m a survivor,” McEntire sings. The crowd, some of them wearing T-shirts emblazoned with that phrase, sing along.
During the fiddle break on 2003’s “I’m Gonna Take That Mountain,” McEntire dances on the heel of her boot like a girl who grew up in rodeos and on working ranches. She doesn’t do much talking between her songs — she lets the tunes tell her story.
An hour and 15 minutes in, she’s still hitting the high notes. To prove her prowess, McEntire’s set includes a medley of covers of signature songs from powerhouse R&B and pop singers: Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” and Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now.” The latter is a surprise that gets the crowd on their feet.
When McEntire segues into the 2017 spiritual “Back to God,” her voice cracks with emotion. “Can I get an amen?” she asks.
Yes, she can — and does.
Charity Spotlight
For Reba McEntire, nothing in her busy life is more important than time at home with family and friends.
So when it comes to philanthropy, McEntire’s become a vocal supporter of local organizations that address the crisis of homelessness in Tennessee. Established in 2003, Nashville’s Safe Haven Family Shelter is a nonprofit that has been embraced by Music City label executives and others for its comprehensive approach to bringing people in from the streets and guiding them into long-term housing.
“I love Safe Haven because they keep the families together,” McEntire says. “Some shelters take the children, or sometimes they would take the wife or the husband. But at Safe Haven, they keep the family together. They help them find jobs, and they help them find homes.”
McEntire was introduced to the nonprofit by former Warner Music Nashville executive Shane Tarleton, who brought her to one of its signature “Dancing for Safe Haven” fundraiser events. McEntire was quickly sold on the spirit of the organization and the integrity of its leadership.
“I think we make a good team,” McEntire says of Safe Haven. “They know what they’re doing; they just need some financial help. That’s what I like to do — help people where there’s a great team already in place.”
Styling: Marjan Malakpour/The Only Agency; Make-up: Kristene Bernard; Hair: Bia Iftikhar; Jacket: Nadine Merabi; Necklace: Loree Rodkin and ring; Earrings: Anayah
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