Interview: Reba McEntire ready to bring new tour to Tulsa tonight, return to series TV next year
A version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Reba returns
The newest member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Oklahoma-born and bred superstar Reba McEntire is bringing her new “All the Women I Am Tour” Friday to Tulsa’s BOK Center and preparing to make her return to series television next year.
When it comes to the entertainment business, Reba McEntire has been more than just a survivor.
The redheaded firecracker from Chockie just keeps on thriving, from recording more than three dozen albums and earning acclaim on Broadway to starring in a popular TV sitcom and putting on a dynamite stage show.
While her career has become more multi-faceted in the past 35-plus years, the Oklahoma-born and bred superstar, 56, remains at her core a people person. For instance, when it comes to putting on a show like she plans to Friday (today) at Tulsa’s BOK Center, Reba talks about the thrill she gets when she witnesses “people knowing the songs, loving the songs and having a great time.”
“What our job is in the entertainment business is to get people’s minds off their worries, their troubles and to come in and have a wonderful time so they’re rejuvenated. Their batteries are recharged, and they can go back out and face their problems head-on and say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna fix this’ or ‘Hey, I can deal with it’ and then go on with life,” she said in a phone interview from St. John, Newfoundland, during a recent series of Canadian concerts.
“If you have a job you love, it’s really not a job.”
Whether or not she considers it a job, Reba has been incredibly successful at what she does. Her albums have sold more than 56 million copies worldwide, notched 64 Top 10 hits and scored 35 No. 1 singles. Her reign of No. 1 hits spans four decades, prompting Billboard, Country Aircheck and Mediabase to recognize her as the biggest female hit-maker in country music history. She is one of only four people to be honored with a National Artistic Achievement Award by the U.S. Congress.
Just this year, the singer/songwriter/actress/fashion designer was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in May and received the Career Achievement Award at September’s Academy of Country Music Honors. When the Southeastern Oklahoma State University graduate talks about those accolades, again, it’s the people Reba recalls.
“I love the honors. I think it’s very sweet that they chose me,” she said. “The best part of it is going to the ceremonies and … Taylor Swift gets up and she says, ‘Well, I didn’t go to college, but I have had the best time doing the singing and working in this industry and touring the world and getting to see everybody.’ And I got up to accept my award and I said, ‘Well, I did go to college, but my favorite college was getting to be out there on tour with Tom T. (Hall) and the Gatlin Brothers and the Oak Ridge Boys.’ And it was just so much fun.
“Then when we did the Hall of Fame, for Dolly Parton to be there. Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Kelly Clarkson, Susie (McEntire-Eaton), my little sister. Vince Gill helping me get into the Hall of Fame. That’s what makes it so special. The award is great, but to have my friends and my colleagues — my competition throughout all these years but my best friends — be there for me, and my family, that’s what was so special.”
Although the honors have made 2011 a red-letter year for Reba, her favorite part has been what didn’t happen after her father, rodeo legend Clark McEntire, suffered a major stroke. When the Country Music Hall of Fame’s 2011 class was announced in March, she missed it because she was at his side.
“He’s doing really well. Susie told me … that Daddy’s up walking without the walker. So he’s doing better than he was before he had his stroke in January. So, man, he’s just a tough cookie,” she said.
“You know, we planned Daddy’s funeral. We had the songs picked out to sing at the funeral, we were talking about where we were burying him. He’s a tough cowboy and God wasn’t ready for him to come home yet.”
She added, “For us to have him and have these great talks with him, and he is going back way into like the ‘30s and ‘40s in his mind and that’s real vivid for him. He’s telling us stories we never heard before. He’s telling us how he got the Y-O brand that he uses on his cattle, how he got the old paint horse that Everett Shaw from Stonewall, Oklahoma, sold to him … and those stories are just coming out so fast. And it’s this time that we get to spend with Daddy that is the most precious, and we thank the Lord every day for this time we’re getting with him.”
Family visits haven’t been the only events that have drawn Reba back in the past year. In January, Reba and fellow country superstar George Strait brought their blockbuster co-headlining tour to Oklahoma City for a sold-out show. In May, she and Blake Shelton, who also hails from Southeastern Oklahoma, played two packed concerts in Durant to generate funds for tornado relief efforts in the tiny town of Tushka. The benefit shows raised $500,000 and earned a Do Something Award nomination.
But Friday’s show will be part of her headlining “All the Women I Am Tour” in support of her 2010 album of the same name. It is her first completely redesigned tour in a decade.
“This show is going to be totally different from anything we’ve done in awhile. Because I did Broadway in 2001 and did the ‘Reba’ TV show for six years ending in December of 2006, we never put a new tour together with new staging, new lighting, new costumes. So this is all brand-new. And we’re touring with The Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, Edens Edge, and I’ve never gotten to tour with them before,” Reba said.
“I’m really excited to come back to Oklahoma for my Okie friends and family to see the new tour, the new show … and I hope they enjoy the show as much as we’re gonna be enjoying putting it on.”
After the tour ends its U.S. run later this month, Reba will just keep on thriving. In February, she will travel to Europe for a short series of dates, and in March, she will film the pilot for her new sitcom, “Malibu Country,” about a newly divorced single mom who sets out to build a new life for her three children in California. If everything goes well, she will be shooting her new show next August, and she is ecstatic about the chance to return to series television, mostly because she was never ready to leave in the first place.
“I was not ready to leave, absolutely not. We had lots more stories to tell on the ‘Reba’ show; we were devastated. We were the No. 1 sitcom on that network (The WB, which became The CW during the show’s run). And then we went into syndication with Lifetime, and I think more people have seen us on Lifetime than they did before when we were shooting. So it has had second and third life,” she said.
“I mean, when I sing ‘I’m a Survivor’ on our (live) show, the crowd goes nuts because they do love the ‘Reba’ TV show. And I thank them for that. … It was just a great experience for all of us.”
She is excited about the prospect of leading a new TV ensemble.
“That’s the most fun thing in the world. It’s just like playtime. You learn your lines and you get together and you do funny things. It’s great entertainment for us: We get to be funny, we get to bring joy into people’s lives, we get to put smiles on their faces. Again, take ‘em away from maybe the problems of their everyday life. (They) get to sit down for 30 minutes and laugh a little bit. That’s what I love about it.”
In concert
Reba McEntire’s “All the Women I Am Tour”
With: The Band Perry, Steel Magnolia and Edens Edge.
When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 Friday.
Where: BOK Center, 200 S Denver, Tulsa.
Information: (866) 726-5287 or www.bokcenter.com.
-BAM
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