October 2018 30 • Reba was born March 28, 1955, in McAlester, Oklahoma. She is the daughter of Jacqueline and Clark McEntire. Her full name is Reba Nell McEntire and she was named for her maternal grandmother Reba Estelle Smith Brassfield. The family, including McEntire's older sister Alice, older brother Pake and younger sister Susie, lived on a cattle ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma, for 34 years. Just the Facts REBA MCENTIRE At 5 years old, McEntire would drive her dad's truck while he kicked hay off the truck's bed to feed cattle during the winter. She made her singing debut in the first grade with a solo of "Away in a Manger" in a school Christmas play. As a third grader, Reba was asked to sing at the Kiowa High School graduation. At one time, she was classmates with Garth Brooks. • When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance. Her act was cut from two songs to just one "Invitation to the Blues" because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. • Signing with MCA Nashville Records, Reba took creative control over her second MCA album, My Kind of Country (1984), which had a more traditional country sound and produced two number one singles: "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave." That album brought her breakthrough success, with a series of successful albums and number one singles in the 1980s and 1990s. She reached the Top 10 with every solo single she released for the next 10 years, with only two exceptions: "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" (No. 12) and "She Thinks His Name Was John" (No. 15). • In the late 1980s, Reba became interested in an acting career, eventually hiring an agent and in the early 1990s she branched into film starting with “Tremors.” She obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in that horror comedy where she starred along with Kevin Bacon. After the film's release, she developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. In 1991, McEntire played madam Burgundy Jones in the TV movie The Gambler Returns: Luck of the Draw, co-starring Kenny Rogers. She was also chosen by Titanic director James Cameron to play the "Unsinkable" Molly Brown in the 1997 film, but she had to decline because of her tour schedule. The role went to Kathy Bates instead. New York Times hailed, "without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." • On March 1, 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire would be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Unfortunately she was unable to attend the induction by Dolly Parton at the Medallion Ceremony in Nashville after her father had slipped into a coma following a stroke on May 22, 2011. • Reba's reign of #1 hits spans four decades and Billboard, Country Aircheck, and Mediabase recognized her as the biggest female hit-maker in Country music history. McEntire is the only country female solo act to have a No. 1 hit in four straight decades: the 1980s, '90s, '00s, and '10s. She is one of only four entertainers in history to receive the National Artistic Achievement Award from the U.S. Congress. • In 2016, McEntire was selected as one of thirty artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of Take Me Home, Country Roads, On the Road Again and I Will Always Love You which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. • McEntire was a guest judge on the July 13, 2016 episode of America's Got Talent. She used her golden buzzer, which she could only use once and allowed an act to go straight to the live shows, on contortionist Sofie Dossi. • On December 15, 2016, McEntire announced that she was releasing her first Gospel album titled Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. It was released by Nash Icon/Rockin' R Records on February 3, 2017. In January 2018, Reba won the Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album, her first nomination since 2007, and her first Grammy Award win in more than twenty years. • Reba returned to host the 53rd Academy of Country Music Awards on April 15, 2018. • On July 25, 2018, it was announced that Reba would be one of four honorees for the 41st annual Kennedy Center Honors, along with Cher, Philip Glass, and Wayne Shorter. The ceremony will be held December 2, 2018, and broadcast on CBS December 26, 2018. • She was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998, to the Music City Walk of Fame in 2006, To the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011 and to the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in 2012. She has won 14 American Music Awards; 16 ACM Awards; 9 People's Choice Awards; 7 CMA Awards; 3 GRAMMY Awards; an ACM Career Achievement Honor. • McEntire has released 28 studio albums. She is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more than 90 million records worldwide. • Reba holds the record for the most American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve) and the second most Academy of Country Music Top Female Vocalist Awards (seven). • McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player, Narvel Blackstock on June 3, 1989. The couple wed in a private ceremony on a boat in Lake Tahoe. Reba gave birth to their 1st child at age 34, a son named Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock (aka Shelby Blackstock) on February 23, 1990. She is also stepmother to Brandon Blackstock, who is married to her good friend Kelly Clarkson. • While on tour for her 1990 album, McEntire lost eight members of her band; (Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas), plus pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger, when their charter jet plane crashed near San Diego, California, in the early morning of March 16, 1991. The crash occurred after Reba's private performance for IBM executives the night before. The accident was believed to have happened because of poor visibility near the mountain, which was not considered "prohibitive" for flying. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire at the time stated in the Los Angeles Times that "she was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." • She starred in the eponymous sitcom “Reba”, which ran for 6 seasons on the WB Television Network/The CW for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series- Musical or Comedy. In 2001, she made her Broadway debut in Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun which the • In 1934, McEntire's "grandpap," John Wesley McEntire, won the Steer Roping World Champion title. Her father did the same in 1957, 1958 and 1961. Her mother had once wanted to be a country music artist but eventually decided to become a schoolteacher. She did teach her children how to sing though. On car rides home from their father's rodeo shows, the McEntire siblings learned songs and harmonies from their mother, eventually forming a vocal group called the "Singing McEntires" with her brother, Pake, and her younger sister Susie (her older sister Alice did not participate). Reba played guitar in the group and wrote all the songs. The group sang at rodeos and recorded "The Ballad of John McEntire." • She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band, on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. At 16, McEntire won the title of Miss Ford Country. The prize -- which she received for writing a winning essay -- was the use of a new Ford for six months. She put 18,000 miles on the car. • She attended Southeastern Oklahoma State University, majoring in elementary education and minoring in music. She was a member of a campus singing and dancing group called the Chorvettes and she got her break while a sophomore in college when she performed the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in December 1974. She was discovered by cowboy singing star Red Steagall. • McEntire was signed to Nashville's Mercury / PolyGram Records in 1975. She released her first solo album in 1977 and released five additional studio albums under the label until 1983. Reba released her debut single "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand" but it failed to become a major hit on the Billboard country music chart, peaking at number 88. The album also featured cover versions of then-current pop hits "Angel in Your Arms" and "Right Time of the Night." • In 1982, McEntire had her first No. 1 single, "Can't Even Get the Blues." Her next single, "You're the First Time I've Thought About Leaving," also hit No. 1. • In 1975, Reba married national steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles. Together, the couple owned a ranch in Oklahoma and managed her career. In 1987, she divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. 96.3 Real Country Legends welcomes Reba McEntire to the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, October 10 – 20 and December 5 – 15. During the 1980s, many of McEntire's music videos were being described as "mini-movies." In each video, she would portray a different character, which distinguished her music videos from other videos released by artists during that time. Reba competed in her first rodeo when she was 11 and quit rodeoing when she was 21. At one time she wanted to be a world champion barrel racer.