Reba McEntire

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风格: #当代乡村　#乡村
地区: United States of America 美国

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Reba McEntire1954年3月28日生于Oklahoma的Chockie，父亲是一名赛牛师，家中有四个孩子。她从母亲那里接受最初的音乐教育，经常在去牛场的路上教孩子们唱歌。5岁那年，有次在一家饭店大厅里大声唱《Jesus Loves Me》，有位牛仔把一枚硬币放到了她手里，这是她挣的第一份唱歌钱。

十几岁时，McEntire和妹妹Susic、哥哥Pake组成三重唱组，在一起唱了好几年，并希望能和一家唱片公司签约。1974年，McEntire在Oklahoma City的全国赛牛决赛上演唱国歌，受到歌手兼作曲家Red Steagall赏识，帮她与Nashville的Mercury唱片公司签了约。她母亲回忆说：“开始Reba拒绝单独签约，但是我们想先去一个，对其他人会有帮助。”而后来的确通过她的帮助使她的兄弟妹妹们都走上了歌唱道路。

在Mercury公司获得了4首进入排行榜前10名的歌曲后，1984年她转投到MCA唱片公司。1985年的《How Blue》荣获榜首，一直到1992年的《Is There Life Out There》，几年间总共有24首歌曲进入前10名，包括14首第一名。在此期间，她的专辑总销量达两千万张。她还4次获得乡村音乐协会的“最佳女歌手奖”，1986年获得美国乡村音乐学院CMA的“最佳演员奖”。自从1976年以《I Don’t Want to Be a One Night Stand》上榜到1983年初以《Can’t Even Get the Blues》荣登榜首，Reba McEntire花了将近7年时间。这是一段缓慢的成名过程，但她并不为此而不快。她说：“如果我像现在的一些歌星一下子就串到榜首，我还有点掌握不住。我没有这种思想准备，或许就从此不唱歌而去洗衣服刷盘子了。”

McEntire可说是作为乡村音乐的皇后进入90年代的，不断有歌曲进入前10名，多次名列第一，并以不断创新来维护这个地位。她在一些歌里加入了一点流行音乐色彩，如她唱的《Sunday Kind of Love》、《Walk On》和《For My Broken Heart》等。她的舞台演出也越发令人目眩，大场面、新服装、大屏幕，外加伴舞。评论界批评她放弃了乡村音乐，但McEntire坚持认为她只是投歌迷所好。她与歌迷有着良好的关系，她说：“每次演出后我和他们交谈，我很注意我的歌迷俱乐部和他们给我的信。我从他们那得到信息，如果我走得太远，他们也会告诉我的。“她也和电台听众保持密切接触，经常打电话给他们征求意见。

McEntire的成功秘诀，就在于一贯坚持自己的风格，不张扬，对自己的成就保持诚实的态度。她说：“我真没有带来什么新东西。我学习，向每个人学，注意观察、研究，然后我作出贡献，但确实什么也没有带来。我是从Oklahoma来的无知的乡下人。我要感谢我的导师们，像Loretta Lynn、Dolly Parton、Barbara Mandrell等等，正是由于有机会和她们在一起，我才能成为一名好歌手，对音乐有所认识。我希望我对歌唱技巧有所提高，鼓舞了一些孩子去唱歌，而最重要的，我希望，我祈祷，我一直是人们心目中的一个正面形象。” 终于，这一切努力使她成为乡村音乐中最成功最受欢迎的女歌星。

by William Ruhlmann

Reba McEntire was the most successful female recording artist in country music in the 1980s and 1990s, during which time she scored 22 number one hits and released five gold albums, six platinum albums, two double-platinum albums, four triple-platinum albums, a quadruple-platinum album, and a quintuple-platinum album, for certified album sales of 33.5 million over the 20-year period. While she continued to sell records in healthy numbers into the 21st century, she expanded her activities as an actress in film and on the legitimate stage, and particularly on television, where she starred in a long-running situation comedy. Such diversification made her the greatest crossover star to emerge from country music since Dolly Parton.

Reba Nell McEntire was born March 28, 1955, in McAlester, OK, the second daughter and third of four children of Clark Vincent McEntire, a professional steer roper, and Jacqueline (Smith) McEntire, a former school teacher. Her older brother Del Stanley (Pake) McEntire also became a country singer, while her younger sister Martha Susan (Susie) McEntire Luchsinger became a gospel singer. McEntire was raised on the 7,000-acre family ranch in Chockie, OK, traveling with her parents and siblings to the rodeos at which her father competed. Clark McEntire was named World Champion Steer Roper three times, in 1957, 1958, and 1961. (McEntires grandfather, John McEntire, had won the same title in 1934.) McEntires mother had aspired to a career in music but never pursued it. She encouraged her children to sing and taught them songs and harmony during the long car trips between rodeos. Alice McEntire, the oldest child, did not actively seek a musical career, but the other three were members of a country group, the Kiowa High School Cowboy Band, as early as 1969, when McEntire began attending Kiowa High School in Kiowa, OK. She also entered local talent contests on her own. In 1971, the Kiowa High School Cowboy Band recorded a single, The Ballad of John McEntire, for the tiny Boss Records label, which pressed 1,000 copies. As the early 70s went on, the band gave way to a trio, the Singing McEntires, consisting of the three siblings, which performed at rodeos. McEntire also followed in the family tradition of competing, becoming a barrel racer, the only rodeo event open to women.

McEntire graduated from high school in June 1973 and enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. While attending the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City on December 10, 1974, she sang the national anthem on network television. Also present at the rodeo was country star Red Steagall, who was impressed by her voice and asked her to go to Nashville to record some demos for his song publishing company. After she did so in March 1975 during her spring break from college, he took the tapes around town trying to get her a record deal and succeeded with Mercury Records, which signed her to a contract on November 11, 1975, that called for her to record two singles for the label. On January 22, 1976, she entered a Nashville recording studio and cut the first of those singles, I Dont Want to Be a One Night Stand, which, upon its release, climbed to number 88 in the Billboard country singles chart in May. On June 21, 1976, she married Charlie Battles, a champion steer wrestler she had met at a rodeo. Battles later became her business manager.

On September 16, 1976, McEntire did her second Mercury recording session, which produced her second single, (Theres Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and a Man. It peaked at number 86 in March 1977. In the meantime, on December 16, 1976, she graduated from college on an accelerated three-and-a-half-year program with a major in elementary education and a minor in music, freeing her to pursue her career full-time. Her record label, however, seemed in no particular hurry, although it picked up her option for further recordings. Her third single, Glad I Waited Just for You, recorded on April 13, 1977, peaked at number 88 in August, the same month Mercury released her debut album, Reba McEntire, which did not chart. On September 17, 1977, she made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry.

Two and a half years into her recording career, with very little to show for it, McEntire was paired with labelmate Jacky Ward for the two-sided single Three Sheets in the Wind/Id Really Love to See You Tonight (the B-side a cover of the pop hit by England Dan & John Ford Coley), which reached number 20 in July 1978. That and her touring as an opening act for Steagall, Ward, and others increased her exposure, and her next solo single, Last Night, Evry Night, reached number 28 in October, beginning a string of singles that made it at least into the country Top 40. She first got into the Top 20 with her cover of the Patsy Cline hit Sweet Dreams, which peaked at number 19 in November 1979. She still wasnt selling any albums, however; her second LP, Out of a Dream, released in September 1979, did not chart.

McEntire continued to make strides on the singles chart, reaching the Top Ten for the first time with (You Lift Me) Up to Heaven, which peaked at number eight in August 1980. Feel the Fire, her third album, released in October 1980, was another failure, but after a couple more Top 20 singles she reached the Top Five with Today All Over Again in October 1981. The song was featured on her fourth album, Heart to Heart, released in September, which helped it become her first to chart, reaching number 42 in the country LP list. She achieved a new high on the singles chart in August 1982 when Im Not That Lonely Yet reached number three. It was included on her fifth album, Unlimited, released in June 1982, which hit number 22. But that was only the beginning. The LP also spawned Cant Even Get the Blues and Youre the First Time Ive Thought About Leaving, which became back-to-back number one hits in January and April 1983. By then, she had moved up from playing nightclubs and honky tonks to being the regular opening act for the Statler Brothers. She went on to work in the same capacity with Conway Twitty, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, and others.

It might be argued that Mercury Records had taken a 20-year-old neophyte singing the national anthem at a rodeo and, over a period of more than seven years, groomed her until she became a chart-topping country star. McEntire appears not to have viewed things that way, however. On the contrary, she seems to have been unhappy with the songs the label gave her to sing and the musical approach taken on her records, feeling that she was being pushed too much in a country-pop direction. She also has criticized Mercurys promotional efforts on her behalf. And, despite her recent success, the long years of development meant she was nowhere near repaying the investment Mercury had made in her, which, of course, was charged against her potential royalties on the company books. (Although she received yearly advances from the label, she later said that she did not see her first royalties from Mercury until 1988.) So, she sought a release from her contract and, after cutting one more album for Mercury, her sixth LP, Behind the Scene, released in September 1983, she signed to MCA Records, her new contract taking effect on October 1, 1983. The first fruits of the switchover suggested that not much had changed. Her debut MCA single, Just a Little Love, was a Top Five hit in June 1984, shortly after the release of an album of the same name, but that LP was actually less successful than Unlimited.

McEntire took strong action. Set to have Harold Shedd (Alabamas producer, and thus a hot commercial property) produce her next album, she rejected his suggestions for songs and the sweetened arrangements he imposed on them and appealed to Jimmy Bowen, the newly installed president of MCAs country division. Bowen allowed her to pick her own material and to eliminate the strings and other pop touches used on Just a Little Love and her Mercury releases. The result was the pointedly titled My Kind of Country, released in November 1984, which was dominated by covers of old country songs previously performed by Ray Price, Carl Smith, Connie Smith, and Faron Young. Even before the albums release, however, and before its advance single, How Blue, hit number one, McEntire was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Country Music Association (CMA) on October 8, 1984. It was a surprising win; Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Charly McClain had all arguably been more successful during the previous 12 months. But it was a forward-looking recognition for a performer who was wisely aligning herself with such artists as Ricky Skaggs and George Strait as a new traditionalist, moving country music back to its roots after the decline of the pop-country Urban Cowboy phenomenon of the early 80s.

How Blue hit number one in January 1985, followed by the second single from My Kind of Country, Somebody Should Leave, which topped the chart in May as the album reached number 13. (Eventually, it was certified gold.) With such success, McEntire was able to start headlining her own concerts. For her next album, Have I Got a Deal for You, released in July 1985, she worked directly with Bowen, the two billed as co-producers. Another new traditionalist collection, it included her own composition Only in My Mind, a Top Five hit, as well as a Top Ten hit in the title song; though the LP was not as successful as its predecessor, it too went gold over time, and it helped McEntire earn her second consecutive CMA award as Female Vocalist of the Year. Another important accolade came on January 14, 1986, when she became a member of the Grand Ole Opry.

Perhaps even more important than McEntires decision to perform music in a more traditional country style was her search for material that she felt women would respond to. Just as Loretta Lynn had spoken for pre-feminist women in the 1960s, McEntire had begun to address the emotional and empowering concerns of women in the 1980s. Whoevers in New England, her next single, released in January 1986 just ahead of an album of the same name, was a case in point. Kendal Franceschi and Quentin Powers song was written in the voice of a Southern woman who believes her husband is having an affair during his business trips up north, but pledges that she will remain available to him when whoevers in New Englands through with you. It was a career-making song for McEntire, not least because it was promoted by her first music video. Reaching number one in May 1986, it marked a major breakthrough for her, beginning a string of chart-topping hits that didnt begin to slow down for the next three years. Little Rock, the follow-up single, also hit number one, as did the Whoevers in New England album, her first LP to be certified gold. (It later went platinum.)

Her career in high gear, McEntire released her next album, What Am I Gonna Do About You, in September 1986, prefaced by a single of the same name that hit number one, as did the gold-selling LP, which also featured the chart-topping single One Promise Too Late. On October 13, 1986, McEntire not only won her third consecutive Female Vocalist of the Year Award from the CMA, but also was named Entertainer of the Year. On February 24, 1987, she won her first Grammy Award for Country Female Vocal for Whoevers in New England. She released Reba McEntires Greatest Hits in April; it became her first platinum album and eventually sold over three million copies. (It also became her first album ever to cross over to the pop charts.) On June 25, 1987, she filed for divorce from Charlie Battles, her husband of 11 years. After her divorce was settled and Battles was awarded the couples ranch in Oklahoma, she moved to Nashville.

McEntires string of hits continued with the release of The Last One to Know in September 1987, prefaced by a single of the same name that reached number one in December. The album, also featuring the number one hit Love Will Find Its Way to You, reached number three and eventually went platinum. McEntire won an unprecedented fourth straight CMA award as Female Vocalist of the Year in October. In November, she released a holiday album, Merry Christmas to You, which, over the years, sold more than two million copies. She engendered controversy with her next album release, Reba, which appeared in May 1988. Here, an artist who had jumped on the new traditionalist bandwagon in 1984 abruptly jumped off, returning to more of a pop-oriented style, without a fiddle or a steel guitar anywhere. The albums lead-off single was Sunday Kind of Love, a cover of the 1947 Jo Stafford pop hit. It peaked at number five in July, actually the worst showing for a McEntire single in nearly three years. But the album had already begun a run of eight weeks at number one by then, and it was supported by the subsequent chart-topping singles I Know How He Feels and New Fool at an Old Game. It eventually went platinum. Also in 1988, McEntire founded Starstruck Entertainment, a company that handled management, booking, publishing, and other aspects of her career and, eventually, represented other artists as well.

Sweet Sixteen, released in May 1989, was actually McEntires 14th regular studio album, but her 16th counting her authorized MCA hits compilation and Christmas album. The lead-off single was a cover of the Everly Brothers Cathys Clown that hit number one in July, and it was followed by three Top Ten hits, Til Love Comes Again, Little Girl, and Walk On, as the LP spent 13 weeks at the top of the charts, with sales eventually crossing the million mark. It also reached the pop Top 100. McEntire had already recorded her next album, Live, the previous April for release in September and, though it took more than a decade, another platinum certification. That gave her some breathing space. On June 3, 1989, she married Narvel Blackstock, her manager, who had been part of her organization since joining her band as its steel guitar player in 1980. On February 23, 1990, she bore him a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock. A month earlier, she had made her feature film acting debut in the comic horror film Tremors, which had been shot the previous spring.

McEntire was back on tour by May 1990, and she returned to record making in September with her 15th regular studio album, Rumor Has It, which was prefaced by the single You Lie, a number one hit. Three other songs from the LP placed in the country Top Ten: the title song, a revival of Bobbie Gentrys 1969 hit Fancy, and Fallin Out of Love. The album eventually sold three million copies. McEntire was on tour promoting it when, on March 16, 1991, seven members of her band and her road manager were killed in a plane crash after a show in San Diego. She dedicated her next album, For My Broken Heart, to them when it was released in October. The disc was another massive hit, going gold and platinum simultaneously shortly after its release and eventually selling four million copies, its singles including the chart-topping title song and another number one, Is There Life Out There. Also in 1991, McEntire co-starred in the TV mini-series The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw. Her 17th album, Its Your Call, was released in December 1992, and, like Rumor Has It, it was an immediate million seller, eventually going triple platinum. (It was also her first Top Ten pop album.) Its biggest single was The Heart Wont Lie, a duet with Vince Gill that hit number one in April 1993. McEntires next chart-topper was also a duet, Does He Love You, sung with Linda Davis; it hit number one in November 1993 and was included on her September release Greatest Hits, Vol. 2, an album that sold two million copies practically out of the box and another three million over the next five years. Does He Love You won McEntire her second Grammy, for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals, and a CMA award for Vocal Event. She also appeared in the TV movie The Man from Left Field in 1993.

By 1994, while continuing to reign as countrys most successful female singer, McEntire was increasingly turning her attention to other concerns. Her 18th regular studio album, Read My Mind, appeared in April. Another instant million-seller that went on to go triple platinum, it threw off five country chart singles, among them the chart-topping The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and, controversially, She Thinks His Name Was John, a song about a woman who contracts AIDS from a one-night stand. Even McEntires star power could propel such an atypical country subject only as high as number 15 in the charts. Meanwhile, she had parts in two feature films released during the summer, a speaking role in the drama North and a cameo in the childrens comedy The Little Rascals. (She also made an uncredited appearance in the Western film Maverick and was heard on the soundtrack album.) She executive produced and starred in a TV movie based on her song, Is There Life Out There? And she published her autobiography, Reba: My Story, which became a best-seller.

McEntires 19th album was called Starting Over, released in October 1995. Intended to mark the 20th anniversary of her recording career, it was a collection of covers of well-known songs. It not only topped the country charts but hit number five in the pop charts, selling a million copies out of the box. But, boasting only one Top Ten hit, a revival of Lee Greenwoods Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands, among three chart singles, and not achieving a multi-platinum certification, it suggested that McEntire finally had peaked commercially as far as country music was concerned. (In a considerable departure for a country singer, MCA released a dance remix of McEntires revival of the Supremes You Keep Me Hangin On from the album that reached number two on Billboards dance chart.) That didnt keep her from starring in another TV mini-series, Buffalo Gals, playing famed Western sharpshooter Annie Oakley, a part her rodeo background suited her to perfectly. She bounced back on the country charts somewhat with her 20th album, What If Its You, released in November 1996. The album spawned four Top 20 hits, with How Was I to Know reaching number one and The Fear of Being Alone and Id Rather Ride Around with You each getting to number two. Simultaneously certified gold and platinum, the album eventually topped two million copies.

The singles drawn from What If Its You kept McEntires name in the country charts throughout 1997, as did the holiday benefit record What If, the proceeds from which were donated to the Salvation Army. But for the first time since 1978, she did not release a new album, even a compilation, during the calendar year. Aiming for a splash, she teamed up with the popular country duo Brooks & Dunn in the spring of 1998 for a single called If You See Him/If You See Her. It hit number one in June, helping to set up the release of her 21st album, If You See Him, which also brought her three additional Top Ten hits on its way to selling a million copies. She appeared in the TV movie Forever Love (the title of one of those Top Ten hits) during the year and made several guest-star appearances on TV series.

After publishing her second book of memoirs, Comfort from a Country Quilt, in May 1999, McEntire had two new albums ready for the fall. Secret of Giving: A Christmas Collection, a September release, was her second holiday CD, which she accompanied with a TV movie, Secret of Giving. The disc eventually went gold. So Good Together, issued in November, was her 22nd regular studio album, prefaced by the Top Five single What Do You Say. Although none of the songs from the album topped the country charts, it did feature a second Top Five hit, Ill Be, and a Top 20 hit in Were So Good Together, and it went platinum before the end of 2000.

As in 1997, McEntire went without an album release in 2000, and in this case, it turned out that she definitely was positioning herself for a career beyond country music, as events in 2001 showed. In February of that year, she stepped in as a replacement star in the Broadway revival of Irving Berlins musical Annie Get Your Gun that had begun performances in 1999 with Bernadette Peters in the title role of Annie Oakley. Barry and Fran Weissler, the producers of the revival, were known on Broadway for making money by keeping production costs down and by the extensive use of what was derisively called stunt casting: bringing in a well-known personality, often one without much of a theater background, as a replacement to extend the run of a show, as a means of exciting the tourist crowd who would recognize the name of a prominent TV star, for example. McEntire had been preceded as a replacement in Annie Get Your Gun by soap opera star Susan Lucci and TV actress Cheryl Ladd, both of whom kept the show going while being largely ignored or derided by theater insiders. McEntire turned out to be an entirely different proposition. First, although she lacked legitimate theater experience, she had by now done plenty of acting on television and even a little in film. Second, she had long since brought unusually high production values to her concerts that included choreography and costume changes, good preparation for similar demands in the theater. Third, she could, of course, sing. And fourth, with her rodeo background and Oklahoma accent, she was an ideal Annie Oakley, just as she had been in her previous TV portrayal. (Never mind that the real Annie Oakley was from Ohio; in everybodys mind, this female sharpshooter and star of Buffalo Bills Wild West show, the precursor to the modern rodeo, was a Westerner.) The result was a triumph for McEntire. Reviews were ecstatic, and tickets sold out. The Tony Awards did not have a category for replacements (one has since been added), but she was given special awards for her performance by the Drama Desk, the Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World. She stayed in the show until June 22, 2001. Unfortunately, there was no new cast album recorded to immortalize her appearance.

During the run of Annie Get Your Gun, McEntire was seen in a small part in the film One Night a McCools, released in April 2001. Her most extensive filmed acting role began on October 5, 2001, however, when the half-hour situation comedy Reba premiered on the WB TV network (later renamed the CW network). The show became the primary focus of McEntires activities, and she moved to Los Angeles to accommodate it. She had not, however, given up country music entirely. In the summer of 2001, she released a single, Im a Survivor, that peaked in the country Top Five and prefaced a new compilation, Greatest Hits, Vol. 3: Im a Survivor, released in October. It topped the country charts and went gold.

McEntire was occupied primarily with her TV series during 2002 and 2003. She finally returned to record making after two years in the summer of 2003 with a new single, Im Gonna Take That Mountain, which peaked in the country Top 20. Room to Breathe, her 23rd regular studio album and first in three years, followed in November and went platinum over the next nine months. The discs second single, Somebody, hit number one, and it was followed by another Top Ten hit, He Gets That from Me, and the Top 20 My Sister.

Reba continued on into 2004 and 2005. McEntire found time in the spring of 2005 to return to the musical theater, if only for one night. In another piece of inspired casting, she portrayed the cock-eyed optimist from Arkansas, Ensign Nellie Forbush, in a special concert version of Rodgers & Hammersteins South Pacific performed at Carnegie Hall. The all-star production, also featuring Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell and actor Alec Baldwin, was filmed for a PBS special on the networks Great Performances series and recorded for an album, both of which appeared in 2006.

By 2005, the catalogs of Mercury and MCA had been combined in the major label Universal, and in November MCA released McEntires first combined hits collection, the double-CD set Reba: #1s, with two newly recorded tracks. It went gold and platinum simultaneously. In 2006, as she began the sixth season of Reba, McEntire also voiced a character in the holiday film release Charlottes Web. The sixth season of Reba proved to be the last, as the show signed off the air on February 18, 2007. Not one to sit idle, McEntire toured the U.S. from May 25 through August. On September 18, 2007, she released a new album, Reba Duets, featuring such guests as Justin Timberlake, Don Henley, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny Chesney, Carole King, Faith Hill, Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn, Vince Gill, Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes, and Trisha Yearwood. It was prefaced by the single Because of You, a duet with Clarkson. For the week ending October 6, 2007, Reba Duets became McEntires first album ever to enter the pop charts at number one.

Reba McEntire

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