Y101

Nothing about Reba McEntire's entry into country music in 1976 foreshadowed the enormous achievements she would make as an entertainer and businesswoman. From the mid-1980s until the late 1990s, she was clearly the dominant female presence in country music.

Born Reba Nell McEntire on March 28, 1955, in Chockie, Okla., she grew up on a large cattle ranch. Her father was also a champion calf roper, an activity that routinely took the McEntire family on far-flung rodeo tours. Her mother was a singer and teacher. While Reba showed an early love and talent for music, she was not alone in this interest. Both her brother, Dale and sister, Susie, were singers as well. While still at home they performed together as the singing McEntires.

Red Steagall heard her singing the national anthem at the National Rodeo finals in 1974 and was so impressed that he offered to back a recording session for her in Nashville. This led to her signing with Mercury Records in 1975. The following year, she married rodeo rider Charlie Battles. That union would last until their divorce in 1987. (At about the same time she was getting into the music business, McEntire completed her degree in education.)

On May 8, 1976, Reba made her debut on Billboard's country singles chart with "I Don't Want to Be a One-Night Stand." The single was hardly more than that, reaching only to No. 88 and falling off entirely after five weeks. She did not score a Top 10 record until 1980 when "(You Lift Me) Up to Heaven" climbed to No. 8. In her next three Reba gained momentum via singles that routinely landed in Top 10 and Top 5 territory. Two of her singles made it all the way to No. 1: "Can't Even Get the Blues" (1983) and "You're the First Time I've Thought About Leaving" (1984).

Well into the '80s, she made the most of her rodeo persona, both in publicity photos and stage costumes. But during this period, as her presence within the industry rose, she began moving her looks and sound more toward the middle. She was one of the first country stars to glimpse the potential of music videos.

In her first video, "Whoever's in New England" in 1986, she played a suburban housewife who's fearful that her executive husband is enjoying carnal pleasures in Massachusetts. She also favored videos high on drama and which spotlighted her own burgeoning acting talents. One of these, "Is There Life Out There" (1992), was transformed into a television movie for her.

Much of her artistic metamorphosis came from hiring attorney Bill Carter as her principal manager, a duty that formerly fell to her husband Battles. Under Carter's management, she would greatly spread her presence beyond country music. After her divorce from Battles, her former steel player and road manager, Narvel Blackstock, became her manager and later her second husband. Together, they created Starstruck Entertainment in 1988, an organization that eventually embraced concert promotion, music publishing, recording, publicity, transportation and related services.

Every year from 1984 through 1987, she won the Country Music Association's female vocalist of the year award. In 1986, she was voted CMA's entertainer of the year. She won Grammys in 1986 and 1993. Her singles continued to hit No. 1 regularly. Between 1985 and 1997, she had 17 No. 1's and another 15 Top 5s. She also put to rest the myth that women in country music couldn't sell albums. To date, she has sold more than 40 million.

In 1990, she played a major supporting role in the movie Tremors, which starred Kevin Bacon. Her other feature films and TV movies include North, The Little Rascals, The Gambler Returns, The Man From Left Field, Buffalo Girls, Is There Life Out There, Forever Love and One Night at McCool's.

At the time of its release, 1990's Rumor Has It had become her best-selling album to date with the hits "You Lie," "Fancy" and "Fallin' Out of Love." While on tour, seven members of her band and her road manager were killed in an airplane crash near San Diego on March 16, 1991. In spite of her grief, she sang a few weeks later on the Academy Awards show. Still mourning the loss, she went into the studio to record her next album and created one of the best, yet bleakest, collections of her career, For My Broken Heart. It went on to sell more than 4 million copies, making it her best-selling studio album.

In spite of her wide view of entertainment, Reba has always seen music as her bedrock. Her best songs not only incorporate the attitudes and emotional intensity of classic country, they also have important things to say. In fact, no other country artist of her era matched her when it came to recording and performing socially conscious material. "

Her autobiography, Reba: My Story, was published in 1994. It became the basis of her intimate 2000 stage show tour, A Singer's Diary. She offered the inspirational book Comfort From a Country Quilt in 1999. In 2001, she took over the lead role in the Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun and dazzled the New York critics. Later that year, she began her Warner Bros. TV sitcom series, Reba.

In 2006, McEntire began a multi-week concert stint at the Las Vegas Hilton with REBA: Key to the Heart. In November 2006, Reba was the first recipient of a star on the Music City Walk of Fame in downtown Nashville. She was honored alongside Roy Orbison, Ronnie Milsap and others.

In February 2007, Reba saw the end of her hit television sitcom, Reba, after six successful seasons. The same month she and Kelly Clarkson taped a performance for an installment of CMT Crossroads that aired June 24 on CMT.

Duets marks the final album due in her current contract with MCA Records. A new contract may be negotiated or she may switch to a new record label. The album features duets with some of the biggest names in music such as Justin Timberlake, Rascal Flatts, Faith Hill, LeAnn Rimes, and Carole King. The first single was a duet with Kelly Clarkson, a remake of Clarkson's song "Because of You." The song rose quickly up the country chart and became McEntire's 30th Top-20 country single, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs and is also her 50th Top-5 single. This ties her for the record with Dolly Parton among female country artists.

Keep On Loving You is the much-anticipated follow up album to Reba Duets and will be released on August 18th.  "Strange" is the debut single and is the fastest-rising solo single and highest solo chart debut of her 33-year career.