What I’ve Learned: Reba McEntire

Often called the Queen of Country Music, Reba McEntire has sold 75 million albums and won three Grammys over her five-decade musical career. She also stars in the sitcom Happy’s Place and returns this fall to The Voice, both on NBC.

Singing was the only thing that got me good attention. Anything else might be bad attention or no attention at all—which is horrible, because I’m a show dog.

Mama taught all of us kids how to sing. We didn’t have a radio in the car, so that’s the way we passed the time, learning to sing three-part harmony on the road to the rodeo.

I was always afraid if I didn’t use my gift, God would take it away from me and give it to somebody else.

I grew up on a working cattle ranch, eight thousand acres. Alice, Susie, and I were expected to do the work Pake, our brother, did. The only difference was when we got through with our chores, we had to go and do the women’s chores, help Mama cook and clean up, while Pake got to watch TV.

I’m a female; I know you gotta work harder. There’s no need to bitch and gripe about it.

I like to be approachable, and I like to be not scary. I don’t want to be up on a pedestal and idolized and revered. I want to be a buddy, a friend.

I knew I was funny when I told Mama a joke one time and she laughed. And I went, “I want to do that again!” But I had to wait, because I didn’t want to push my luck. I mean, you work on a cattle ranch, it’s not fun—if you’re over here laughing and hee-hawing and then the cattle take off, you’ve lost half a day of work. It’s not a good idea to be, as Daddy would call it, mess-assing around.

One thing that I learned from the new generations is to loosen up. Their first year out and what they do onstage I couldn’t have done in my tenth year. It’s just confidence.

I think it comes from their parents—“You can do whatever you want to.” Well, I could be whatever I want to be too, as long as I acted respectably. There was a set of ground rules: You get up there, you have your sparkly outfits on, and you act like a lady. Nowadays, I’m not saying they’re not acting like a lady, but they’re more free.

Today’s country isn’t the kind of country music I grew up with. It used to be cyclical and go from traditional to contemporary. Now it’s traditional to pop, rock ’n’ roll, punk rock, whatever you want to call it, genres mixed in with a little bit of country. Some stay, some dip their toe in the shallow end of the pool and then go back to where they’re comfortable, but we learn from them, and hopefully they learn something from us. And I hope they had a good time.

Finding the right songs will always be the most important thing for my career, because I’m not a songwriter. If it’s not on the page, it’s not on the stage, and if it’s not in the song, keep looking.

My manager was my husband from 1989 to 2015. Everybody took care of everything. All I had to do was get up and sing. When that dissolved, all that team went with him, and I was scared to death. I was deserted, abandoned, and left. I threw a fit. And then there they were, my angels, right there beside me. “Hey, you’re learning. You didn’t know how much a gallon of milk was, now you do. Now get out there. You can do it. You’re tough. We taught you better.”

I’m very competitive. I get a number-one record, I want another number-one record. I won an award, I want another one. I’ll never forget Miranda Lambert coming up to me when she was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year after she’d already won it, and I said, “Good luck, Miranda.” She said, “Oh, I already won, it’s time for somebody else.” What person lets that come out of their mouth? I was shocked. I thought everybody was just like me.

We always play a game at dinner: What would be your superpower? And I always wanted to twitch my nose and have the dishes done, have my hair fixed.

My boyfriend Rex and I are birders, and we can pretty much tell you what bird is what by sound or look. When you’re looking at these birds, so colorful and beautiful, that, to me, is the face of God.

I don’t know how I would get through the day without my faith. It’s there to celebrate with me, and it’s there to help me get back on my feet when something really horrible happens.

Listen more, talk less. You can get everybody else’s opinion, but then you’ve got to go back and do some soul-searching.

If you say you’re going to do something, do it. Tell the truth. Both my parents said that.

What’s changed the most is language, what’s allowed, what’s tolerated. Sexuality too. Now kids know about stuff that we knew about a lot later in life. And maybe that’s good. Knowledge is power if you use it right.

If it all ended today, I wouldn’t have a complaint.

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