Reba's revved up

Dynamo's creativity pumps up music, sitcom, clothing line

By Mark Brown

For most interviews, you have to revisit and study the artist's music.

For Reba McEntire you have to dig a little deeper. There is music, of course; the 2003 return to her country roots in Room to Breathe, as well as her tour that brings her to the Pepsi Center tonight, literally sharing the stage with Brad Paisley and Terri Clark, both of whom get to sing with McEntire.

But there's the TV show. The clothing line. The movies. The humanitarian work. The awards. The new songs, the new release coming. There's 33 albums in 36 years. In June she'll do one night in South Pacific as a Carnegie Hall benefit.

It's exhausting just to research Reba McEntire - imagine how much work it is to be her.

With husband Narvel Blackstock, McEntire has been able to keep it all sorted out and make it all work. She continues to have artistic and critical success while raising money for good causes and doing good work.

She's one of the most-respected and successful country singers of the modern era. Everyone likes her, everyone wants to work with her. She's exceedingly polite, gracious and well-mannered, even if she claims different.

She's a relentless multitasker; this interview happened as she was being driven to a photo shoot in Los Angeles.

News: How do you do all these things? Are you just completely swamped every single day?

McEntire: "Uh huh. Yep. Absolutely. Couldn't put it better."

News: How do you get downtime for yourself to refuel your creativity?

McEntire: "Narvel and I have a philosophy of life. If you keep putting things into the top of the funnel, whatever comes out will be the good things you need to really work on. We have our downtime, our creativity time, and everything's coming out the bottom of the funnel at once. And it's all great stuff. The clothing line. The TV show is picked up for two more years. The concerts. New album coming out in the fall. It's very, very busy."

News: What's with the album?

McEntire: "It's a compilation album. All my No. 1 records. And two new songs I'll record in July. It'll come out in the fall."

News: Many artists aren't very generous with giving their opening acts stage time, but you're doing a lot with Terri Clark and Brad Paisley.

McEntire: "I've toured with both of them . . . they flew in our plane with us to Las Vegas for the ACMs (Academy of Country Music awards) and we got to sit and visit and kind of get to know each other a bit better. When you're touring you see each other a little bit and we do three songs onstage together but you don't get to really hang and get that uninterrupted time to visit."

News: It seems like you're always sharing a stage with someone.

McEntire: "It is more fun, but more than that, it's an added bonus for the audience to have all three acts onstage at one time. My dream would be to do a concert with one band and having several artists come out and sing their songs by themselves, then do duos and trios, just have a lot of fun and interact with each other."

News: Can you make that happen?

McEntire: "We've tried it several years. It's just a logistical nightmare. Whose band are you going to use? Everyone else tours more than I do. They want to use their band. It has never worked out. But hopefully someday I'll get to do that."

News: You're more stripped down this time with no costume changes.

McEntire: "I didn't want to change clothes 15 times during one show. I want to stay out with the audience. I'm missing so much when I'm going backstage and changing clothes. It's losing the focus on our relationship together. I didn't realize how much I missed that until I came back after a few years off. I just wanted to stay out there."

News: The general consensus is the four years between albums really revitalized your love for country on Room to Breathe.

McEntire: "Definitely. It was time off to refocus why I was in the business anyway. It's for the love of music. You get caught up in, 'What will radio play? What's the business doing right now? Who's hot, who's not? Where are they?' — that vein of thinking. It's the music that I love. When I went back in the studio in 2003 to record I just chose the songs I wanted to sing, not because that's what's radio is playing. It went back to what I used to do — just sing the songs I love to sing."

News: When you started the TV show Reba, there was some concern that some of the issues raised there didn't reflect your actual values. It seems like you've molded the show in such a way that it now does just that.

McEntire: "That's very true. . . . Reba McEntire and Reba Hart are pretty much the same person now. I still get myself in jams once in a while and so does Reba Hart. We're very loyal to our family and very protective. A little hot tempered every once in a while, say some things where we should have used the edit button. We're very similar and the writers see that. We all collaborate — 'What would you do if you were in this situation?' "

News: Are you still hands-on running your own management company, Starstruck?

McEntire: "Narvel takes care of Starstruck. Narvel is the guy who does all the day-to-day business. That way I can stay with the creativity of the TV show and the music and the clothing line. We make a lot of trips to New York for the clothing line, back to Nashville for the music. TV is out here in L.A., so we're very bi-coastal.

"Narvel and I make a wonderful team. I don't know what I'd do without him. He's a great person to get things done. He's great for time management to figure out what we're working on now and what to put on the back burner for later."

News: After seeing the way Starstruck has made you able to take hold of your career, do other artists come to you and ask how they can do it too?

McEntire: "They'll ask me questions and I'll say, 'That's a Narvel question.' "

News: You're doing this tour under Habitat for Humanity's sign. You've been supporting that organization for quite a while.

McEntire: "I've been a big fan of them for a long time. Last year when Whirlpool came and asked me to heighten the awareness of Habitat — that's what they wanted me to do if they were the sponsor of my tour — oh my gosh, that was the easiest deal I ever had to make."

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