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WELL-ROUNDED REBA

McEntire steps away from her sitcom to hit the road

By ALAN SCULLEY

From the mid-1980s and well into the 1990s, Reba McEntire was the undisputed queen of country music, the first woman in the genre to consistently sell out arenas as she reeled off one platinum album after another.

She hasn't lost much, if any, of the popularity that lifted her to that standing, although one could argue that other artists — such as Martina McBride or Shania Twain — now hold the pre-eminent place among women in country music.

But if McEntire has ceded some of her status in country music, she has more than made up for it by becoming a major presence in other fields.

Over the past decade and a half, she has made a major impact as an actress. This pursuit started in 1990 with roles in several television movies (including "The Gambler Returns: The Luck Of The Draw") and feature films ("The Little Rascals") before McEntire went to Broadway for an acclaimed run in "Annie Get Your Gun." She currently stars in the WB sitcom "Reba," now in its fourth season.

McEntire has little trouble explaining why acting became such a natural transition for her during a recent interview prior to the start of her current summer concert tour.

"Every song that I sing is like a mini-video in my mind," McEntire said. "And I'm acting out the words in my mind. I can see it. So the acting was really a natural thing.

"I've always loved to pretend and play like, and when you get in a situation where you get to be somebody else and act either silly, funny, goofy, happy or sad, that's just an extension of my music because you can express yourself in music, but when you get to act it out with other people, it's just so much fun," she said. "That's why I totally love to act, and especially doing "Annie Get Your Gun' for six months on Broadway — that was the greatest venue for me because I got to sing and act, and with very, very talented people that I learned so much from."

Flexible schedule

A weekly television series might seem like a project that would interfere with McEntire's music career, but she said the show actually is perfectly suited to her schedule.

"For me, it worked out perfect because I'm on the TV show from August to March, and we don't work on the weekends, so I can put my music in that (time)," McEntire said. "Then I'm through for all the summer months to be able to tour. So it's the perfect schedule for me to be able to have a television show and in the summer go tour, put the show together, record, whatever I need to do, and then I'll just go right back to the television show."

McEntire is using her summer off this year to tour, heading up a bill that also features Brad Paisley and Terri Clark. The concert dates, which include a stop this weekend at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, are in support of her 29th album, "Room to Breathe," which was released in 2003 but continues to garner sales behind the single, "My Sister."

McEntire's past concerts have been known for elaborate staging, numerous costume changes and production numbers. She hinted that this summer's tour won't skimp on the visual entertainment.

"It is a lot bigger of a show than it was last year when we were touring," McEntire said. "This year, we've got a lot more lights, and the staging is different."

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Season opener Reba McEntire takes a break from other projects

Reba McEntire has sold nearly 50 million albums -- more than any other female country artist -- and had 31 No. 1 hits, which she'll soon fold into a ''Ones" album a la Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

Yet McEntire, who opens the Tweeter Center's summer season tonight with Brad Paisley and Terri Clark (humorously dubbed the ''Two Hats and a Redhead Tour"), modestly shrugs off these achievements.

''I wouldn't have known I had that many number ones if they hadn't told me," she says. ''I had my first No. 1 in 1982, so I've been around long enough to chalk them up. And I had my latest No. 1 last year with 'Somebody.' "

There are workaholics -- and then there's Reba. She has diversified in recent years by acting on Broadway in 2001 in ''Annie Get Your Gun," then launching the popular TV sitcom ''Reba" on the WB network. And she has a new clothing line. No wonder it's somewhat restful for her just to get back on the road and sing.

''We've been out for two weekends and the crowds have loved the combination of me with Brad and Terri," she says of her latest tour. ''Terri goes on first, then Brad, then me, but we all come out and do two or three songs as an encore."

The tour helps benefit Habitat for Humanity, with one dollar of each ticket going to the nonprofit. ''I've always been a big fan of Habitat and I've loved what they do. They work hard. It's been a great marriage," she says.

McEntire's return to New England tonight is symbolic. She helped put country music on the map in this region when she scored a hit with ''Whoever's in New England" in 1984.

''I think back to '83 and '84 when Ricky Skaggs and I came up there to play," she adds. ''I couldn't believe how many people were coming out to the concerts then. They'd say, 'Oh, we love country music up here.' So I'm not surprised at all that it's done well there. I'm sure other people are surprised, though, because when I did 'Whoever's in New England,' some would say, 'Why are you singing a song about the Northeast? They don't like country music.' And I'd say, 'Yeah, they do.'

''I had to fight for the song a bit, but hey, I was standing up for y'all a long time ago."

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Hartford Photos

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Photos by: Wonda Couturier

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REBA RELATED

Country singer Terri Clark progresses from fan of Reba McEntire to touring with her

BY CLAUDIA PERRY

When country singer Terri Clark, 36, was growing up in Medicine Hat, Alberta, she proudly wore her Reba McEntire T-shirts and was a member of the singer's fan club.

"That was before she was just going by 'Reba,'" Clark says her Nashville home. "I would wear her T-shirts and people would ask, 'What's a Reba?'"

No one has to ask that question anymore. McEntire is a multimedia star who has gone beyond her top-shelf country singer status to add Broadway, movies and a television series to her credits. McEntire tapped Clark to open her upcoming tour, which stops at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel on Saturday.

"It's just amazing that I'm now on tour with her," says Clark, who is doing her second tour with McEntire. "I have such idol worship of her. I was working as a boot salesman in Nashville, and she came in with Narvel (Blackstock, McEntire's husband) and Shelby (their son). I sold (Shelby) his first pair of cowboy boots."

Whether it's boots or tough-girl tunes, Clark has been closing deals since she hit Nashville nearly a decade ago. In 1995, her first big single, "Better Things to Do," established her as a down-home, feisty and independent spirit, unlike her pop-inflected countrywoman Shania Twain. Gretchen Wilson, whose "Redneck Woman" was the breakout hit of last year, mines some of the same territory Clark staked out.

"I've tried to pursue life full throttle," Clark says. "A lot of young girls listen to my music, and they're looking for role models, women who are strong. I get a lot of letters, and my message to them is be your own woman and don't be afraid to be strong."

Clark doesn't have a fear of humor that can make some country singers seem rigid and sanctimonious. Her single, "Girls Lie Too," is a good example of her wit. ("Girls lie too/Old gray sweat pants turn us on/We like your friends and we love your mom")

"It's just kind of little white lies," Clark says of the song. "Guys do that to us all the time. 'You look great in that dress.' 'That doesn't make you look fat.' They do that to us, so I'm just giving it back to them."

The video that accompanied "Girls Lie Too" featured a woman fantasizing about being swept off her feet by Johnny Depp as he appeared in "Pirates of the Caribbean." At the end of the video, the woman wakes up next to Wayne Newton.

"That wasn't Johnny Depp," Clark says. "It was our video director dressed up as Johnny Depp. A lot of people thought it was him. It was the real Wayne Newton. So the video does have a celebrity in it, just not the one everybody thinks. I thought it was pretty cool."

Clark's current album is a greatest hits collection that includes a version of "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," a hit for Linda Ronstadt.

"We had been doing that song in our show and got such a great response to it, we decided to cut it," Clark says. "We put it out as a single (in 1996) and it did really well. It's a crowd favorite to this day."

Since Clark has had success with songs in keeping with her no-nonsense persona, she finds herself being typecast by song pitchers.

"You are faced with a challenge," Clark says of her next album, which she has been working on since 2003. "You want to grow as an artist and not keep doing the same thing over and over again. I'm working constantly not to alienate my previous audience. I think that's part of the reason it's taken me so long on this album. This will be my seventh album. I've already said a whole lot, but I want to find new things to say. I think I have been somewhat pigeonholed over the years. You can paint yourself into a corner. I'm just trying to find a new shade."

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A TOUR UPDATE FROM HARTFORD

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Reba Featured In Ladies Home Journal

In cover story, Reba talks about making it in a man's world

NASHVILLE, TN Thursday May.5.2005 /netmusiccountdown.com/ -- Reba McEntire is the cover story of the June issue of Ladies' Home Journal in an exclusive interview with top Hollywood reporter, Jeanne Wolf.

In the article, she talks about career and family revealing how she says she made it in a male-dominated era of country music of the 1970s.

"I worked in a man's world. Men were getting paid more than women. Men were headliners, women weren't," Reba describes.

She says she broke those barriers by sheer hard work. "All I knew to do was work harder. I just said to myself, 'By golly, I am going to do this.' It was stay quiet and snake ahead."

Reba says she eventually took control of her career by watching how it was done and then doing it herself.

"All my life it was, 'You sit over there and I'll tell you what to do.' And so I'd watch and I'd learn. Then when the time came when I thought I knew enough, I did things myself, the way I wanted them done."

Reba also discusses her relationship with her husband/manager, Narvel Blackstock, her son, Shelby, and her growing empire that includes her new clothing line.

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McEntire busy with clothing, TV show, tour

Reba McEntire is the hardest-working woman in show business.

The red-headed Oklahoma firebrand has just finished taping the fourth season of her hit sitcom “Reba,” launched the Reba clothing line through Dillard’s department stores, and begun a 25-city American tour (including Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville on May 13) that will have her singing in front of a half-million people.

The tour, which features fellow country stars Brad Paisley and Terri Clark, began last month and continues through mid-June. When it ends, McEntire, who has hit No. 1 on the country chart 30 times, will voice a character for an animated remake of “Charlotte’s Web,” sing on a movie soundtrack for Disney and play the part of Nellie Forbush in a one-night charity performance of “South Pacific” at Carnegie Hall.

That’s just the first half of this year.

“I never went out looking for any of this stuff,” she says by phone from her Nashville office. “...I have the choice of either taking the opportunity to be a part of it, or I pass on it. And I usually say ‘Boy, if I don’t take it, it’s gonna go to somebody else.’ ”

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