Reba makes return to touring
By Mary Barber
Reba McEntire hasn't done a concert tour since 2001, the year she began making her TV sitcom, "Reba," on The WB.
She appreciated the break, her first in 25 years of touring, but the veteran country singer is happy to be back on the road.
"We're lovin' it," she said in a phone interview.
She hasn't released an album this year, so she has nothing new to sell. Instead, she's revisiting songs that she's recorded since she started her career in 1976. Actually, the oldest song in the set is "Whoever's in New England," which was the foundation of her first video in 1986.
And she'll do a few songs off last year's "Room to Breathe." In between, it'll be a hit list, she said.
"I fell in love with all these songs when I first found them," she said. "I'm enjoying just standing up there singing."
The concert will be that simple, she promised. She'll have an "extremely good" nine-piece band and "special guest" Linda Davis, who will sing backup, duets and solos.
"It's a beautiful stage, with beautiful lighting," she said. "It's a very entertaining show. For a 90-minute show, it just flies by."
What she won't have is a fancy set, gimmicks or costumes.
"No costume changes, no dancers," McEntire said. "I just started thinking, 'Why were we doing all that?' ! I guess some people do drugs -- I do clothes changes."
Not any more. Now, she said, she wears her comfortable boots and jeans and a top that she grabs out of her suitcase.
"It's good to be older, it really is," she said. "Maturity has its niceties. ! You just don't sweat the little stuff anymore. You go out and you realize that doing too much is not better. ! You go out and spend quality time with the audience."
It's quality time for her, too, she said.
"I think it is more intimate," she said. "I'm out there more. I'm telling more stories, talking to the audience more, cutting up with them. Usually, I'd fall into a trunk and disappear and come out in another outfit."
She's simplified things in another way: her hair.
Well into the 1990s, she had what she calls "BIG hair." Then she cut it very, very short. That was OK, she said, but she likes it " a little fuller."
"It's down to my shoulders right now," she said. "I let it grow all summer."
She'll have to get it cut again before "Reba" starts shooting because her TV character was in the middle of another family crisis when the third season ended, and she has to look as though no time has passed when the fourth season begins.
Having short hair has its pluses, she said.
"It sure does help with time management," she said.
And she'll need that once work on her TV series begins Wednesday. She'll switch between TV and touring dates well into November.
Mixing the two is new for her, she said, and she's not sure how it will go. But she is planning to tour next summer, once she wraps up her series' fourth season.
The series matters to her, she said, because "it's honest" in showing a family that deals with the anger of divorce, unplanned pregnancies and teens who bounce between the homes of their parents.
"This kind of stuff really does happen," she said, "and the family deals with it. ! I want it to have moral fiber, moral content. ! Our idea was, here's a situation America's going through. Let's show 'em how to get through it. ! It's entertaining, but also, people go, 'Dang, I didn't think about doing it that way.' And we learn, too."
She said she's trying to talk her friend Dolly Parton into doing the show, mostly because she'd like to hang out with her on the set for a week.
And she'd like to get Tim Conway, Harvey Korman and Carol Burnett to come on, except there'd be a slight problem: The trio would make her laugh so much, "it'd take two weeks to do a one-week show," she said.
CLICK HERE to discuss in our forum.
Reba McEntire hasn't done a concert tour since 2001, the year she began making her TV sitcom, "Reba," on The WB.
She appreciated the break, her first in 25 years of touring, but the veteran country singer is happy to be back on the road.
"We're lovin' it," she said in a phone interview.
She hasn't released an album this year, so she has nothing new to sell. Instead, she's revisiting songs that she's recorded since she started her career in 1976. Actually, the oldest song in the set is "Whoever's in New England," which was the foundation of her first video in 1986.
And she'll do a few songs off last year's "Room to Breathe." In between, it'll be a hit list, she said.
"I fell in love with all these songs when I first found them," she said. "I'm enjoying just standing up there singing."
The concert will be that simple, she promised. She'll have an "extremely good" nine-piece band and "special guest" Linda Davis, who will sing backup, duets and solos.
"It's a beautiful stage, with beautiful lighting," she said. "It's a very entertaining show. For a 90-minute show, it just flies by."
What she won't have is a fancy set, gimmicks or costumes.
"No costume changes, no dancers," McEntire said. "I just started thinking, 'Why were we doing all that?' ! I guess some people do drugs -- I do clothes changes."
Not any more. Now, she said, she wears her comfortable boots and jeans and a top that she grabs out of her suitcase.
"It's good to be older, it really is," she said. "Maturity has its niceties. ! You just don't sweat the little stuff anymore. You go out and you realize that doing too much is not better. ! You go out and spend quality time with the audience."
It's quality time for her, too, she said.
"I think it is more intimate," she said. "I'm out there more. I'm telling more stories, talking to the audience more, cutting up with them. Usually, I'd fall into a trunk and disappear and come out in another outfit."
She's simplified things in another way: her hair.
Well into the 1990s, she had what she calls "BIG hair." Then she cut it very, very short. That was OK, she said, but she likes it " a little fuller."
"It's down to my shoulders right now," she said. "I let it grow all summer."
She'll have to get it cut again before "Reba" starts shooting because her TV character was in the middle of another family crisis when the third season ended, and she has to look as though no time has passed when the fourth season begins.
Having short hair has its pluses, she said.
"It sure does help with time management," she said.
And she'll need that once work on her TV series begins Wednesday. She'll switch between TV and touring dates well into November.
Mixing the two is new for her, she said, and she's not sure how it will go. But she is planning to tour next summer, once she wraps up her series' fourth season.
The series matters to her, she said, because "it's honest" in showing a family that deals with the anger of divorce, unplanned pregnancies and teens who bounce between the homes of their parents.
"This kind of stuff really does happen," she said, "and the family deals with it. ! I want it to have moral fiber, moral content. ! Our idea was, here's a situation America's going through. Let's show 'em how to get through it. ! It's entertaining, but also, people go, 'Dang, I didn't think about doing it that way.' And we learn, too."
She said she's trying to talk her friend Dolly Parton into doing the show, mostly because she'd like to hang out with her on the set for a week.
And she'd like to get Tim Conway, Harvey Korman and Carol Burnett to come on, except there'd be a slight problem: The trio would make her laugh so much, "it'd take two weeks to do a one-week show," she said.
CLICK HERE to discuss in our forum.
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