Reba McEntire
Real Name: Reba Nell McEntire
Date of Birth: March 28, 1955
Place of birth: McAlester Oklahoma
Profession: Country Music Singer
The fiery red-head, Reba McEntire, is a Grammy award winning country music singer who has enjoyed a long and rewarding career. Often referred to as the Queen of Country, she has recorded 31 albums during her career and sold over 50 million records worldwide.
Born in McAlester Oklahoma on March 28, 1955, she grew up near Chockie, Oklahoma, where she learned how to sing, dance and ride in rodeos. Her father, Clark McEntire was a three-time World Champion Steer Roper and her mother Jacqueline Smith was a sharecropper’s daughter and an aspiring singer but never pursued a music career.
McEntire and her sister and brother formed a group in the early 70’s called “The Singing McEntires.” But it was in 1974 while a student at Southeastern Oklahoma State University that McEntire was spotted by country singer Red Steagall when she sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City. Steagall suggested she go to Nashville to pursue a solo career and there she got a recording contract with Mercury Records.
It was in the early 1980s that McEntire began to shine as a country superstar. In 1984 she signed with MCA Nashville and became one of the best-selling country artists of all time. She won the “Female Vocalist of the Year” from the Country Music Association four times in a row beginning in 1984. She is also one of only five female solo artists to have won the Country Music Association’s highest honor the “Entertainer of the Year.”
The 90’s were again a powerful decade for McEntire although tragedy occurred in 1991 when a plane carrying seven of McEntire’s band members and her road manager crashed, killing everyone on board. McEntire was devastated, and when she sang at the Academy Awards a week later she dedicated the song to them while she sang through tears.
In 1994 and 1995, McEntire’s stage show out grossed all other country artists making her the first woman to have the highest grossing concert tour in country music history. She earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was the first recipient of a star on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville.
McEntire’s career also includes acting and she took Broadway by storm in 2001 when she appeared in “Annie Get Your Gun.” It was a critically acclaimed performance and “The New York Times” said, “Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season.”
McEntire also starred in her own sitcom “Reba” from 2001 to 2007.
In her personal life, McEntire married Charlie Battles in 1987 and they were married for 11 years before divorcing. In 1989 she married Narvel Blackstock, her manager and former steel guitar player. They have one son Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock born in 1990.
