Reba McEntire Funnels 35 Years Of Experience Into ‘All The Women I Am’

Monday, November 08, 2010 - 08:56 AM, CST | Tennessean.com | Cindy Watts

Reba McEntire might have headed into CMA Awards season touting a new holiday collection, had Beyonce’s influence not intervened.

The country singer covered R&B/pop star Beyonce’s hit “If I Were A Boy” on CMT’s Unplugged in May, and the fan response was so overwhelming that McEntire scrapped Christmas album plans to focus on a new country studio album, with “Boy” included.

The change in album plans, McEntire said, was pretty seamless — after 35 years in country music, she’s learned to be prepared.

“I already had a bunch of songs selected for the new album because I’m always looking,” McEntire said of All the Women I Am, which hits stores Tuesday — the day before she vies for the top female vocalist prize at the 44th Annual CMA Awards. “It only took me a weekend and a week to do the tracks. I record fast because I’ve got the material, and I’m very focused. ... There’s no messing around when I’m in the studio.”

Dann Huff, McEntire’s producer for this project, said he’s particularly excited for fans to hear “If I Were A Boy” — he sees McEntire’s vocal on it as one of the best performances of her career.

“The Beyonce cover is staggering,” Huff said. “It reaches out through the speakers. She brings a whole new continuity to that song.”

Emotions pour forth

The rest of All the Women I Am weaves naturally with the relationship-based focus of “Boy,” which McEntire distills as “advice to a guy about how he could be a better person treating a woman better.”

Rich with ballads, up-tempos and articulate story songs, the album’s topics range from loving a child to hating an ex and all the relationship issues in between. “Bridge You Burn,” studded with fiddle and banjo riffs, details an advice-filled conversation between two friends about learning from bad relationships. And McEntire said album closer “When You Love a Child,” written by veteran songwriter Tom Douglas about the emotional rollercoaster that is being a parent, tears her heart out every time she sings it.

“You’ll understand why I had to pick it when you hear it,” she said, “because every word Tom Douglas wrote on this song is so visual. He talks about when they put that baby in your arms. He talked about when you’re watching it grow, and then in the second verse he says, ‘When perfume and gasoline rain on your perfect world,’ meaning prom night and kids always wanting a car. It just wrecked me. It is such a special song. Whether you have children or not, it’s going to wreck you.”

‘Monster songs’

Huff sees McEntire as a master at song selection, and feels that she crafted a brave, eclectic album that caters to many aspects of the country music market.

“She has a handful of singles she knows will do the duty at radio, but what I really respect is the way she organized this record,” the producer said. “She has the right amount of commerciality … but she doesn’t base her opinion of herself on just radio songs. She’s basing it on a body of work, and that’s really exciting.”

In building that body of work over 35 years, McEntire has earned more than 55 million album sales and 63 Top 10 hits — and, she said, a clear understanding of the kind of songs that work for her.

“The only thing I ask of the songs is that they touch my heart, touch me in some way,” McEntire said. “When I feel like they are monster songs I can’t wait to sing, those are the ones I’m going to record. Hopefully if they touch my heart they’re going to touch your heart when you hear me singing — if I’ve done my part right.”

Posted by Kevin on 11/08/2010 at 08:56 AM


 

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