Biography

"My mama always said to me, 'Reba, I'm living my life through you.' People used to say that my mama could have been as big as Patsy Cline if she'd had any breaks, but she was teaching school and raising a family. It was unfair and unjust for her not to go on with her singing.

"Well," continues Reba McEntire, "God gave my mother a voice and my mother passed it on to me. I know that I can make it with my voice if I just use it."

Often described by those who know her as 'just Reba,' young Reba McEntire is an honest, open woman who knows exact­ly where she has come from, what she has met along the way to where she is, and just where she is headed. She possesses a clear sense of who she is and, conversely, who she is not.

This makes Reba McEntire a rarity: a gifted songstress who is making it on her own terms without the current popular trap­pings.

Her third Mercury album, Feel The Fire, arrives on the success of her Top 10 hit single, "(You Lift Me) Up To Heaven." Produced by Jerry Kennedy in Nashville, the album is a compi­lation of both new tunes and revitalized old songs, and includes her current single, 11 1 Can See Forever In Your Eyes."

Oklahoma born and bred, Reba McEntire is the daughter, grand-daughter and great-granddaughter of rodeo riders. She had her first taste of music when her mother would lead Reba and her two sisters and brother in singing while they were traveling with their father to the rodeos. Reba was five years old when she belted out a chorus of "Jesus Loves Me" in the lobby of a Cheyenne, Wyoming hotel. "Someone gave me a nickel," she recalls. "It just amazed me."

Young Reba was hooked, and from that point on she sang at fairs, concerts and rodeos.

Reba majored in education at Southeastern State University in Oklahoma but admits now she was "just killing time. My heart was in singing." An opportunity to sing the national anthem at the rodeo finals in Oklahoma City arose, and it was at tha,t event in her senior year that she met her mentor, Red Steagall.' A demo session followed and Reba returned to school. "Red 'said to play like nothing had happened and that time would fly. So, I studied for exams and killed more time," she says.

Steagall brought the tape to Mercury Records, and Reba signed with the label that Fall, 1976. That year, in true daughter-of-the-rodeo style, Reba entered a rodeo where she met Charlie Battles - himself a rodeo rider and her future husband. Today they have a cattle ranch in Oklahoma.

Her debut album, Reba McEntire, was released in 1977 to encouraging critical reception. Following the release, Reba made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry. "It was September 17, 1977," she recalls. "Exactly 30 years to the day that my father won his first big roping award."

Her second album, Out Of A Dream, established Reba as a young singer to watch. It yielded four singles, each a step forward toward her current Top Ten stature: "Sweet Dreams,"

"Last Night, Ev'ry Night," "Runaway Heart" and "That Makes Two Of Us," the last of which was a duet with Jacky Ward.

Feel The Fire should swiftly move Reba to the forefront of today's best country artists. When asked about any restrictions in the country genre, Reba shatters the boundaries immediately. "I'm a Country and Western singer," she replies. "I can sing anything."

9/22/80