Reba McEntire photo by Russ Harrington, courtesy of the Valory Music Co.

"I think it’s a new chapter, I really do," Reba says of her entertainment career. "I’m back to only my music. In the last 10 years, I’ve either had TV shows, Broadway or something else going on. Basically this is a time when I can really concentrate and focus on my music. This being the first solo album in six years is very exciting to me, as is the new chapter with the record label and new excitement in the music again.

"It’s a big milestone for me to be on a different label for the first time in my career," says Reba, who had been with the same record company (the merged PolyGram/Mercury/MCA) since 1976 before signing with Valory in November 2008. "Just being with Scott Borchetta again is very exciting because of his enthusiasm and his great team. It’s like a family reunion.
"Scott is very creative and innovative," says Reba, who is managed by her husband, Narvel Blackstock. "He sure makes you work hard, that’s for sure. I work harder when I am with him than with anyone else. He and Narvel make a great team of finding things for me to do. If you want to succeed and want your music out there, that is what you have to do because it’s very competitive out there."

Borchetta says, "Reba has attacked this new album with a renewed energy brought on in part by this new beginning. There is a huge excitement and hunger for new Reba music, which is apparent with her lead-off single, ‘Strange,’ which is the fastest-moving single of her career. Even though she has nothing to prove, don’t tell Reba! The gleam in her eye and the kick in her step can only mean one thing: The queen still rules. And she rules by example."

Keep on Loving You is a collection of 13 songs that is quintessential Reba. It’s a sound that is contemporary, fresh and relevant, yet still true to her traditional country roots . "I still go with the same formula I always have," she says. "When a song moves me, I will sing it and hopefully it will move you. I just like to sing different songs. I think it goes back to that attention-span thing for me. Mama always said I had the attention span of a 2-year-old. I like to sing an up-tempo kick-butt song and then a ballad. ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ is one of my favorite songs, and then go into ‘Respect’ or something like ‘Strange’ or "Just When I Thought I’d Stopped Loving You.’"

Reba’s music poignantly captures the routine details and crushing disappointments of American women’s lives, where a red-carpet moment is the result of a Kool-Aid spill, not a star-studded movie premiere. It’s the sound of babies crying and dryers humming, the silence of unappreciated sacrifices and ignored dreams. There’s a secret afternoon hotel stay in "Eight Crazy Hours (In the Story of Love)," but this woman’s temporary comfort comes from solitude, not illicit love. She uses the few unclaimed hours to cry out her frustrations in Room 5’s bathtub before returning home to serve her family dinner. "She was smoothin’ the sheet with the palm of her hand/When the thought struck home I don’t know who I am," the song says.