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

"It is real life with me," Reba says. "I am not the glamorous person people may think I am. People who know me know I’m not. I’m the same person I was growing up in Southeastern Oklahoma. I go back home and see how hard my sister Alice works with four kids, one of them handicapped, and with her grandkids. I’ve got lots of great memories of being at home and the way we were raised, and you never forget that. I love to sing songs people can relate to. One of the reasons my music has lasted as long as it has is because I am a person that they can relate to and my music is what they can relate to."
As she did in "Is There Life Out There," Reba continues to offer hope and encouragement to the women of Middle America, letting them know they aren’t alone as they face life’s changing roles. She proves in "She’s Turning 50 Today," which she co-wrote, that it’s never too late to begin leading the life you’ve always wanted to have.

"There’s not many good songs for women around 50," she says of the song about a woman who starts a new life after being left for a woman half her age. "I’m 54, so I thought it was a good song to sing for my generation. Men go through a mid-life crisis and get a younger woman. Instead of that woman being left behind falling to pieces, she considers it a new opportunity to find fun and adventure in her life."

Reba loves the story-telling in songs such as "Fancy" and "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia," and continues that tradition with the swampy "Maggie Creek Road," a tale of a pistol-packing mother’s retribution against a man who harmed her daughter. A strong female theme with a side dish of saucy attitude is another Reba musical stamp, one that delightfully flows through "Strange" and "Consider Me Gone," while the heartache is palpable in "Nothing to Lose" and "Over You." The fun "I Want a Cowboy," "Pink Guitar" and "I"ll Have What She’s Having" provide the perfect backdrop for a girls’ night out.

While Reba has always remained true to herself on her previous albums, she presents her most authentic self to date (as Oprah might say) on Keep On Loving You, which she co-produced with Tony Brown and Mark Bright. "I have scaled down," she says of her musical productions. "I always thought bigger was better, but I like the intimacy of staying out there onstage with my fans instead of going back and changing clothes 15 times. I like that fourth wall being broken.
"I like what I’m wearing and how I’m wearing my hair. I wear my cowboy boots and they are more me than any other look I’ve ever had in my 33-year career. Everything that we’re doing now is more Reba than it was in the past. The things I did in the past were things I wanted to do to entertain me. After getting to do movies and TV, I realized the real me was just the simple Reba. That is the same Reba, the Reba that is on the Reba TV show."

She developed a new recording philosophy during the six-year span between solo projects. "Back when I was touring and doing 80 to 120 dates a year and coming in and doing two or three albums a year, I’d get in there and sing and start entertaining myself by doing vocal trills and little acrobatic things," says Reba. "But when you haven’t sung for awhile on an album, you really get into the music and the song. And I’ve matured; I’m growing up. You think about things differently and you aren’t trying to impress anybody. You are just trying to pay homage to this song. I mean, I’m trying to impress the musicians while we are performing, but I’m not trying to do outlandish things like the vocal trills I used to do 10 years ago."

Fortunately, the results have garnered impressive reviews from some of her toughest critics. "Narvel summed it up for me," she says. "He listened to it over and over and he said, ‘I think this is one of the best albums you’ve ever recorded.’" Reba is ecstatic about the album’s early and strong reception by country radio programmers (and her husband) and is e
ager to share her new music with her fans. "I wanted to name the album Keep on Loving You because it’s a tribute to my fans: You’ve always been there for me and I’m going to keep on loving you," says Reba.

"I’m excited about being with the new record label," she says. "I’m excited about this new album. I’m excited where I am in my life, my age, that radio is still playing my music and that fans still want to hear my music and see me perform. I’m very grateful, appreciative and blessed."