Old & new gospel
Reba McEntire’s new double album has traditional favorites and contemporary songs.
When Reba McEntire set out to make the first gospel album of her fourdecade music career, she opened up a well-loved book from her Oklahoma home.
“That’s how I picked out my songs, my list. I just went through the old hymnal from Chockie Church … and started with my absolute favorites, narrowing them down,” McEntire said.
But the gospel classics she grew up with are only half the story of her double album, “Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope.” Set for release Friday jointly through Nash Icon Records and Capitol Christian Music Group, the first disc consists of 10 traditional hymns of “faith,” while the second features 10 contemporary Christian songs of “hope.”
“I think this album really helped me, not only to keep me busy, but keep me busy on something that is good and positive and healing, which music is,” McEntire said in a recent phone interview. “These songs of faith and hope, that’s what you gotta have when you’re going through bad times —and good times. You gotta have faith and hope to carry you through each day.”
Help through hurting
Although making an inspirational gospel album wasn’t her idea —she began pursuing it after her former manager Bill Carter and longtime producer Tony Brown
helped her through recent heartbreaks.
In October 2014, her father, Oklahoma rodeo legend Clark McEntire, died at age 86 after struggling with health problems for years. In December 2015, she and her husband/ manager Narvel Blackstock announced they were divorcing after 26 years of marriage.
“I liked the (gospel album) idea, but I didn’t know when or what. I had to sit and pray on it and really let it digest. Timing is everything. So when it was really firm in my heart that that needed to be done, I got the songs together and we started recording,” she said. “I know there’s other people out there hurting like I did, so if it helped me, hopefully it’ll help them, too.”
Although she always intended to record half old and half new gospel songs, McEntire, 61, said it initially was planned as a single-disc project that was expanded simply because neither she nor her collaborators could narrow down the track list.
“We went in with the idea of doing five new, five old. And then when we got through recording … I’d (done) probably about six too many,” she said. “I picked my favorites. My problem was to eliminate some of them. So I was really thrilled that they did the two-CD package.”
The Oklahoma native co-produced “Sing It Now” with Doug Sisemore, her band leader and musical director, and Jay DeMarcus, of the platinum-selling country band Rascal Flatts.
Working with family, friends
The Kiowa High School graduate didn’t just use the Chockie Church hymnal to pick the songs for the project.
“I told all my friends, I said, ‘What do you all want to hear?’ ” she said. “So, it was a labor of love for all my friends and family.”
Both fellow country singer Kix Brooks and her sister, Susie McEntire Eaton, a contemporary Christian singer, wanted her to cut “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Her “Reba” sitcom costar Melissa Peterman requested “Oh Happy Day.” Her associate manager Carolyn Snell introduced her to the contemporary anthem “From the Inside Out.”
Her family and friends didn’t just make requests: Her daughter-in-law, Kelly Clarkson, and good friend Trisha Yearwood belted along with her on “Softly and Tenderly,” while the gospel family band The Isaacs harmonized with her on a medley of “In The Garden” and “Wonderful Peace.”
Her mother, Jackie McEntire, not only shares a writer credit with Reba on the uplifting original “I Got the Lord on My Side,” but the matriarch also joined Reba, Susie and their sister, Alice Foran, to croon an old-time country rendition of “I’ll Fly Away.”
“Having Mama, Susie and Alice in the studio was so much fun. Mama and Alice kept backing away from the microphone, and me and Susie were right up on top of it. And I said, ‘Get back up here. What do you guys think you’re doing?’ ” Reba recalled with a laugh. “And we’d giggle and laugh and mess up, do it again. It was just so much fun.”
Cherishing the day
After weathering a difficult period in her life, McEntire said she’s learned the importance of cherishing each day.
“Take one day at a time, and then finish that day and then go to the next one. And that’s what I’ve learned in my old age, is to slow down, smell the roses,” she said.
Of course, slowing down is a relative term when it comes to McEntire. Along with releasing her first gospel album, she and fellow country music stars Brooks and Ronnie Dunn keep adding dates to their popular Caesars Palace residency, “Reba, Brooks & Dunn: Together In Vegas.”
And she is making her much-anticipated return to television in her first drama, which she is executive producing alongside “Desperate Housewives” creator Marc Cherry.
“He’s wonderful. I’ve been a fan of his since the beginning of ‘Desperate Housewives,’ and he’s fun to be around. He’s witty. He is a genius,” she said. “We’re both from Oklahoma, and he grew up in that small town. So, he draws from characters that he knew, and some of ’em are broad, but you know people just like that when you live in a small town.”
ABC has ordered a pilot for the as-yet-untitled show, which will star McEntire as a Southern small-town sheriff who has to partner with a young FBI agent of Middle Eastern descent to solve a murder.
“To have this album and a TV show, the Brooks & Dunn residency in Vegas … that’s three wonderful projects that I totally adore. And then also having my clothing line with Dillard’s, and luggage and shoes, that’s my entrepreneur side, but something that I like to also do and be a part of,” she said.
“Really it is. It’s slowing down,” she added with a laugh. “I am kind of like cleaning out the closet. I am really focusing on the things I really want to do and giving it my undivided attention, and that way, everything’s not so watered down. … But the thing that is very important is to really cherish the day. Because the day that God made, it’s a great day.”