Reba: My Story (42 page)

That brought us up to six husband-and-wife teams in my organization: Linda Davis and Lang Scott in the band; Rose and Jimmy Carter, our house- and groundskeepers; Frances and Paul Voorhees, our truck drivers; Patricia Lounsbury-Lagden and Graeme Lagden, our horse farm and tour managers, respectively; Kim and Bill Nash, both writers in my publishing company; and, of course, Narvel and me. And it works out very well!

It was in the early part of 1993 that I came across the song “Does He Love You.” I thought it was the perfect song for me and Linda to do as a duet. It’s a strange story about that song. I knew from the very beginning that “Does He Love You” was a song just waiting for Linda Davis to sing it. At the time, Billy Stritch, who co-wrote it with Sandy Knox, was in a trio in which he sang and played the piano. The other two members of the trio, both female, needed a song to do, so Sandy and Billy got together and finished “Does He Love You” in 1982. It was later played for Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, and Barbara Mandrell, but no one grabbed it until I did in 1993. That’s destiny!

Narvel flipped over the tune too, but he sat me down for a serious talk. “I think MCA would rather you record this with somebody who’s more established,” he said.

“Well, who?” I asked.

Since Trisha Yearwood and Wynonna were both on MCA, it was easy to say they would be MCA’s choices.

So I called Tony Brown, my producer, who told me that Wynonna would probably record the song if I asked her personally. He added that Wynonna didn’t like to sing songs about marital problems, the theme of “Does He Love You.” Still, I packaged the demo tape with a personal note to Wynonna and sent it to her via Larry Strickland, her stepfather, a former background singer for Elvis Presley. I never heard from Wynonna.

So during Fan Fair week in June 1993, I recorded the song with Linda.

It was one of the two new songs we put on my 1993
Greatest Hits
album along with eight of my greatest hits. The first week it was released, that album shot to number eight on
Billboard
’s pop chart. And as a result, after we performed “Does He Love You” on the 1993 CMA Awards Show, Linda got a deal on Arista Records, the Clive Davis company whose Nashville division includes Alan Jackson, Pam Tillis, and Brooks and Dunn. And in 1994, “Does He
Love You” won a Grammy for “Country Vocal Collaboration.” I just know Linda’s going to be a mega-star.

And I’ll say it again: No matter what other people tell me, I’ve almost never gone wrong when I’ve followed my heart.

I’ll give you one more example: From 1984 on, I wanted to record “Fancy,” the 1968 hit that Bobby Gentry wrote and recorded. My producer at the time, Jimmy Bowen, was against it because he thought the song was strongly associated with Bobby and had probably seen all the popularity it ever would.

It wasn’t until I changed producers in 1990, from Bowen to Tony Brown, that I was given the green light for “Fancy.” Tony liked it as much as I did. The song only went to number seven on the charts, but the album it came from,
Rumor Has It
, sold more than any album I’d ever had up to then, mainly because of “Fancy.” Again, I attribute that to my personal feeling about myself and my career, and the chills I got the first time I heard that song years ago.

In my stage show, I show parts of the music video of “Fancy” and I arrive onstage in the same costume, a coat, that I wear in the video. When the song builds to just the right place, I remove the coat to show a floor-length evening gown. It indicates how the once poor little girl grew up to become a mature and “successful” woman—a “rags to riches” type story.

I performed the song that way on the Music City News Awards Show during Fan Fair in 1993. As I looked over the bottom floor of the Grand Ole Opry House, I saw a lot of music industry people with funny looks on their faces. They had no idea I use that kind of theatrics when I’m onstage. The balcony was filled with fans, many of whom had seen my show, and they were just about going nuclear. They knew what to expect and were cheering me on.

I have become a firm believer in showmanship. I believe people come to my concerts to get something more than they can hear on their records at home. I want them to
thoroughly enjoy my show, and I want them to leave that night wanting more.

But my showmanship wasn’t the main thing that people were talking about that year. In September 1993, I had foot surgery and was supposed to lie in bed with my feet above my heart for five days. During that time, Sandi Spika came over to my house with some new dress designs, along with fabric swatches and pretty beads and sequins that she could use for the dresses she had drawn. We both wanted to come up with a dress that was really special for that year’s CMA Awards Show, where I was scheduled to sing “Does He Love You,” with Linda Davis. I selected a crimson fabric with blood-red beads and rhinestones, and Sandi and her mother, Alice Spika, made the dress for me.

It was spectacular. From the minute I walked onstage to sing, I was hearing “o-o-o-o-os” and “a-a-h-h-hs.” But I soon realized that some of those sounds from the audience were actually gasps—at the lowness of my neckline.

Even Narvel had raised his eyebrows when he’d seen me in the dressing room. I had asked Sandi earlier to add on a few more beads in the right places, and she had. But I never tried the dress on again until the night of the show, and I have to admit that it was still a little—well, daring.

I think that dress shocked even more people than my singing “Respect” had on the CMA Awards Show. Photos went out over the news wire services to virtually every newspaper in America. Outraged letters immediately appeared in Nashville’s two daily newspapers. Jerry House, a popular morning disc jockey on Nashville’s WSIX, got such a strong protest from one woman he felt he had to defend me. When I called the next day to thank him for his help, he taped our conversation and played it on the air so the fans could hear my side. He was my knight in shining armor.

Two weeks later, I went on “The Tonight Show” and that dress was the first thing Jay Leno asked about. And during the whole uproar, I was performing at Caesars Palace,
where I thought I’d better address the situation. I told the audience that I was not up to par because I had recently had foot surgery, then said, “So if I’m not doing all of my dance steps, be patient with me. Some guys in the back said that if I’d worn that red dress from the CMA Awards Show nobody would care if I danced or not.”

Then I told the crowd that Sandi Spika had made the dress and had done a great job. “I just wish she had told me that I had it on backwards,” I said.

They went wild.

This might be a good place to thank Sandi for all that she’s done to help me further my career. She is an extremely talented and creative person, not only with material but also with hair. She’s also a workaholic—I mean that as a compliment. She worked so many hours on my clothes for the CMA Awards Show one year that she fell asleep while sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night. When she woke up, both her legs had fallen asleep, and when she tried to get up, she fell over and almost knocked herself out on the bathtub.

And once, I discovered for myself just how big a part of her life her work actually is. I was at her house, and when I headed into her upstairs bathroom, she yelled for me to use the one downstairs.

“I’m already up here,” I said. “I’ll use this one.”

“No,” she insisted, “come downstairs.”

“Sandi, why on earth don’t you want me to use your upstairs bathroom?” I asked, and then I walked in and sat down.

Her shower curtain was the same fabric as one of the dresses she’d made for me! I guess she just loved that material. Either that or she didn’t want to waste the leftovers.

But getting back to that infamous dress. The tabloids, of course, went crazy over it. On October 19, 1993, the
National Enquirer
ran a screaming headline: “OH REBA! MOM OUTRAGED BY SEXY DRESS THAT SHOCKED MILLIONS.” The story inside called me a “hillbilly Madonna”
and said that my Mama had called to scold me from her Oklahoma home.

The whole story was “a story,” naturally. The truth is that Mama attended the awards show in Nashville along with my sister Susie and her husband Paul. And all she said to me at my office after the show was, “You need a few more sequins on that dress, girlie.” Pake said he thought the dress was beautiful—and would look great on anybody other than his sister.

I never bothered to respond to the
Enquirer
story. Everyone knows that the tabloids invent things just to create a sensation, and the inaccuracies are sometimes comical. But there was one tabloid story that bothered me, and so because many of my fans ask about it, I thought I should set the record straight.

The story claimed that I had stripped off my clothes in front of Shawna, Narvel’s oldest daughter, while he was in the room, embarrassing her and shocking Lisa, her mother, after Shawna told her the story. It said that the incident took place in my home.

That story was malicious, dishonest, and sick. Here is the truth:

One night in 1988, I was in my stateroom on my bus with the door closed, getting ready for a show. I was wearing pantyhose and a brassiere. Shawna was lying on the bed watching Breon Reynolds (then my hairdresser), who is female, by the way, help get me ready. There was no real reason for Shawna to be in there, but I saw no reason to kick her out. It was merely a friendly visit during get-ready time.

At one point, Narvel came into my stateroom to say that it was fifteen minutes until show time. Then he left.

That’s the whole story—a perfectly innocent, thirty-second event. I know the tabloids and sensational TV shows give the public what they want, but I think it’s sad that people’s lives are invaded so others can make money off of it.

B
UT WHILE THE
STAR
’
S VERSION BOTHERED ME BOTH BECAUSE IT
was so preposterously false and because it violated the privacy of Narvel’s children, who are not public figures like I am, I have to look on the bright side. Dolly Parton calls herself, with some humorous pride, “the queen of the tabloids” because she’s been featured in so many of their wild tales. She must have felt hurt and mistreated dozens of times. So the fact that the tabloids would consider me anywhere near her league—worth picking on regularly—sort of means that I’ve arrived, I guess. It’s a positive way of saying that I’m making it in my profession.

I didn’t think so positively back in 1977, when I was just starting out in the music business. One or two of my songs had been released on Polygram-Mercury Records, and Mama and Daddy had driven me to Fan Fair. Mama stayed there with me inside the Polygram autograph booth, and as it turned out, she was about the only company I had.

I was supposed to sit there for two hours, and I spent about one hour, fifty-nine minutes, and forty-five seconds watching celebrities in all the other booths sign their names for happy fans. I might as well have been invisible.

Finally, an elderly man and his wife walked up to my booth.

“Oh, great!” I thought, “Somebody wants my autograph.” My spirits lifted, I sat up straight, and got my pen ready.

As the couple came closer, I saw the man raise his eyes to read my name on a cardboard sign above my head.

“Pardon me,” the man said. “Can you tell me where the bathroom is?”

So today I’m flattered when fans recognize me and ask for autographs or want to have their pictures taken with me. Sometimes I wish they would simply ask and not feel the need to apologize. “I know you’re busy,” one might
say, “I hate to bother you, and I know you have a lot to do, but may I have my picture made with you?”

But I’m as guilty of doing that as anyone else. One time I was in my dressing room getting ready for a television special with Bob Hope in San Diego when somebody said Jimmy Stewart had just entered the building. No fan has ever been more excited than I was at that news.

“Take these rollers out of my hair,” I said, and I took off to see Jimmy Stewart.

As I timidly walked up to him, do you know what I said?

“I know you’re busy and I know you have a lot to do, but may I have my picture made with you?”

He kindly granted my wish.

We all have many experiences that seem designed to keep us humble. Once I was invited to the White House by President George Bush. When Narvel, Shelby, and I were escorted into the President’s chambers, we stood in awe—but Shelby, less than a year old, grabbed the President’s thumb and started slobbering on it. I apologized, but he told me not to worry about it—he was used to that from his own grandchildren.

Mrs. Bush was very welcoming and gracious, and even showed us where they lived and the rooms where other Presidents had slept. I stood in one of the rooms that Jackie Kennedy had redecorated and in the Lincoln Room where Michael Jackson had stood at the window and waved to fans. A girl who never had her own room as a child walked among the private chambers of the most powerful men in history.

On another visit to Washington, I performed on the same stage as Aretha Franklin, the First Lady of Soul, on a Christmas special from Constitution Hall, hosted by John Denver. Narvel, Sandi, and I had flown to Washington that night from an engagement in Las Vegas, and I remember worrying so much about how I looked that I put on fresh makeup and changed clothes on the plane. Then Aretha
arrived and set my mind at ease—she was wearing a bathrobe embroidered with an “A” and a midlength mink over that!