Reba McEntire Opens Her Closet

Reba McEntire didn’t just take the stage, she conquered it.  She didn’t just stand there and sing, she put on a show.  It wasn’t just great music, it was an event!  In addition to the dancers and the sets, there were the costumes!  Fans may have wondered whatever happened to all those dresses after the tour.  The answer is they’ve been at Reba’s house.  Now for the first time, Reba has opened her personal collection for an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.

The ten month exhibit opened August 9th, and Reba spoke to the media about opening her collection to the Hall: “It’s very exciting, I was thrilled that the hall said yes to bringing all of the stuff I’ve collected over the many years I’ve been collecting.  I’m a packrat, I come by that honestly by my mother.  She collects everything and keeps everything, and I’m still finding stuff in the garage and closets, so my house is going ‘whew, glad to get it all out!'”

As you might expect, Reba’s dresses are the centerpiece, and no dress is more famous than the red one she wore on the 1993 CMA Awards.  “I only had one fitting with that dress.  When I walked into the dressing room, my designer was still putting sequins on it.  So I just pulled it on.  We were at the Grand Ole Opry House, and the lighting wasn’t that great in the dressing rooms.  So I looked in the mirror, and thought it must be the lighting.  So I walked out and Kris Kristofferson was walking towards me and said, ‘Holy cow! You look great!’  Then I got on stage and I could hear the crowd gasp.  But I had no idea you were almost seein’ ‘the ladies.’  When I got back to my family, my daddy said, ‘Reba did you have that on backwards?’  And Narvel said, ‘Well it was a little revealing.’ Then I watched the video, and I said, ‘Why’d you let me go out like that!’  They said, ‘We thought you looked good.’  So I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Fans of Reba’s enduring hit “Fancy” will see several dresses related to that song.  “There are four, maybe five.  There’s a whole case-full, that’s for sure.  The red Fancy dress is always the one they go, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s it gonna be? Is it a new one?’ And if you wear it too long, they’ll let you know, and Terri Gordon has to make me a new one.”

The exhibit covers Reba’s entire life, including her childhood in Oklahoma:  “There’s a pair of cowboy boots that I worked cattle in all the time, a pair of clip-on spurs that I won when I was 13 years old, I placed third, and the boots I wore that night had duct tape wrapped around the toes because my soles were falling off.”  You can also see her awards, including the Grammy for “Does He Love You.”

Reba was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011. This year’s new members will be Kenny Rogers, Bobby Bare, and Cowboy Jack Clement.  Reba worked with all three: “Bobby Bare, I worked with him many years ago.  Kenny, I did The Gambler movie with him, and Kenny, he probably saved my sanity.  The plane crash with my band happened in March of 1991, and in May we got a call from Kenny’s manager, asking if we’d like to do the movie, and I said yes because I had to get my mind off the crash and losing my friends, and that saved my sanity.  But I’m thrilled for all three of them getting into the Hall of Fame.”

So what happens to all this stuff after the exhibit? “That’s what I’m worried about.  It’s not going back to my house.  We’ve got to find a place to put it that’s temperature controlled, and that will be guarded, not that anybody wants to steal it, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to it.  My older sister Alice asked about a museum, and I told her ‘Why don’t you open one,’ so she might do that.”

Reba: All The Women I Am runs at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum through next June.

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