Reba: My Story (27 page)

So when I got the chance to play Carnegie Hall, Bill Carter strongly recommended that I do it, even though he was pretty sure that we wouldn’t make a profit on the show. As Carter says, at the time, “It could cost you up to $30,000. The expenses could exceed the ticket sales. I asked for Reba’s and Charlie’s approval and they gave it.”

“When I went to Ron Delsener, the promoter,”
Carter continues, “he said something like, ‘You’re crazy.’ But then he said, ‘I’ll help you with it.’ So we fought it like a major battle. We postered the city, we did everything that you could possibly do, to put on that show.”

My debut at Carnegie Hall was set for October 28, 1987. At that time, the majority of people who attended country-music shows were “walk-ups,” folks who waited until the night of the show to buy their tickets. That was the custom, and that was the case with the Carnegie Hall show, Carter remembers.

“Ten days before the show,” he says, “we considered canceling. We hadn’t yet reached that point with our daily ticket counts where we were comfortable, so we were just freaking out.” Not only did we stand to lose a lot of money, but it would be very embarrassing to have a poor turnout at Carnegie Hall. The biggest press in the nation would be there, and as Carter says, “We made sure we had some important New York people there, such as the business manager for the Rolling Stones and the press.”

I went to the sound check a couple of hours early. Carnegie Hall is the most acoustically perfect auditorium in the country, which means that any little glitch would really show.

Bill Carter had asked Allen Branton, who has worked with everyone from Michael Jackson to David Bowie, to come in and assist Gayle Hase with the lighting. That’s how sure we wanted to be that the show would be spectacular. But Branton and Hase worked on the lights and the setup so long that I didn’t even get a sound check. I would just have to hope for the best!

Before the show, Narvel and I went down the street to eat at the Carnegie Deli, where all the celebrities jam into the Formica tables to eat big sour pickles and corned beef sandwiches too huge to bite into. We were sitting there having some soup when I nearly shouted, “Oh, I forgot to take my Actifed!” Narvel liked to have jumped out of his seat.

Over the years, I had developed terrible allergies, due to dust and smoke from playing in clubs and the rodeo arenas, and so to clear my throat from the drainage, I always had to take an Actifed four hours before I sang. Nowadays, thanks to good nutrition, supplements, my chiropractor, and regular massage, I don’t have to take them anymore. But then, not taking one long enough before a show just about threw me into a panic.

Finally it was time to get ready. That night I wore the first dress Sandi Spika, my costume designer, ever made for me. It was black suede with gold fringe. I wore my cowboy boots and my belt buckle that Gary Gist and John Smith had made for me after I had sung the National Anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City for ten years. It wasn’t what New York was used to, I’m sure, but I didn’t want New York to see anyone up there other than Reba. So I went as myself. No airs—just me.

As I walked out onto the stage between two big partitions I was kind of in a trance.

I looked out past the spotlights to see the crowd. I couldn’t believe it—they were all on their feet! I got a standing ovation before I ever sang a note.

That really choked me up, and because of that I had a little trouble singing the first song.

Our fears about ticket sales and all those months of worry had been totally in vain. Hundreds of people had to be turned away. Folks had ridden subways in from the outer boroughs, and businessmen from Midtown Manhattan had rushed in straight from work, their briefcases still in their hands. I had gone in the back way, so I hadn’t seen them, but in Carnegie Hall tradition, posters announcing that the tickets were gone papered the outside of the building. A black SOLD OUT sign was streaked across my name. I wish I had one of those posters for a souvenir.

During my encore, “Sweet Dreams,” I found myself amazed that the show was over. The whole show had passed
like five minutes. I’ve never done a show that seemed to go by so fast.

I think the icing on the cake of the whole event was me being able to fly Mama and Daddy and Red and Gail Steagall to New York City to see me play Carnegie Hall. I couldn’t have been there without all their support and love throughout the years. I’ll never forget how Daddy walked into the swanky Parker Meridian Hotel and looked around the giant lobby. Daddy was never one to be overwhelmed by anything.

“A person sure could stack a lot of hay in here,” he said.

A
LITTLE LATER, I HAD ANOTHER WONDERFUL SURPRISE, ONE
that thrilled me as much as that sellout crowd at Carnegie Hall. At the 1987 Country Music Association Awards, I was named “Female Vocalist of the Year” for the fourth time in a row, a record number of awards for one artist. At the awards show in 1987, it was probably obvious to everyone how emotional the event was for me. At that time, I was being pulled to such extremes—my marriage had reached its lowest point and now my work was being recognized with a record-breaking award. I was completely overwhelmed with gratitude and affection. Standing in front of the television cameras, I delivered an impromptu speech that came straight from the heart.

Later, someone showed me what I said. “It’s so sweet of you all,” I began. “This is so sweet of you all. I appreciate it very much, being in the company of people like Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn. And this is the fourth time—you don’t know what this means to me. I’m thrilled to pieces. And I’m just going to tell you something Mama said when we first came to Nashville. She said, ‘We can go back, we can go back home, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. But you’ll be doing something I never could have done.’ It takes a lot of hard work, as Holly [Dunn] and
all the other women that have been on this stage tonight can tell you. So any of you young ladies watching at home on TV, I got to tell you this is a great profession. There is a lot of love, lots of competition, and lots of rewards, even if you’re not standing up here. Lots of love from the audience that you can get. So work hard and show ’em what you can do.”

When K. T. Oslin broke my streak by winning “Female Vocalist of the Year” in 1988, she acknowledged me from the stage, saying, “You had a hell of a run, girl.”

The press tried to make something of her remark, like there was jealousy between us. There wasn’t—and in fact I thought it was nice of her to remember me at a moment when almost anyone would be overcome with emotion and thrilled with their win. But not K. T. She took the time to acknowledge me. I took that as a huge compliment from a friend.

I
HAD ONE EMBARRASSING BUSINESS FAILURE IN THE MIDST OF
that big year. Some months before the Carnegie Hall show, Reba McEntire’s Kitchen opened on Nashville’s Music Valley Drive not far from the Opryland Complex, which thousands of people visit every year. I got 10 percent of the restaurant’s revenues in exchange for letting the owners use my name. I had no involvement with the running of the place, the food, or the service. I think I learned enough to never enter into a deal like that again.

But of course, the failure that was preoccupying me the most that year was the final breakup of my marriage. Charlie and I split up right in the middle of the planning for my Carnegie Hall debut, and our divorce was final two weeks after the show, though the money questions weren’t settled until after the first of the year of 1988.

After the shaving kit incident, Charlie had gone home to Stringtown and I’d gone on to Lubbock to do my show. When I got home on Sunday, it was our eleventh wedding
anniversary. Charlie talked me into staying home that night, and the next morning we drove to Tulsa, where my Daddy was in St. John’s hospital having some tests done on his heart. The tests would reveal that Daddy needed to have triple-bypass surgery right away.

I remember the date exactly—June 22, 1987.

On our drive Monday morning to see Daddy, we were crossing the lower railroad track at Stringtown, and I said to Charlie, “If I ever asked for a divorce, what would you do?” He said, “I’d ask for 10 percent of you for the rest of your life.”

Charlie and I spent the night at the Hilton Inn, and we went back to see Daddy at the hospital the next morning. That’s when I relieved Charlie of his co-management duties, telling him that I pretty much wanted him out of my career. From the hospital pay phone, Charlie called Narvel, who had been handling all of the tour managing, and who was now going to take over everything, all but Bill Carter’s responsibilities.

“Well,” Charlie told him, “Reba’s going through a little thing here. Don’t worry, I’ll help you with things. She’ll get over it in a bit, and I’ll get back in there.”

Charlie was just not getting it.

I
TOLD CHARLIE TO GO ON HOME AND SAID I WOULD CATCH MY
bus there in Tulsa to go to my next show in Chattanooga. Then I went back up to Daddy’s hospital room. Mama was there reading a book, so I took out my little white Bible.

The pages fell open to Ephesians and I started reading. I already knew what I was wanting to do because I had asked Bill Carter earlier to recommend a lawyer for me. And then I read a scripture that said something like “He is the fool that looks back while plowing the field.” It seemed to be saying to me, “Don’t look back, look forward,” and I whispered, “Thank you, thank you very much.” I felt as though God had sent me direction.

I closed my Bible and looked up at Daddy and asked Mama, “Do you want to go downtown with me?”

“What for?” she said.

“I’d like to file for divorce.”

I thought my parents might try to argue with me but all Mama said was, “Sure.” And Daddy said, “What took you so long?”

We visited Larry Leonard, the lawyer who had been recommended by Bill Carter. The divorce petition was written in Tulsa and filed in Atoka County, where Charlie and I lived.

Somehow Charlie found out about me filing for divorce before he was even served with the papers. He withdrew all the money we had deposited in a McAlester bank. It was later put back so the courts could decide how everything would be split. But on the day that Mama, Alice, and Suzy Wills, my former background singer, came with me to Stringtown to pack my personal belongings, Charlie showed me that he wanted more than money.

For example, I still had some copies of the very first album I had recorded for Mercury,
Reba McEntire
, which I was keeping for their sentimental value. Their cellophane seals weren’t broken, and Charlie thought they might someday be collector’s items. He said that half of them were his but he would only let me take the copies that had been opened. I thought Alice was gonna try to whip him over that.

I had a bed that Mama had given me for my sixteenth or seventeenth birthday. He insisted on keeping it, saying he needed a place to sleep.

“What about the brand-new bed I just bought?” I said.

“I want all the bedrooms to have beds in it,” he said. I didn’t fight him.

I wanted the grandfather clock that the band had given me for Christmas and little drinking glasses from the National Finals Rodeo Ladies’ Luncheon that I got before I met
him. He said okay on the grandfather clock but he kept the little glasses that meant nothing to anyone but me.