Reba McEntire "Virtually" a Writer

Reba McEntire at rehearsals for the 43rd Annual ACM Awards Show in Las Vegas. Photo provided by the Academy of Country Music.

March 24, 2009 — Reba McEntire made her mark as a singer — but she hasn't indulged songwriting very often in her career. She got a composing credit on her 2007 Duets album but hadn't recorded another of her own songs since 1985, when she cut "Only In My Mind."

She didn't wait quite so long for the next cut: Reba's recorded a self-written song for her next album, tentatively expected in August. It grew over a long period of time after she initiated a conversation via the Internet with a pair of songwriters who've collectively authored such hits for her as "For My Broken Heart," "And Still" and "It's Your Call."

"I wrote a song with Liz Hengber and Tommy Lee James, wonderful writers," Reba told the national radio show GAC Nights: Live From Nashville. "I had this idea when I turned 50, and I e-mailed it to Liz, and I said, 'See what you can do with that.' She e-mailed me back a year later and said, 'I'm gonna get Tommy Lee to write that with me, see what we can come up with.' And then this past year we kinda all got together on it and kept writing and we recorded it."

Reba's actually become quite the e-mail communicator. She and Ronnie Dunn kept up to date on "Cowgirls Don't Cry" through virtual notes, and she's offered critiques and suggestions for her current album to producer Tony Brown in Nashville through e-mails from Los Angeles. The Internet is even better for songwriting.

"The e-mail situation makes it so much easier to write, 'cause I don't like to sit in a room and collaborate," she noted. "When I get an idea, I like to keep goin', and writing with the e-mail siystem is very, very good for me."

It's a good bet Reba's using e-mail to fashion some of the material she'll be using when she hosts the "44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards" from Las Vegas April 5. She's typically ironed out jokes with other script writers in the past, and that's certainly worked: The Academy is bringing her back to host for the 11th time in its history. She'll perform her next single, "Strange," on the awards, and it will be released to radio the following day.