(written by Tom Damphier and Rick Carnes)
Reba McEntire (#1, 1983)Several months after purchasing her first tour bus, Reba McEntire found herself in a Dallas repair shop for work on the left front wheel. She had already racked up $20,000 in maintenance, and amid the smell of grease and the sound of hydraulic machinery, she placed a telephone call to her manager. He told her that “Can’t Even Get The Blues” had become her first number one record and after a short period of disbelief, Reba went into hysterics. Her reaction was justified – it took nine years from her initial discovery to reach the top.
In 1974, McEntire sang “The Star Spangled Banner” (her favorite song) at the National Rodeo Finals in Oklahoma City. Country singer and quarter-horse breeder Red Steagall heard her and offered to help her book studio time in Nashville to make a demo. Two years later, Reba nabbed a recording contract with Mercury Records.
She issued her first single, “I Don’t Want To Be A One Night Stand,” about the same time that she graduated from Southeastern State University in Durant, Oklahoma. Reba married rodeo rider Charlie Battles in June of 1976, and kicked off their honeymoon by visiting radio stations to promote the record (very much in the same fashion that Loretta Lynn had promoted her first record, “Honky Tonk Girl,” back in 1960).
Despite her enthusiasm, McEntire didn’t break through with radio until her 1979 cover of “Sweet Dreams, a 1963 hit by her hero Patsy Cline. Reba entered the Top Twenty for the first time with this classic, then netted her first Top Ten single with 1980’s “(You Lift Me) Up To Heaven” (#8). She added a couple of high-ranking ballads in ’81-’82 with “Today All Over Again” (#5) and the #3 “I’m Not That Lonely Yet” (the first single from McEntire’s “Unlimited” album).
Reba’s producer at Mercury, Jerry Kennedy, would have done anything to get her a number one record because he knew how hard she was working and how much she wanted it, but the producer felt that slow numbers were what Reba should be concentrating on and he never brought her any uptempo songs such as “Can’t Even Get The Blues.” Kennedy had earmarked that one for another artist on Mercury’s roster, Jacky Ward. However, one day while talking with McEntire in his office, Kennedy played the song for her. She liked it and asked, “Why don’t you ever offer me any of those fast tunes?” Jerry replied, “Reba, you were meant to sing ballads, that’s your forte” (perhaps remembering the famous advice that Owen Bradley had given Patsy Cline almost twenty years before).
Well, Reba demanded that she have a chance to do some uptempo material, because she thought her live shows were awfully boring with her singing one slow song after another. Kennedy finally agreed and gave “Can’t Even Get The Blues” to Reba. It was the last song they cut for the “Unlimited” album, and the second single released from it.
“Can’t Even Get The Blues” rolled in to the #1 position on Billboard’s country chart on January 8, 1983, becoming the first of Reba McEntire’s twenty-five Billboard chart-topping singles. She is ranked eighth overall on the all-time list of most number ones, and tied Dolly Parton in 2010 for most number one singles by a female artist with her hit “Turn On The Radio.”
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