Just another day in the life — at home, in Nashville, Tennessee — for Reba McEntire. It’s the morning after the CMT Music Awards, and she’s already fielded several calls and e-mails from fans and friends about her hilarious onstage “face-off” during last night’s show with her sometime impersonator, Saturday Night Live regular Kenan Thompson. (Reba: “You can’t be Reba! You’re too dark!” Kenan: “Um, pardon?” Reba: “I’m ginger with highlights! And you’re a solid auburn!”) Awaiting her attention in the afternoon: a conference with representatives from the Dillard’s department store chain regarding the December line of her Reba brand of fashions.

Sometime today she’ll have to look over the song list for tomorrow night’s appearance as a headliner at the sold-out CMA Music Festival extravaganza at Nashville’s LP Field. There’ll have to be some quality time, of course, with her husband and business partner, Narvel Blackstock. And she simply must find 30 or so minutes for her daily regimen of Pilates, walking, and lifting weights in her home gym, part of her highly disciplined diet and exercise program to remain fab and fit at 55.

Right now, however, Reba is devoting her full attention to visiting with a Cowboys & Indians interviewer. A proud daughter and granddaughter of champion rodeo steer ropers, the Oklahoma-born superstar has ridden tall on Broadway, where she reigned as queen of the Great White Way during her 2001 run as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, and prime time television, where she enjoyed a six-season run as a wisecracking, hard-loving single mom in Reba, a popular sitcom still attracting viewers in internationally syndicated reruns. But as Reba will readily remind anyone who wants to talk shop, country music remains her prime concern and chief focus, so it’s only fitting that most of the conversation is devoted to her recent triumphs — Keep on Loving You, her most recent studio album, is among the top sellers of her nearly 30-year recording career — and enduring popularity as the uncontested Queen of Country.

Cowboys & Indians: So, Reba, did you have any fashion tips for Kenan Thompson last night?
Reba McEntire: Yeah — not to wear those pink boots with a green dress. That was too funny.

C&I: Do you remember your reaction when you first saw Kenan’s version of you on Saturday Night Live?
McEntire: Well, I have to admit: At first, I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t know whether to be flattered, or to be embarrassed, or insulted. And then I saw that the joke was on his character thinking that he really was Reba McEntire, and [he was] having a little mental problem. So it was really a funny thing. It did get a little risqué, which I didn’t appreciate. And a lot of fans didn’t, either. But it was all in good humor.

C&I: Billboard magazine recently ranked you as the third best-selling country artist of the last 25 years, right after George Strait and Garth Brooks. But Keep on Loving You actually was your first solo studio album in six years. You’ve been concentrating on other projects, like the Reba sitcom. Did you feel just a little bit nervous about returning to the recording studio after so long?
McEntire: No, not all. Because I’d been recording a lot of albums — the duet CD and the greatest hits CD, we did some new recording on that. So it wasn’t like I’d been totally away from the music. It was just that I had a contract to fulfill, and I had so many albums to do. But when I left MCA Universal, I went over to Valory [Music Co.], where there was a new regime, and that’s when I recorded Keep on Loving You.

C&I: The album has been one of your biggest hits, and “Consider Me Gone,” the second single from it, spent more time at No. 1 than any other single you’ve released. You can’t call this a comeback because you’ve never been away. So what’s the key to your resurgence?
McEntire: I think it’s because of [Valory Music Co./Big Machine Records president] Scott Borchetta. Scott and I had worked together at MCA Universal for many years and had lots of success. And then he went out on his own and formed Valory and Big Machine Music. So when my contract was up with MCA Universal, I went over to Scott and Valory. And the excitement of working with Scott, with his creativity and his team, is why this resurgence of my career happened. And also the wonderful songs. I have had bigger albums that have sold more and stayed at No. 1 longer. But I’ve never before had a single that stayed at No. 1 for four weeks.

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