In an interview to promote forthcoming book Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating and Dusting Off Your Boots (out Oct. 10), Reba McEntire defined the "tough sexy" descriptor she uses to define her look.
"I'm a tomboy at heart," she said. "I grew up on a working cattle ranch. I worked outside with my older sister Alice and my older brother Pake and little sister Susie. We had to do the chores with the men and then come in and us girls had to take care of things with Momma. So, I always considered myself a tomboy, but I still like to dress up and be sparkly with rhinestones and glitter and fringe and all that kind of stuff. So 'tough sexy,' to me, when they say, 'How do you like to dress?' 'I like tough sexy.' 'Well, what's that?' 'In my cowboy clothes with a sexy side of it.' That's my interior design, also."
On Friday (Oct. 6), McEntire released Not That Fancy, a stripped-down album that revisits some of her best-known songs and features guest appearances by Dolly Parton and Brooks & Dunn.
"We had done [the compilation album] Remixed, Revised and Revisited, and so we pulled some of those songs," McEntire said. "Working with [producer] Dave Cobb, that was an album that was stripped down, that we wanted to pull from. And we added some more songs to it, brand new songs, which is our new single called 'Seven Minutes in Heaven.' And it just worked out really good to be 'not that fancy.'"
Parton fills Linda Davis' role as McEntire's duet partner on "Does He Love You." It marks the Country Music Hall of Famers' first studio collaboration.
"We were picking out the songs for the album, 'Does He Love You' came up and we were all like, 'Well, if we did it again, who we like to have sing with you?'," McEntire shared. "We all started pitching names and put them in the hat. When somebody said 'Dolly,' everybody just said, 'Oh, absolutely, we got to ask Dolly.' And she said yes."
