When Reba McEntire attended last year's ACM Awards and saw her friends and fellow countrymen Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks co-host the show and lead the festivities, she knew she wanted to be part of the ACM fun again.
“They were so great, I was like, 'I want to do it again!'” McEntire said Advertising signjust days before it was announced that McEntire will host the Academy of Country Music Awards for the 17th time on May 16, when the 59th annual awards show streams on Amazon Prime Video, returning to the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas.
“I was really looking forward to getting back on stage,” he said. “Coming back to Texas is always good for me – because that's close to home in southeast Oklahoma.”
Launched in 1966, the ACMs have showcased country music's biggest stars for nearly six decades. But the awards show team still intends to break new ground: In 2022, the ACM Awards made history by becoming the first major music awards show to stream exclusively live when it switched from CBS to Amazon Prime Video.
McEntire, a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, has 16 ACM Award trophies and nine ACM Artist of the Year nominations to her credit. He won the artist of the year award in 1994.
He says promoting new music and spending time with friends in the industry — as well as making new ones — are always big draws for attending the awards ceremony.
“You got to go hang out with all your friends and friends you've met over the last 45, 50 years in the business and meet new people,” he said. “It's the best place to meet new artists and that's what I really like to do. The last time I was at an awards show, it was Lainey Wilson. I got to hang out with her for a bit, and Jelly Roll. Meeting new people and making new friends is what I love about the business.”
Having hosted the previous 16 ACM Awards ceremonies when the show was held in Las Vegas and various California cities, McEntire is well aware of the work that goes into preparing to host — from working with trusted writers to creating and enhancing the dialogue that used for evening, to balancing multiple outfit changes (McEntire says this year's fashion theme will be “a little tougher, sexier cowgirl”). She easily sums up the essentials to being a great awards show host: “Keep it interesting, keep it running smoothly, and show up. Be on time, be prepared.”
Of course, with live TV anything can happen. McEntire recalled how at the 2004 ACM Awards, producer Dick Clark helped her cover a time delay after performer Keith Urban lost his guitar backstage.
“Dick was like, 'Get out there and stand,'” she said. “I panicked. I mean, I got booed off the stage in 1978 for telling jokes because I only had three songs to sing, so I think I have flashbacks to that when someone says, 'Get out there and say it.' I'm not [actor/comedian] Melissa Peterman — I can't do this. So Dick had to come out and help with that, and we got through it.”
Over the years, he learned some basic strategies to fill in any gaps.
“If something happens, they don't have to depend on me to fill the space,” he said, “I'll have everyone map out the audience that I'm going to drop a mic on and they're going to bridge the gap. There are a lot of interesting characters at a country music industry party, so I'm going to make my rounds in the audience.”
Having hosted the ACM Awards more than a dozen times, McEntire has hosted in a variety of configurations – both solo and co-hosting alongside artists such as George Strait, Blake Shelton, Alan Jackson and John Schneider. Still, she has a few people she'd like to host with—including her beau, Rex Linn.
“I would love to co-host with Rex. Rex is the biggest music fan,” she said. “He and Melissa Peterman are two people who love music more than anyone. Boy, that would be fun. Melissa, Rex and I — the three of us hosting it? That would be dumb. I would sit back and have an iced tea and let them do all the work,” he quipped.
In addition to hosting, McEntire has been responsible for some of the most memorable ACM Awards performances over the years, including in 2007 when she performed “Because of You” with Kelly Clarkson. This year, McEntire will also perform her new single, “I Can't,” which she called “a very powerful female song about standing up for yourself.”
And yes — a new album is in the works, he says. McEntire worked on the project with producer Dave Cobb, who also worked on her 2021 album Reba: Revived Remixed Revisited.
“We've been working on it for over a year now, so I'm not sure when it's going to be released, but I'm very proud of it,” McEntire said. “We wanted to do something a little more relaxed, with not so many instruments on it. But once we got more into it, we started putting more instruments back in and getting to where we like it.”
Always an avid music lover, McEntire says one of the works she's been listening to lately is by Lauren Daigle Look for the child. “I was listening to her album the other day. I love her singing, and I sang 'Back to God' with her at the ACMs years ago — that was one of the highlights.”
McEntire added, “The ACMs have been very good to me, and the collaborations I get to do, not only singing but also hosting, have been very memorable.”
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