At sixty, Reba McEntire stood in a Nashville office and felt the ground shift beneath her career and home.
In August 2015, she learned that Narvel Blackstock had filed to end their twenty-six-year marriage.
The divorce was not her choice, and it arrived with a second blow. Narvel had run Starstruck Entertainment since 1989, guiding tours, television deals, and business negotiations while Reba performed under the lights.
She fought for months to keep their family whole for their son Shelby. By October the papers were signed, and the Country Music Hall of Fame member was left without a husband and without the manager who had steered her professional life for three decades.
Instead of handing her career to outside advisors, Reba walked into the executive vacuum and took direct control.
She set up a desk in the building on 20th Avenue South. She reviewed licensing agreements, audited vendor accounts, assessed payroll, hired trusted staff, and made final decisions on live shows and corporate appearances.
That shift was practical survival, but private grief still pressed hard.
Reba turned toward the music that had carried her through life since her childhood on an Oklahoma cattle ranch. Sacred songs became her refuge and her work.
She joined co-producer Doug Sisemore and Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flatts, once of BlackHawk, to shape an ambitious two-disc gospel project.
They recorded in Nashville and built Sing It Now Songs of Faith and Hope from traditional hymns and contemporary songs about betrayal, endurance, and rebuilding.
On the first disc, her mother Jacqueline McEntire and sisters Alice and Susie entered the vocal booth for I’ll Fly Away, giving the hymn deep family harmony.
On the second disc, the writers brought Back to God, co-written by Randy Houser and Dallas Davidson. Reba cut the vocal with a rawness that felt like healing in real time.
Leaving was never her choice, Reba said.
Released in early 2017, the album topped the country charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Roots Gospel Album.
The ache of lost decades did not vanish. Yet Reba McEntire rebuilt her business, her sound, and her future on her own terms.