Reba McEntire released a new album to partner with her new book, titled Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots. The book, which was made available for purchase on October 10, 2023, includes recipes, memoir writings, photographs, and lifestyle tips.
The Not That Fancy album includes acoustic covers of the 68-year-old singer's greatest hits, and even a surprise collaboration with Dolly Parton who replaces Linda Davis on Reba's 1993 song "Does He Love You."
In an interview with Associated Press, Reba talked about her book and album. The acoustic collection was released on October 6, 2023.
During the interview, the country icon described the book as being "about things not having to be so fancy or structured. Whether it’s a dinner party or going out to eat, having friends over. If you don’t have your brand-new couch in, you’ve got to cover your old couch, that’s fine. People don’t care. They just want to get together and have fun.”
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“It’s not just a cookbook. It’s not just a photo album. It’s not a storybook. It’s an eclectic group of everything,” she added. “And I had to proofread it, so I went through it several times and never got bored with it. And I have the attention span of a 3-year-old, so for me not to get bored with it is a huge compliment to the book.”
Reba shared how her collaboration with Dolly came about, saying the team pitched names of singers who could be on the song and put them in a hat to draw from. "When somebody said 'Dolly,' everybody just said, 'Oh, absolutely, we got to ask Dolly,'" the singer said. And turns out, Dolly agreed without hesitation.
The "Queen of Country" talked about how re-recording the songs really made the music different. "You get used to hearing something a certain way, and then when it is stripped down to just a few instruments, you got to get comfortable with it again," she said.
"You kind of have to relearn it. And some of the songs we slowed down, changed the tempo, and it just made it a totally different song. So, I thought it was a great idea and a great way to give the fans something different."
During the interview, Reba went on to talk about why she described her style as "sexy tough" and just what exactly that is. "I’m a tomboy at heart. 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," she said, adding that she always considered herself to be a tomboy.
"But I still like to dress up and be sparkly with rhinestones and glitter and fringe and all that kind of stuff," Reba said, adding that when asked how she likes to dress she replies with "tough sexy" and explains it as “In my cowboy clothes with a sexy side of it. That’s my interior design, also."
