[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC - REBA MCENTIRE, "I DON'T WANT TO BE A ONE NIGHT STAND"]
I don't want to be a one night stand.
[MUSIC - REBA MCENTIRE, "HOW BLUE"]
How blue.
How blue can you make me.
[MUSIC - REBA MCENTIRE, "FANCY"]
She said, here's your once chance, Fancy
don't let me down.
She said, here's your one chance Fancy.
Don't let me down.
Country music has changed so much over the last, gosh,
I guess, since the beginning of country music.
It's changed a lot.
It goes back.
It goes cyclical.
It will go traditional.
It will go very contemporary.
It will go almost rock and roll.
But then again, the next song played on the radio
is very traditional.
So it's a broad spectrum of music in the country music
category.
You really can't put it in a box.
It's very broad and so is the audience.
The easiest thing about country music
is that it's easy to listen to.
It's easy to love.
It's easy to be a part.
It's easy to get wrapped up in it.
It's an easy type of music to listen to.
The biggest challenge of country music
is keeping country music pure.
Now it's been pure, and it's gone
to the far side of very contemporary rock and roll
music.
And again, there are some who fight
to keep it as pure as it can be in the country music
vein of purism.
So I have been a fan of all genres inside the country music
category.
I will say, the umbrella.
I've done all kinds of different types of music
under that umbrella of country music.
And called it country music because the way
I talk, the way I sing, the instrumentation.
And I will take a good old tear jerking, slow,
ballad country song-- I'd sing that in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, for some reason or other,
women in country music are not accepted
by singing good old country songs.
That has happened in the last 10 years.
I'm thinking that's fixing to change with artists
like Brandy Clark, who is very country
and writes very country.
And I have been an advocate for that.
I hope that happens.
I guess the key element that makes country music country
music-- relatability.
They're always sad songs, there's beer drinking songs,
there's cheating songs.
A lot of people can relate to that.
So country music is about what people live day to day.
It's their lives.
It's their life story all written in a song.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The country music industry is different from other genres
because we do compete.
We're still friends.
We pull for each other.
It's kind of like the rodeo business.
Grandpap, one time, had two ropes,
and this other guy didn't have any.
And although Grandpap was going to be
competing against this guy, he let him have one of his ropes.
And another competitor said, well,
John, what did you do that for?
He could beat you.
He said, well, I had two ropes.
He didn't have any.
So although we are in competition with each other,
we're all friends.
And we pull for each other.
There are a lot of artists that you
should study in country music.
Not only for things to learn, things what not to do.
You can go down the list from 30 years ago.
And they've got some great stories, great things
to learn from, and it'll be very entertaining in your study.
There are a lot of artist you can learn from by what not
to do.
I'm going to leave it at that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I think country music is something you can choose.
You don't have to be around it all your life.
You didn't have to grow up on a ranch, or a farm,
or even perform it all your life.
If it's something you love, and you can sing it,
and you want to, I would say, pursue it, absolutely.
You'd be in good company.
I don't think it's necessary for you
to live in Nashville to pursue a career in country music.
George Strait's done just fine living in Texas,
to give one example.
There's a lot of people who live all over the country
and still have a career because you're touring an awful lot.
And you fly into Nashville to do your recording.
Or some people do their recording other places
around the country.
I lived in Oklahoma before moving to Nashville, from '76
to '88.
And things were going pretty well
before I moved to Nashville.
So, no.
I don't think it's necessary for you to live here.
You do have to come in and do a lot of business.
But you can do business about anywhere
nowadays with the way technology is.
If you're asking yourself, am I a singer or a songwriter?
There's several ways you can think about this.
If you want to be a singer, an entertainer, how willing
are you to be gone from home, sacrifice
a lot of your private time, devote
hours and hours rehearsal, being on the road, hotel rooms.
It's a lot of sacrifices.
If you're a songwriter, that's an iffy one also.
How many songs do you have to write
to get one song to pay the house rent, your grocery bill?
Both are a gamble.
If you want to pursue it, be careful what you wish for
and be specific.
You can do both.
A lot of people have very successfully.
But if you go at it being a singer and songwriter,
and one falls out, and one works, you're still covered.
There are people out there who can write songs for you.
Or there's people out there who will sing the songs if you're
good enough songwriter.
So how do you know if you're a singer songwriter?
How do you know if you're a singer?
Go try it.
If it doesn't work out and everybody says, you know what?
Your songs are really good.
I'd stick with songwriting, and vice versa.
Somebody will guide you.
Pray about it.
Let your heart and your gut rule--
let you know what's going on.
And I think you'll find out and figured it out.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Country music- talking about for men and women,
has always been different.
But that's the same in any business, I'm sure.
I guess it can get a little hairy.
Because when I was little, my first song-- I got
paid a nickel to sing at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hotel
in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
We didn't have televisions in the room,
so everybody congregated down in the lobby.
And so the cowboys had got Pake to sing a song for them just
to pass the time, have fun.
And so Pake sang, You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog.
And they gave him a quarter.
Well, I said, Pake, help me out here.
So he helped me decide on a song,
and I sang Jesus loves me.
And I got a nickel.
Well, that started my competition
with men in the music business, at the age
of five or six years old-- not knowing that at the time.
But it is a thing that men get paid more.
Men headline more.
Men outsell women.
But there's been some women that have broken those records
and have broken that myth.
So it's just something that we-- that I keep working on harder.
My competition has always been men.
So I'm used to it.
I love the competition and accepted the challenge.
To all you ladies out there who are looking
at the charts, the music charts, and you
can see that the majority are men,
very few women on the charts, don't throw up your hands.
And don't start trying to find another different occupation
right now.
Just be patient.
Because this business is very cyclical.
I have seen it go up and down, male
dominated, female dominated, contemporary, very traditional.
It changes.
People-- they get, maybe, tired of hearing
all the males and they want to hear a new female.
Here comes a female that busts open on the scene
and just takes over.
Here come all the girls.
And then it'll happen again, everything
will go very contemporary.
And then it will all go traditional.
So just be very patient with it.
Timing is everything.
And just have your material ready.
And when it's the time and you see that tide changing,
come out with both barrels blazing.
And have all your material ready, be prepared.
If I knew then, what I know now as a country singer female,
wow, I would be more at ease.
I would be more peace.
And I wouldn't worry about it is much.
I'd continue to work as hard as I always have.
Don't bitch about it.
Don't belly ache about it.
Don't complain.
You do your work.
You work hard.
You show up on time.
You be prepared.
You know your stuff.
And you smile all the way through it.
And the smile will get you there a lot further than a frown
and a belly ache will ever do it.