Navigating the music industry as a sensitive, creative artist can be a delicate balance between following the business advice of people around you and following your heart, despite the potential money, optics, or opportunities. Countless artists have leaned too far into either option to their own detriment. But country star Reba McEntire managed to prioritize the latter multiple times, honoring her emotional instincts when it came to her music and, notably, one of her signature songs.
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McEntire released her cover of Bobbie Gentry’s Southern Gothic storytelling song, “Fancy”, on February 11, 1991. Her cover was the third single from her sixteenth studio album, Rumour Has It, after “You Lie” and the title track in July and November 1990, respectively. The album was a massive success, staying in the Top 10 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart for over six months. Rumor Has It was also a crossover success, breaking into the Billboard 200’s Top 40 at No. 39.
A large part of this album’s success came from that iconic third single, which might have never come to be, had McEntire let other people dictate her creative process for her. Fortunately, she didn’t, and following her heart paid off in the long run.
Reba McEntire Fought to Record “Fancy” for Years Before She Finally Did
Alongside tracks like “Ode to Billie Joe”, Bobbie Gentry’s most ubiquitous song is the title track to her 1968 album, Fancy. The song, which Gentry called her “strongest statement for women’s lib,” told the story of a girl whose mother encouraged her to use prostitution to save the family from poverty. Despite the tragic backstory, Gentry’s “Fancy” was a resilient statement against self-righteous people who judge others without truly understanding them. The Fancy album received a Grammy nomination, and the title track was a country and pop Top 40 hit.
In her memoir, Reba: My Story, McEntire recalled wanting to record a version of “Fancy” ever since 1984. However, she explained, “My producer at the time, Jimmy Bowen, was against it because he thought the song was strongly associated with Bobby and had probably seen all the popularity it ever would.”
“It wasn’t until I changed producers in 1990, from Bowen to Tony Brown, that I was given the green light for ‘Fancy’. Tony liked it as much as I did. The song only went to No. 7 on the charts, but the album it came from, Rumor Has It, sold more than any album I’d ever had up to then, mainly because of ‘Fancy’.” She summed up her entire fight for “Fancy” in one sentence: “No matter what other people tell me, I’ve almost never gone wrong when I’ve followed my heart.”
Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
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