{"id":108817,"date":"2026-01-22T17:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/108817\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T17:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:57:24","slug":"on-this-day-in-1976-the-queen-of-country-recorded-her-first-song-which-she-didnt-see-a-penny-from-for-over-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/108817\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1976, the Queen of Country Recorded Her First Song\u2014Which She Didn\u2019t See a Penny From for Over a Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just like Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire has rightfully earned the \u201cQueen of Country\u201d moniker. (And the two legends\u2019 long-standing friendship<\/a> proves there\u2019s more than enough room for two queens.) Among the most-awarded women in country music, the \u201cFancy\u201d singer has released 25 No. 1 hits, sold more than 75 million records globally, and expanded her reach onto the small screen with starring roles in sitcoms like Reba and Happy\u2019s Place. However, it may surprise you to learn that the four-time CMA Female Vocalist of the Year was not exactly an overnight success. On this day (Jan. 22) in 1976, she recorded her first song with Mercury Records\u2014which went almost nowhere.<\/p>\n

Reba McEntire Didn\u2019t See a Penny From This Song for Years<\/p>\n

In 1974, country singer Red Steagall discovered a then 19-year-old Reba McEntire singing the national anthem at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City. By November 1975, she had landed a recording contract with PolyGram\/Mercury Records. Two months later, the Oklahoma native recorded her first-ever song, \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Be a One Night Stand.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lead single off her 1977 self-title debut, \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Be a One Night Stand\u201d didn\u2019t make quite the splash producers had hoped for. It peaked at No. 88 on the Billboard country chart, and the song\u2019s successors\u2014\u201d(There\u2019s Nothing Like the Love) Between a Woman and a Man\u201d and \u201cGlad I Waited Just for You\u201d\u2014had similar showings.<\/p>\n

In fact, Reba never saw a dime in royalty payments from the album until 1988. By then, the three-time Grammy Award winner had left Mercury behind for MCA Records, where she began producing the more traditional sound that has since become her trademark.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: On This Day in 1983, Reba McEntire Reached a Milestone That Let Her Take the Reins of Her Career and Become a Country Legend]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey Nurtured Me\u201d<\/p>\n

By now, it\u2019s a well-documented fact that Reba McEntire didn\u2019t see eye-to-eye with the producers at Mercury Records during the early years of her career. She wanted steel guitars and fiddles, whereas her label pushed for a softer, poppier sound. Her move to MCA in 1984 allowed the \u201cWhoever\u2019s in New England\u201d singer, now 70, to make the kind of music she\u2019d always wanted to make.<\/p>\n

However, Reba harbors no bitterness toward those who worked with her at Mercury Records. \u201cThey could have dropped me after the first album and the first single that entered the charts at 99 and stayed there,\u201d she said in a 2011 interview<\/a> with CMT. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t. They stayed with me and they nurtured me. I appreciate that more than you can ever imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just like Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire has rightfully earned the \u201cQueen of Country\u201d moniker. (And the two legends\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[21728,1613,9,24,63,122,124,123,19030],"class_list":["post-108817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-1970s","tag-country-music","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-reba-mcentire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}