The phone call came in the middle of the night. Eight members of Reba McEntire's touring family — her tour manager, bandleader, musicians and crew — were gone, killed when their chartered jet crashed into the side of a mountain after leaving San Diego in March 1991.
Reba wasn't on that plane. She was meant to fly out the next morning.
More than three decades on, the country star still talks about that night as the moment the floor dropped out from under her life. What is easier to overlook is who helped pull her back up: a small circle of friends and fellow legends who, quite literally, stepped in where her own band had been.
Among them, two names stand out.Dolly Parton. Vince Gill.
McEntire, now 70 and fronting the sitcomHappy's Place, has spoken before about the surreal, paralysing grief that followed the crash. It claimed the lives of her tour manager, bandleader, keyboardist, drummer, two guitarists, a bassist, a vocalist and both pilots. Reba and a few others had stayed behind in San Diego.
'I didn't know if I was going to be able to continue,' she has admitted. The idea of stepping back onstage while the seats around her were filled by strangers felt almost obscene.
That is when Dolly Parton rang.
'Dolly said, "Here, take my band",' Reba recalls. No fuss, no contract negotiation, just an offer from one queen of country to another: borrow my people until you can stand on your own.
It sounds like a simple practical solution. In reality, it was something much more intimate — a way of saying, your career does not have to die with them. Use my musicians, keep going, we'll hold you up until you find your feet.
Vince Gill, not yet the silver‑haired elder statesman he is today, offered something different but just as vital: a steady, human presence.
Source: International Business Times UK
