From Oklahoma beginnings to television fame, she built a catalog of songs about family and loss.
For a sense of her range, listen to 'The Greatest Man I Never Knew' and then something like 'He Gets That From Me.' They're both about family, but from completely different angles.
She's been singing about the small, hard moments in family life for decades. 'The Greatest Man I Never Knew' is a quiet song about a father-daughter relationship that never quite connected, and it's one of those tracks people remember. That plainspoken approach to storytelling carried over into her sitcom 'Reba,' where she played a version of the same character.
She signed with Mercury in 1975 and put out her first album that same year. The '80s and '90s brought albums like 'Whoever's in New England' and 'For My Broken Heart,' which filled out her sound with songs about grief and memory.
Keep it compact: a lyric you come back to, a live memory, or the part of the catalog you would point someone toward first.
Sign in to post the first listener note. Reporting stays open to everyone.