During last night’s Emmy Awards, Reba McEntire performed a powerful tribute to fellow country legend Dolly Parton, who passed away on Aug. 25, 2026. Wearing a floor-length white gown, McEntire sang Parton’s 1983 song “Appalachian Memories” in front of a tear-stained crowd of television’s finest.
McEntire’s tribute was a fitting reminder that she’s not only one of country music’s most enduring stars; she’s also one of its great interpreters. With a catalog spanning more than five decades, 140 singles, and dozens of albums, the contemporary Queen of Country has no shortage of songs to choose from. She also has more than 100 charting songs, with 34 reaching No. 1 on the Billboard country chart. So, sifting through the superstar’s discography to find the very best track is no easy task.
That said, the country music experts over at The Boot did just that and crowned one Reba song her very best.
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View this post on InstagramReleased as a single in February 1991, after first appearing on her 16th studio album, Rumor Has It, in September 1990, “Fancy” is a powerful storytelling anthem about grit, survival, and transformation from poverty to fame. Originally written and recorded by another icon, Bobbie Gentry, in 1969 at Muscle Shoals’ legendary FAME Studios, the song took on new life when McEntire recorded it more than two decades later as country music’s own Southern Gothic masterpiece.
“‘Fancy’ was written and originally recorded by Bobbie Gentry in 1969, but McEntire’s 1991 remake is still considered one of her best—and bravest—songs to date,” The Boot wrote. “A story of a rags-to-riches young woman who earns a living on the streets, McEntire sings, ‘I might have been born just plain white trash / But Fancy was my name.’”
According to Songfacts, McEntire had wanted to record the song since 1984. But her producer at the time, Jimmy Bowen, thought it wouldn’t benefit her because it was too closely associated with the “Ode to Billie Joe” artist. But McEntire knew better.
Following a change in producers, she and Tony Brown, a former member of the Stamps Quartet who later played with Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, set out to create what would become one of McEntire’s biggest and baddest signature songs.
“People need to listen to the song,” McEntire told American Songwriter. “If the song is great, I don’t care who’s singing it—man or woman, black or white, gay or not—if the song is good, and they sing it well, and the audience loves it, it should be a hit. It shouldn’t be in a category.”
The song was definitely a hit. McEntire’s “Fancy” surpassed Gentry’s original on the country chart, climbing to No. 8, with CMT ranking the anthem at No. 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Country Songs. With the album’s other hits, including the No. 1 smash “You Lie,” Rumor Has It reached No. 2 on the country albums chart and No. 39 on the Billboard 200.
Besides the great lyrics, another reason the song performed so well on the charts was its music video, which stars McEntire as Fancy.
Directed by Jack Cole, the visual was filmed in the dead of winter on the outskirts of Nashville. It sees McEntire live out the lyrics, from being “turned out” by her mother as a “half-grow’d kid” to getting a “Georgia mansion and an elegant New York townhouse flat.” The iconic video received a nomination for Music Video of the Year at the CMA Awards in 1991, but lost to K.T. Oslin’s “Come Next Monday.”
“Even though [Fancy] was a prostitute, she and her mother realized this is how you’re going to be able to survive in this world,” McEntire said. “You get your toe-hold and then go on and be bigger and better, and also take care of yourself and help others.”
McEntire was also part of a broader shift toward increasingly theatrical country performances in the 1990s. In the same interview with American Songwriter, she remembered just how big those shows became.
“The 1990s were when it really became about the performance, when we had 15 costume changes, 10 dancers onstage, more lights than Madonna or Michael Jackson had on their stage,” she said. “I was completely taking up the entire floor of the arena. It was so theatrical. … We were going 900 miles per hour, enjoying it all and having a great time.”
McEntire famously channeled that ’90s arena energy in 2019 when she performed a fiery rendition of “Fancy” at the CMA Awards. The performance included three dramatic looks, starting with a purple robe, then transitioning into a red gown and ending in a fiery red jumpsuit. The razzle-dazzle was just further proof that McEntire is a force, and Fancy is but one of her names.
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