Reba McEntire Emotionally Recalls How Dolly Parton Helped Her After Losing Entire Band In 1991 Plane Crash

LEFT: Reba McEn­tire shed tears remem­ber­ing her lost band. (ACM / YouTube) RIGHT: The 60th Anniver­sary of the Grand Ole Opry. (Pho­to by CBS via Get­ty Images)

Reba McEntire Shared A Story Of Dolly Parton’s Extreme Kindness

If you’ve been a devot­ed coun­try music fan for a while, you’ve like­ly heard the heart­break­ing sto­ry of how Reba McEn­tire lost all her band mem­bers in a trag­ic plane crash.

On March 16, 1991, at 2 AM, Reba received a call in her hotel room with the dev­as­tat­ing news that she had lost her entire band along with her tour man­ag­er. They were depart­ing from one of her recent shows in San Diego, where they had just per­formed for a group of IBM exec­u­tives, and were head­ing to Fort Wayne, Indi­ana.

Trag­i­cal­ly, those who lost their lives that day includ­ed:

Jim Ham­mon (tour man­ag­er), Kirk Cap­pel­lo (key­boardist), Joey Cigainero (key­boardist), Tony Saputo (drum­mer), Michael Thomas (gui­tarists), Chris Austin (gui­tarists), Ter­ry Jack­son (bassist), Paula Kaye Evans (back­up singer), Don­ald Holmes (pilot), and Christo­pher Hollinger (pilot).

Reba was sup­posed to be on the plane, but decid­ed at the last minute to remain in San Diego because she was feel­ing a bit unwell.

Her hus­band at the time, Narvel Black­stock, and her styl­ist, Sandy Spi­ka, stayed with her while the rest of her crew took two sep­a­rate planes, one of which crashed.

Reba was award­ed the Top Female Vocal­ist at the ACM Awards that year and ded­i­cat­ed her win to her lost band­mates short­ly after the crash. You can watch her heart­felt speech below

Dolly Parton Offered The Most Stunning Show Of Support

What many might not real­ize, as Reba shared in an inter­view with Vari­ety Mag­a­zine, is that Dol­ly Par­ton reached out to offer her immense sup­port.

In 2021, Dol­ly Par­ton and Reba McIn­tyre col­lab­o­rat­ed on the song “Does He Love You?” Check out their offi­cial music video below.

When dis­cussing the song with a reporter, Reba men­tioned that Dol­ly Par­ton had called her and offered her entire band so Reba could con­tin­ue tour­ing.

This kind act isn’t unusu­al for Dol­ly Par­ton, yet it’s clear it still touch­es Reba’s heart to this day. Vince Gill also offered to play in her band and sing with her if need­ed. Reba’s two friends showed up for her when she need­ed them.

The con­nec­tion between an artist and their band is incred­i­bly sig­nif­i­cant, with some band­mates tour­ing along­side the same artist for life­times.

Dol­ly Par­ton extend­ing this offer was no small ges­ture. Watch her heart­felt inter­view below.