Reba McEntire has admired Loretta Lynn for as long as she can remember. In a recent interview with her record label, Big Machine Label Group, the "Just Like Them Horses" singer says that she sings one of Lynn's songs each night as a vocal warmup before she takes the stage.

McEntire was 11 years old the first time she met Lynn at a rodeo in Ada, Okla. She wishes she'd kept a memento from that first meet and greet.

"Well, see what they would do is they’d play the rodeo," she explains. "They would pull a trailer out and then the country music star for the night would come out and perform for the audience and then they would go over to the dance hall and put on a dance. That’s the first time I actually met her. I whipped off my belt for her to sign, and man I wish I still had that belt. I love Loretta Lynn."

Lynn recently turned 84, and McEntire says her favorite song of the singer's is “If You’re Not Gone Too Long.”

Like Lynn, McEntire has a knack for selecting songs she wants to record.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for; I know when I hear it, though. Just like I know when I see it… ‘That’s the dress I’m looking for! That’s the dress I want,’ or ‘That’s the boots I want,’ because they feel good," she tells Big Machine. "You know it when you hear it.”

See Reba McEntire Through the Years:

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