QUESTION: Any other special memories?

ANSWER: In ’97 or ’98, we got the call from the Billboard Music Awards that Madonna had gotten sick and would we mind opening the awards. I thought, if you’re going to replace Madonna, you better bring your best show. Vegas is the home of Foy Flyers, which created the harness and wiring to fly me across Texas Stadium in 1991 or 1992. So we contacted Foy and asked if we could fly onto the MGM Grand Garden Arena stage and fly out. They still had my harness from 50 pounds ago. I said, “Are you guys sure this is the right thing to do? Because I’m a little heavier now,” and they were great. That’s another great thing that happened here.

QUESTION: You and Trisha Yearwood just got engaged. Vegas is the marriage capital of the world. Any thoughts?

ANSWER: (laughs) No. No comments on the marriage at this point. When we make our first statement about that, we’ll make it together.

QUESTION: To help publicize Teammates For Kids, you participated in spring training with the San Diego Padres, the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets. Any plans to do it again?

ANSWER: Yeah, I’d do it again, but I retired to be with my children and it just hurts to be away from them anymore, so I’ll see. It’s the hockey teams I’m glad have never invited me to camp because you can imagine this butt on skates (laughs).

QUESTION: Your oldest daughter just turned 13. What advice would you give to anyone raising a teenager?

ANSWER: I don’t know because we’re just starting. But the thing I would suggest as a parent is make sure self-worth is in their vocabulary because for some reason, our girls seem to find their self-worth in other people sometimes, as in getting married at a young age. The question I want to ask your girls is, “why isn’t who you are enough?”

QUESTION: Are you working on any music?

ANSWER: Nothing. Retired. We’re just hanging out. I’m doing mostly screenwriting. It’s good but you get remarks like “Don’t quit your day job.” But the thing you keep remembering is all those things were said about your music as well.

QUESTION: What do you miss about playing live?

ANSWER: I don’t want my kids to read that, but I miss everything. Anybody in a suit and tie in the music business, no. I don’t miss that at all. Every night at nine o’ clock, your stomach starts getting that feeling still and it’s really nice. I’ll be 53 when [youngest daughter] Allie Colleen heads off to college. If the freedom is there to fire it back up and there is a place for us to be, then I would like to see something that makes what we did before look very, very small.

Melinda Newman is West Coast Bureau Chief for Billboard Magazine.