Reba – One Name Says It All

Wednesday, February 25, 2015 - 05:47 PM, CST | mysanantonio.com, Hector Saldana

SAN ANTONIO – Reba is the sentimental one.

Of the two divas in town Monday – Diana Ross of the Supremes was at the Majestic Theatre – country music’s undisputed queen Reba McEntire deals with heartbreak more openly and more often in song.

She is just as often the strong one. Modern country music was coming of age when McEntire emerged in the 1980s. She took it there.

“You’ll always have a place to come back to,” she sang to a wayward lover on Whoever’s In New England.”

McEntire and her nine-piece band brought back pure country to the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo at AT&T Center. It was certainly welcomed loudly.

Like Ross, McEntire, 59, shares a voice that cuts through any mix and she is a survivor. Unlike Ross, there were no costume changes.

Of course, Reba (she goes by her first name now) does it her way, too. That included doing a medley of songs she covered in the 1990s.

A Linda Ronstadt song started it off. “You’re No Good” stayed true to the original ‘70s hit.

“The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” followed full of glorious twang.

“Come on everybody, put your hands together,” she said. Several in the $200 Rodeo Star Experience seats near the stage danced on the rodeo dirt floor.

McEntire remains country’s gold standard, big voiced and sassy. The red-haired star sang in a low-cut top, skin tight pants and knee-high boots.

She thrilled with Vicki Lawrence’s “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia.” A better life (or is it?) beckoned on “Is There Life Out There,” a down-home empowerment and morality tale.

There is the broken heart of the other woman in “Does He Love You.”

McEntire has a new album out in April (her first in five years) and she sang its first single, “Going Out Like That.”

Next came her classic hit, “Strange,” which rocked hard.

Original “American Idol,” Grammy-winning singer Kelly Clarkson is her daughter-in-law. McEntire introduced a song Clarkson wrote when she was 16 – “Because of You.”

Cheers erupted during the number: A man proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of the song on the rodeo dirt floor. The singer loved it.

McEntire congratulated the couple—Michael and Alexandria—and, of course, asked to see the engagement ring.

“This next song is not for y’all,” McEntire joked, introducing “Consider Me Gone.”

The set list included “I’m a Survivor” from her “Reba” TV show, which launched in 2001 and ran through 2007.

She followed it with the bluesy “Take It Back,” a swaggering rocker. “Turn On the Radio” kept the energy level way up, too.

Her influence is enormous. “Fancy,” the night’s final song, is testament—a rollicking precursor to the kind of country Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood deliver these days.

“Reba” – the name says it all.

Photos By Edward A. Ornelas

Posted by Kevin on 02/25/2015 at 05:47 PM