POP MUSIC REVIEW : Trisha Yearwood Gracefully Runs Obstacle Course

Opening for Kenny Rogers at the Celebrity Theatre Saturday, country music sensation Trisha Yearwood proved that she’s worthy of the considerable hoopla which followed her recording debut last year. Unfortunately, she also proved that opening for Kenny Rogers isn’t always the best place for one’s talents to be appreciated.

At 26, Yearwood had one of the biggest breakthroughs in country music history. Her debut single, “She’s in Love With the Boy,” shot all the way to No. 1. Her album, “Trisha Yearwood,” has sold 900,000 copies; it slipped one notch out of the county Top 10 only last week after a 30-week run. She has toured with her friend and booster Garth Brooks, and most recently has picked up an American Music Award and a Grammy nomination.

None of that--nor her sterling, though all-too-brief, performance--seemed to make much of an inroad with the Kenny Rogers loyalists packing the Celebrity for its early show.

Though attentive and polite in their response, the crowd possibly would have regarded even a ghostly visit from Patsy Cline as just a delay keeping them from their silver-bearded hero. At the Crazy Horse Steak House, Yearwood’s set likely would have garnered repeated calls for an encore, but Saturday at the Celebrity, it ended to only light applause.

Along with being confined to a set that was scarcely more than 25 minutes long, Yearwood also had to work with the bare stage that Rogers prefers, with her band consigned to the orchestra pit. Such a setting can work to Rogers’ advantage, enhancing the chatty one-to-one rapport he has with his fans. For an act more reliant on music then personality, though, it can blunt a performance to be separated from one’s band.

Yearwood largely surmounted that, and managed to not look too uncomfortable when the instrumental breaks left her standing with nothing to do. She stands pretty well, in fact, garbed as she was in a black evening gown and blue sequined jacket.

One part of her show easily could have been ridiculous. Her hit “Like We Never Had a Broken Heart” includes a strong harmony vocal line--practically a duet--sung on record by Brooks (who co-wrote the song with Pat Alger). Live, one of her unseen band members sang the second vocal, leaving Yearwood to try to forge a sense of intimacy with an apparently disembodied voice.

Despite the curious circumstances, she accomplished that, too, in spades, lending a personal ache and closeness to the ballad that one wouldn’t expect, given the brash, gutsy vocals evident on her other hits.

Those songs--”That’s What I Like About You” and the sassy “She’s in Love With the Boy”--were the only others from her hit album that were featured in her seven-song set. The rest of the time, she bravely sang as-yet-unreleased numbers that ranged from a torchy ballad to an up-tempo burner possibly titled “Living on the Wrong Side of Memphis.” The latter tune featured some splendid fiddle work from band member Tammy Rodgers, who last year provided much of the fire in Patty Loveless’ live shows.