In Brief

** 1/2 Martina McBride, “The Time Has Come,” RCA. This one-time Dairy Queen waitress from Kansas --who opens for Garth Brooks at the Forum on Friday and at the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego on Saturday--has a voice that’s like a lemonade on a hot summer day: cool, sweet and tart enough to keep it interesting. Among the generally routine songs on this likable debut, two standouts--both co-written by Kathy Louvin--show McBride to be a capable honky-tonk blues belter.

Albums are rated on a scale of one asterisk (poor) to four (excellent).