McEntire Proves to Be Voice of Experience

Shania Twain and Faith Hill aren’t the be all and end all of female country-pop singing. It just frequently seems that way.

The Twain-Hill effect was felt nearly from top to bottom in the four-hour “Girls Night Out” show on Sunday at Staples Center. Booming ballads and vocal cords unchained ruled this particular night out, the guiding philosophy out of Nashville now being that no singer ever lost a penny overselling a tune.

Country-singer-turned-actress-turned-Broadway-star Reba McEntire was the notable exception on a bill that also featured ‘90s arrivals Martina McBride and Sara Evans and millennium newcomers Jamie O’Neal and Carolyn Dawn Johnson.

However adept she is at opening her throat to full throttle when the time is right, McEntire is a far more experienced vocalist than most of her peers, one who knows that dynamic peaks require valleys if they’re to mean anything.

For much of the ‘80s and ‘90s, McEntire was the Shania-Faith of country music, selling millions by pushing ever more in a pop direction with highly dramatic tales of romance gone sour.

Her concerts have long been more akin to Broadway shows, full of elaborate production numbers and eye-popping lighting, special effects and enough costume changes to keep anyone this side of Cher satisfied.

Now that she’s just finished a six-month run wowing critics and New York audiences as Annie Oakley in the Broadway revival of “Annie Get Your Gun,” McEntire returns to the concert arena that is much more comfortable in her roles as singer, role model, dancer and charismatic storyteller.

She was in a class by herself Sunday, oozing self-assurance and not following anyone’s footsteps, but showcasing those she’s spent the last 25 years perfecting.

The best thing about her 90-minute performance was that even when the songs turned melodramatic, as with “What Do You Say” and “I’ll Be” from her 1999 “So Good Together” album, she invested them with a richness of character that made structural flaws easier to forgive.

Like Bette Midler and Dolly Parton, McEntire has transcended musical genres to become an entertainer. She’s also become an icon for female empowerment--both by singing about women who tap hidden strength in overcoming obstacles and by taking control of most aspects of her multifaceted career.

McBride preceded McEntire with a 45-minute greatest-hits set showcasing the great big pipes hiding in that petite frame. But the contrast was striking between McEntire, who knows when to let go and when to hold back, and McBride, who often belts out lyrics for the sheer joy of belting.

Likable as Evans comes across, she was out of her element on the big Staples stage, seeming ill at ease trying to negotiate all that acreage while singing for the rafters. Her latest album, “Born to Fly,” frequently takes her into Twain-Hill vocal overkill territory, a disappointing turn after the promise of her 1997 “Three Chords and the Truth” album.

Show openers O’Neal and Johnson got Whitman’s Sampler-sized introductory mini-sets but returned to join Evans and McBride in McEntire’s encore renditions of the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight” and Carole King’s “A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like),” which gave the show a warm, communal climax.