There are country singers and then there are country singers.
Reba McEntire is one of those country divas who is bigger than the genre itself, so extraordinary is her vocalism and her ability to communicate through her music.
As she demonstrated Friday night at the Rosemont Horizon, Reba can both gently caress a lyric with a subtle tenderness that can express the heartbreak of true love or she can inspire and rock out with reckless abandon.
Either way–or any shade in between–there is an integrity to what she sings that always shines through.
At this stage of her career, Reba has had so many chart-toppers and classic hits that it would be easy to sit back and rest on her laurels and present merely a “greatest hits” type of show. The hits were there, to be sure, but most of her set was spent performing the material from her recently released album, “If You See Him,” including a strong power anthem called “Forever Love” that is the title of a CBS television movie Reba recently made that will air in September.
By contrast, Brooks & Dunn– sharing the bill with Reba–are carbon copies of every country music cliche in the book, from Garth Brooks and band members’ cowboy hats to the monotone twangs that never vary, regardless of what the guys are singing about.
Take, for instance, the hit single “If You See Him/If You See Her,” the collaboration between Brooks & Dunn and Reba that inspired this double bill, and not surprisingly, the encore number of the evening. Whereas Reba opens the number by singing with considerable poignancy of what she would communicate to a former love, the emotion is so cold and distant when Ronnie Dunn joins in and mirrors her sentiment that the lyrics might just as well be about used cars.
At least Brooks & Dunn had inflatable tapping cowboy boots and bouncing female-shaped buxom balloons to join in with them during their set, as any diversion was welcome.
