Mastered by Glenn Meadows at Masterfonics using the JVC Digital Audio Mastering System.
Digital editing by Milan Bogdan.
Compact disc master tape prepared by Glenn Meadows and Milan Bogdan.
This voice is as refreshing as a spring prairie breeze. It can burn like a camfire ember or cool like a Colorado stream. It can ache with desire, murmur tenderness, or spit anger. In short, it is a voice that commands you to listen.
It belongs to Reba McEntire.
Several years ago I referred to her as "the greatest female country voice of our time, perhaps the greatest in country music history." Time has only strengthened that belief.
At the time, she was a Music City starlet. During the next half dozen years she rose to the top of her profession. THis compilation Lp traces that rise.
She was discovered in Oklahoma when she was 19 years old, and spent most of the next decade serving a long apprenticeship on the country scene. When she arrived at MCA Records in 1984 she was ready to graduate to stardom.
Reba served notice at once that hers was a talent that demanded to be heard, tearing into the most torrid performance of her career up to that time: the intense blue-collar devotion of "Just A Little Love" and the vaulting, soaring freedom declaration of "He Broke Your Memory Last Night."
She began to take increasing control over her career. She cast aside her sequins in favor of cotton, she took complete charge of song selections, and she staked her claim on a number of musical territories. The first evidence of this was 1984's My Kind Of Country. The stripped down sound of "How Blue" and the tear-stained lament "Somebody Should Leave" made her a leader of country's non-traditionalist movement. The following year's "Have I Got A Deal For You" showcased her swing style.
In 1986, she plunged into the world of video with the richly melodic ballad "Whoever's In New England," another sign of her increasing versatility as a stylist. The single is now regarded as her "career record," because of its dramatic impact.
She showed she could kick up her heels with the frisky "Little Rock," then plunged listeners into the soul-deep despair of "What Am I Gonna Do About You." On "One Promise Too Late" she takes us out onto the dance floor for a classy Texas two-step.
One thing unites all these performances. THe voice. That incredible instrument that is like a bird in flight, gliding and spinning in the air, swooping and darting through currents and clouds, arching heavenward and fluttering effortlessly in a rarified atmosphere few singers ever reach.
The woman who owns it reigns as the Country Music Association Entertainer Of The Year, as a six-time winner of CMA and ACM trophies as Female Vocalist of the Year, as a Gold Record seller and as a down-to-earth fan favorite.
All this and more belongs to Reba McEntire. And she's only just begun.
Robert K. Oermann
Nashville, 1987 |
