Reba McEntire - Reba Duets
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Free Music Notes for Reba Duets
Free Music Review: Reba Duets
Hit: 4 Stars
My wife is the bigger fan of Country Music. But, I will stop and listen to Reba anytime. Her music is electric and enjoyable. This is must for all those that love Reba. My son especially is a big fan and he recommended the CD. Enjoy country because it is True, True Americana. You go girl!!!!Free Music Review: Loved this CD
Hit: 5 Stars
I couldn't wait for this CD to come out. I was definately not disappointed. My favorites are the duet with Leann Rimes & Kelly Clarkson. Beautiful!!!!Free Music Review: Regular Reba
Hit: 3 Stars
Reba's got a really great voice and now some really great voices to sing with, but it turns out like all of Reba's past work: lacking. I bought this album off the strength of the trac with Kelly Clarkson and all the great voices in the trac listing. Faith, Trisha, Kenny, Vince Gill, and Don Henley, how can this thing possibly go wrong? Well it's got the same problem as all of Reba's albums - her inability to pick good songs. Most of the content is just okay, and although you have two great singers on every trac singing it for all it's worth, they can't do much with it except take it up a notch maybe two. Best songs on the album are the one's with Kenny Chesney and Kelly Clarkson.Free Music Review: Long-awaited new CD from today's Queen of Country
Hit: 4 Stars
After six successful seasons of the sitcom "Reba" on the now-defunct The WB, and its successor, The CW, Reba McEntire has finally left L.A. and has returned to Nashville to resume her crown as reigning contemporary Queen of Country Music. The result is her September 2007 CD release Reba Duets, and obviously America's missed her, because "Duets" has become the first Reba release to reach (let alone debut at) #1 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart. It was certified platinum in October, only a month after being released. The CD features 11 tracks with some of the best country and pop singers in the industry today.
Reba insists on recording her duets live and with her partner in the same studio, at the same time. This is a rarity these days (Tony Bennett is another artist who works this way on his duets); often "duet" vocals can be recorded on different continents, sometimes a matter of months apart. Having the artists record together absolutely makes a difference on this album, and it shows.
My pet peeve with this album, however, is the material. With only a couple of exceptions, nearly all of the songs chosen for this album are downbeat ballads with weepy, sad lyrics. Frankly, by the end of the CD, I was feeling quite depressed. This was not the Reba McEntire I was used to hearing. Only the quality of the vocals and production help make the album rise above the downtrodden material.
Let's start with the standouts. The first single, a cover of "Because of You" from original "American Idol" Kelly Clarkson's sophomore album Breakaway, was co-written by Clarkson and features her again here vocally. The song was originally about Kelly's alleged child abuse growing up but was reworked here to fit the fantastic--and I do mean FANTASTIC--video, which features both ladies as singers in a WWII-era supper club whose owner has a penchant for physical abuse. McEntire had been his first abused lover; Clarkson is his current one. Meanwhile, he is wooing another potential victim in the audience in full view of them as they sing. He then forcefully grabs Clarkson at the end of the evening to leave for another night of physical and emotional pain. It is a startling, shocking, yet beautifully-filmed video, with outstanding set and makeup design, and is one of the best videos of 2007--in any music genre--by far.
"Because of You" peaked at #2 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and even crossed over to crack the top half of the Hot 100 pop singles chart as well. Earlier, the summer 2007 release of Clarkson's new CD, My December, bombed; she had a very public falling out with her mentor, Clive Davis; and she cancelled her entire summer tour. Clarkson has since hired McEntire's husband and manager, Narvel Blackstock, as her own manager, and has relocated her center of operations from L.A. to Nashville. Kelly resumed touring in the fall of 2007 with a different concert venue configuration.
LeAnn Rimes has been a close personal friend of Reba's for most of her young life, and Reba was an important mentor to her as she was trying to get into the business as a child performer. Rimes' earliest TV appearances include being on the original version of "Star Search" with Ed McMahon at eight years old in 1990. She turned to Reba again after country radio shunned her when LeAnn's single How Do I Live became a massive pop hit in 1997, but then was almost simultaneously covered by Trisha Yearwood as the soundtrack theme to the Nicolas Cage/John Cusack flick "Con Air" and was embraced by country radio. Rimes couldn't get any of her singles played on country radio for years after this "scandal," and she looked to McEntire for advice, support, and comfort.
That relationship is essentially the same in "When You Love Someone Like That," the leadoff track on the CD; except in this case, the topic is the loss of a man. In LeAnn's case, it's one man; in Reba's case, it's several, or many, and it's from painful experience. It's by far one of the strongest tracks on this CD, and it also closes out Rimes' latest CD release, Family, as well. Reba's and LeAnn's voices were simply made to be blended together, and this track will give you chills.
The new single is "The Only Promise That Remains," co-written by and featuring Justin Timberlake. It's a surprisingly simple, elegant, and somewhat forlorn love song that is a polar opposite to what you hear on Timberlake's current output from material such as FutureSex / LoveSounds. I've gained much respect for him as a composer from this track. But be warned: vocally, you'll have to listen hard. His contribution amounts to little more than a harmony vocal. It's essentially Reba and only Reba.
As for uptempo songs, there are essentially only two--more or less. One is "Does the Wind Still Blow in Oklahoma?" featuring a little Texas-swing fiddle work by Aubrey Haynie and vocal by Brooks & Dunn's Ronnie Dunn. The other is "Everyday People," featuring songwriting legend Carole King. Her 1971 album (then vinyl, of course) Tapestry remains one of the best-selling records of all time. "Everyday People" celebrates the unsung heroes everywhere who give of themselves and help in times of crisis and need, such as those who helped during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. McEntire is heavily involved in Habitat for Humanity, and a CD insert asks for help; the song's lyrics indirectly refer to the people who work for that marvelous organization and so many other ones like it.
Other heart-tuggers include "Every Other Weekend" with Kenny Chesney, about divorced parents who see each other only to drop off their kids on the court-appointed days, but who unknowingly are still in love with each other and are too afraid to let the other know. "She Can't Save Him," with the aforementioned Trisha Yearwood (aka Mrs. Garth Brooks), involves a wife silently acknowledging her husband's infidelity and alcoholism, and knowing they will eventually mean the end of their marriage.
"Sleeping with the Telephone," with Faith Hill, is a tear-jerker about a woman bitterly lamenting her husband's decision to enter the armed services and serve "in some foreign land" (hmmm...perhaps Iraq?) while she waits for his phone calls and worries for his safety. Knowing Hill's and husband Tim McGraw's very public blue-state politics in decidedly red-state Tennessee, this might be termed Faith Hill's perfectly PC and less provocative version of The Dixie Chicks' Not Ready to Make Nice. Hill and McEntire are a dream of a duet.
Other tracks include "Faith in Love" with country supergroup Rascal Flatts; "These Broken Hearts," co-written by Vince Gill and featuring his utterly angelic high-tenor voice; and "Break Each Other's Hearts Again" with Don Henley, about two former lovers who meet by chance in a bar and decide to hook up that night and go right back to doing all the things that made them break up in the first place. Henley's soaring on his own, too, as the good Lord has answered this writer's prayers and finally reunited The Eagles for their first album of all-original material since 1979's The Long Run! They've been justly rewarded with a #1-debut smash CD on the Billboard Top 200 album charts, Long Road Out Of Eden (a double-CD to boot). The album is already setting records (pun intended) as the first time in RIAA history that an artist or artists has/have had a certified-platinum record from sales emanating from only one corporate retailer in its initial release (WalMart/Sam's Club). Man, it's good to have those four birds flying high, with those inimitable harmonies, again.
So, getting back to Reba, apart from the miserable, maudlin material, I don't have a single qualm about this CD. It's great to have Reba singing country again, because that's what she's truly all about. She's proven her versatility, with her hit TV sitcom showing genuine wit and timing; a star turn on Broadway as Annie Oakley in the revival of "Annie, Get Your Gun!"; and a superb performance as Nellie Forbush in a concert performance of Rodgers & Hammerstein's "South Pacific."
McEntire need prove nothing more. She's a star of many magnitudes, in many disciplines, on many levels. To paraphrase another Broadway show, "Hello, Reba, it's so good to have you back where you belong!"
But next time, though, lighten up a little. Don't worry, be happy. And no, that doesn't mean to do a cover of that whistle-happy song! There's a treasure-trove of great songs just waiting for that timeless voice to sing them. And I'll be right here, waiting to hear. There's only one Reba McEntire, and I'm thankful every day we get to hear that singular voice.
CD RATING: **** (out of 5) -- BOB BOURBEAU -- 28 Nov 07
Free Music Review: Amazing As Always
Hit: 4 Stars
this is another example of Reba's pure talent and stellar quality. her duets are amazing and it was wonderful to hear her sing new songs. the only negative thing at all is that most of the songs have a somber message. they address serious, life-changing times of life like the pains of divorce or the families of the military heroes abroad. I appreciate her addressing these important issues. It just caught me by surprise.