Martina McBride: Live in Concert”

GREAT PERFORMANCES: “Martina McBride: Live in Concert” airs on Monday, March 31 at 10:00 p.m.
– One From the Heart: Country Superstar Delights Fans, Viewers –
(Watch a preview here on uVu)

The real appeal of country music comes from just one place — the heart — and no one knows that better than Martina McBride. “You can always look at a fresh way of doing a song,” she says, “but it always has to resonate with the truth.”

A crossover success widely known for her many albums and television appearances, McBride offers a lively encore of her many hits, including “How I Feel,” “Love’s the Only House,” “This One’s for the Girls” and her 2007 Country Music Awards Song of the Year-nominated “Anyway,” the fastest-selling single of her career. Each is a small world in itself: direct, honest, immediate. “I’ll be singing ‘Independence Day’ at concerts the rest of my life,” she says of her 1993 signature song told from the point of view of a child now grown up. “I love the story. I get closer to it every time I sing it.”

Recorded last September at Moline, Illinois’ i wireless Center, before a sea of screaming fans, “Martina McBride: Live in Concert” spotlights McBride’s latest album, Waking Up Laughing (RCA), and features a number of its songs, including “Tryin’ to Find a Reason” and “For These Times.” Also highlighted are some personal favorites from her 2005 Timeless album, including such “oldies” as Lynn Anderson’s
“(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden” and Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man).”

Back with her own hits and powerful interpretations, McBride, dressed in head-to-toe black, easily demonstrates what has made her a country legend, with more than 16 million albums in sales and 22 top 10 singles. She effortlessly sets the evening’s tone, initiating a sea of waving arms and occasionally moving her audience to tears (“Concrete Angel”).

“Let’s have some fun,” she shouts to the roaring crowd at the top of the telecast. Throughout her 15-year career, that seems to be exactly what she and her audiences are doing.