Yearwood brings fire to simple set

By PAMELA DAVIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 7, 2000

CLEARWATER -- With a voice as pure and powerful as Trisha Yearwood's, there's no need for the glitzy stage props or fancy dancing that so many other country performers resort to in concert these days.

A five-piece band and some candles were just the right touch for Yearwood, who performed superbly Saturday night to a sold-out crowd at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

Dressed in black pants, black shirt and black duster, with her long blond hair flowing over her shoulders, Yearwood appeared comfortable as she gently moved from one side of the stage to the other and joked with the audience between songs.

Yearwood, who belts out a song better than almost any other woman in Nashville today, has been missed in concert. This is her first tour in three years.

Two of her biggest fans, her parents, Gwen and Jack Yearwood, were in the audience. They try to attend their daughter's concerts when she's anywhere near their Monticello, Ga., home. The couple drove eight hours to meet up with her in Clearwater.

The singer's parents prefer listening to their daughter in an intimate setting like Ruth Eckerd Hall versus an outdoor venue, Mrs. Yearwood said.

Yearwood, 36, kicked off her 18-song set with Where Are You Now, the current single from her new album Real Live Woman. She had no choice but to interact with a rather loud audience, who continually made song requests from their seats.

"Don't think you can yell out anything and I'll sing it. Like Freebird," Yearwood warned the boisterous crowd.

In addition to strong performances of Believe Me Baby (I Lied), She's in Love With the Boy and Walkaway Joe, fans got a taste of Yearwood's humor when she confessed her reasons for choosing songs aren't always deep ones. Yearwood picked Everybody Knows, she said, because it had the words "chocolate" and "jerk" in the lyrics.

Before singing the perky Perfect Love, she admitted to having about three happy songs per album. "And that's plenty," she said.

Using her trademark left-handed hip slap, Yearwood tore into XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl), followed by the much slower The Song Remembers When (one of her personal favorites) and Real Live Woman.

The night's only stage theatrics came from the words "Real Live Woman" flashing in neon, a nod to her video for the song.

For Too Bad You're No Good and Wrong Side of Memphis, Yearwood was joined by opening act Randy Scruggs on guitar. Scruggs, the son of legendary bluegrass banjo picker Earl Scruggs, used his set to introduce songs from his debut solo album Crown of Jewels.

Talent runs in the family. Scruggs, who mostly played guitar instrumentals, wowed the audience with his acoustic virtuosity.

His voice was reminiscent of Bob Dylan but his style of playing was a mixture of folk, bluegrass and country.

Yearwood's only misstep all night was her version of Midnight Train to Georgia. It was an uncomfortable combination of the right singer with the wrong song. But Yearwood made up for it in the end with an emotional rendition of Over the Rainbow.