POP REVIEW : REBA McENTIRE EARNING A PLACE ALONGSIDE GREATS

With all the awards Reba McEntire has picked up in the last 18 months, including best female vocalist honors two years straight from both the Country Music Assn. and the Academy of Country Music, you would think she represented the second coming of Patsy Cline.

But in this age of massive record company hype and awards shows that are often little more than popularity contests, the welcome surprise is that when McEntire opens her mouth and sings, she proves that the accolades are justified.

At the first of two sold-out shows Tuesday at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana, the Oklahoma-born singer showed that she might eventually earn a place alongside country music’s great vocalists.

The operative word at this stage of her career, however, is might . One of country’s “new traditionalists,” McEntire possesses one of the most powerful and expressive voices in country today, but it has only occasionally achieved its potential on record and in concert.

During Tuesday’s 65-minute performance, McEntire finally hit the peaks she is capable of in an exuberant encore medley of gospel standards. And on a couple of ballads, notably her 1985 hit “Somebody Should Leave,” McEntire used her colorful down-home drawl skillfully, swooping and diving into notes and phrases in the Cline-Loretta Lynn tradition.

Her show also benefited from the economical but beautifully tailored backing from her eight-piece Road Slugs band, which complemented the unaffected joy in her voice on the Western swing tune “All I Need Is You.”

But too much of McEntire’s repertory falls short of the straight-to-the-heart honesty that characterizes country classics like “I Fall to Pieces” or “Today I Started Loving You Again.” That deficiency is particularly evident on her new “Whoever’s in New England” album, where clever but uninvolving wordplay in tunes like “Don’t Touch Me There”--it’s her heart she’s singing about--sets up a crippling distance between the singer and the song.

Another problem McEntire needs to address is the discrepancies between the themes of her songs and the character of her voice. In her current single, “Whoever’s in New England,” the strength and intelligence she projects vocally just don’t jibe with the demure martyr in the song who waits patiently for her philandering husband to return.

More fitting was “One Thin Dime,” in which the woman again waits for an unfaithful lover. But the song’s upbeat swing foundation and McEntire’s unwavering vocal confidence deliver an almost subliminal message that she doesn’t really care what her man does.

Her problems, however, are surmountable with a little more effort in the song scouting department. If McEntire can round up songs equal to her vocal talents, she may indeed win her way into the Country Music Hall of Fame.