JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I popped over to Salina tonight (this will post in early morning) for the Martina McBride concert — the first of 21 dates McBride will play on a tour that continues until Nov. 1.

I first heard her in concert about two years ago, when she opened for George Strait at Sprint Center. She was every bit as professional as Strait and much more energetic than the cowboy who this year is riding away as a concert performer.

McBride delivered the goods again last night, giving a stirring hour and a half performance that had the sellout crowd of about 1,300 standing, cheering and whooping at various points.

The concert was at the Stiefel (pronounced stee-ful) Theatre, a former Art-Deco-style movie theater that closed in the late 1980s and reopened in 2003 after an extensive restoration. It is a beautiful place, with great sight lines, comfortable seats and a slope that affords a good view, even if you’re unlucky enough to be seated behind someone wearing a baseball cap or, worse, a cowboy hat. In fact, a guy down the row from me never removed his cowboy hat…I guess he’s either mighty proud of it or feared a head chill.

For McBride, the concert was a homecoming. She was born in Sharon, KS, a small town west of Wichita, where a park is named for her. In her late teens, she performed in a local rock band in Wichita, and she moved to Nashville in 1989, when she was 22 or 23.

She has recorded 12 albums, including “Everlasting,” which was released last month.

“Everlasting” is a very unusual album for a country western singer because it consists primarily of cover songs made famous by great pop artists. The cuts on the album include “If You Don’t Know Me by Now” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes; “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” by Jimmy Ruffin; “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” by Aretha Franklin; “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis Presley; “Bring it on Home to Me” by Sam Cooke; and “Wild Night” by Van Morrison.

But McBride is nothing if not an experimenter. She continually stretches her musical reach and embraces risk. She has a tremendous sense of song arrangement and what goes over well with audiences. Also, while she puts out a big sound, it is never overwhelming. With her last night were three back-up singers and a band that included piano, lead guitar, bass guitar and drums, and a horn section consisting of trombone, baritone sax, tenor sax and trumpet.

The pianist, guitar players and drummer were dressed in iridescent blue sport coats, with black pants, white shirts and skinny black ties. The brass players wore vests, also iridescent, instead of the sport coats. Bending and blowing behind low, musical podiums with stylized “M” logos, the brass players looked like hyped-up escapees from the Lawrence Welk Orchestra.

McBride, a lissome beauty, wore a wine-colored, form-fitting jacket; black blouse; skin-tight leather pants; and heels that were about 10 inches high. (I guess it could be five, but I sure would like to have measured.)

In style, McBride seems to me like Janis Joplin, Linda Ronstadt and Dusty Springfield all wrapped up in one. She combines Joplin’s sheer energy with Ronstadt’s pure tonality and Springfield’s soulfulness. In fact, her four-song encore included a low-down rendition of Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” which just about launched me out of my chair.

In addition to several songs from “Everlasting,” McBride did some of her old standbys, including the powerful “Wild Angels” and her hallmark song, “Independence Day.”

McBride was clearly having fun. She pointed and waved to individuals in the audience, and at one point she crouched down and got into a “selfie” photo that a young woman was taking of herself with her back to the stage. The woman cheerily gave McBride a high five.

Toward the end of the concert, McBride talked convincingly about the power of live performance. The dynamics and thrill of live performance cannot be downloaded, she noted, and only live performance leaves the artist and audience with distinctive memories.

It certainly was a memorable night for me…If you would have asked me in January what the chances were of me having a memorable night in Salina in 2014, I would have said, “Slim to none.”

But there you go, that’s one of the joys of life — unexpected pleasures popping up in unlikely places.