Exclusive: Sara Evans Opens up About New Album
After seven studio albums and 20 years since the release of her first record with RCA Nashville, [...]
After seven studio albums and 20 years since the release of her first record with RCA Nashville, Three Chords and the Truth, Sara Evans is embarking on a new chapter. Even better? She's writing it herself.
Amid a frustrating lack of female artists on country radio — a trend that has continued for more than just a few years now — Evans took matters into her own hands with her eighth album, Words, the first release on her own label, Born to Fly.
In an interview with PopCulture.com, the singer revealed how her newest record came to be.
"We kind of entertained the thought of maybe we should make a really, specifically-directed album, like really, really country or really, really pop or something different to give the fans but then as the songs started coming in and as I started writing, it just was like, no, I'm just going to wait and see what songs I love," she said of Words, which also features 13 other female songwriters.
With a track list that includes predominantly country tunes and a couple of pop numbers sprinkled in, there's plenty of heartbreak to be found woven through the album's notes.
One in particular is an angst-laden tune called "All the Love You Left Me." Evans powerfully emotes a story that details a devastating loss — something she was able to relate to a tragic event in her own life.
"We have these neighbors who live just around the corner from us and they have a son who's my son's age and they've grown up together. He passed away year before last of cancer," she said. "Everyone was in shock. He was diagnosed and less than a year later, he was dead and the whole community was devastated," she said, getting emotional.
"I said to my family, 'Oh my God, think about it. This is Lynn (the mother) singing about Sid.' You would just walk around the rest of your life a zombie," she said.
Through conversation with Evans, it's evident that family plays a big role in not just her personal identity, but her musical identity, as well.
Creating the album was a family affair for the artist, who not only grew up in a musically-inclined family, but who also raised three children who love music. Her eldest daughter, 14-year-old Olivia, even joined her on the first single, "Marquee Sign."
"It was something that wasn't really planned," Evans said, explaining that she creates an album "to-do" list after repeated listening sessions of the rough vocals.
"I had been really sick and Livy and I came up on the bus one day to spend the whole day in the studio, just you know, taking care of all the details on my list," she recounted.
"I said, 'Olivia, run in there and put those oh's on the end,' and she was like — you know because it wasn't just me, it was our producer in there and the engineer — and she was like a little intimidated. I was just kind of tired and not feeling well and I just wanted her to obey me so it was really funny. It was like I was telling her to clean her room. I was like, 'Go, go do the ooh's. Just hurry," she joked.
Despite Olivia's hesitation, Evans said she nailed it.
"She literally sang it a couple of times and and we ended up keeping her first one. We didn't fix it. We didn't do anything to it. Just exactly what she sang. My engineer was like, 'Oh my Gosh. And I said, 'I know. She's really good,' " she said.
By the time the young singer is grown, hopefully the country radio climate will have stabilized for female artists, like it did in the '90s when Evans got her start.
"When I got signed in '95, it was just, if not half and half, it was almost half and half. There was Trisha Yearwood, Patty Loveless, Reba, Faith Hill, Martina McBride, The Judds. We could go on and on," she said. "Then I got signed with a bunch of other females and it was not a question, it wasn't even an issue."
The current trend, however, has completely changed not only her career, but her female peers', as well.
"It's one of the things that makes me more angry than anything in the world, absolutely," she said. "It's like the genre has just narrowed so much."
Evans traces it back to Luke Bryan's release of "Country Girl Shake It For me," — adding that she and Bryan are really good friends and that she loves his work — and that subsequent continued release of those type of songs.
"What bothers me in the entertainment industry in general is their lack of originality," she explained. "I always remember after 'Suds in the Bucket' was such a big hit, I went back in the studio, I started the whole process of looking for songs. I can't even begin to describe for you, how many 'Suds in the Bucket' copies people were pitching to me because they thought I would want to do that again over and over and over because it succeeded."
"There are so many incredible female artists and there are so many men that love female artists, so I just don't get it," she said, adding that it's "really sad because country music is my home, it's my life, it's what I grew up doing."
Even now, she says, "They play the sh*t out of 'Suds in the Bucket,' still. I mean, I want you to play my new stuff."
The "new stuff" — Words — is out now.
