Sara Evans' 'Unbroke' ushers in a redefining chapter of her life and career
Sara Evans' Grand Ole Opry cast-member trophy occupies a corner of her living room while she sits at an office desk editing the latest edition of her podcast.
She's awake and working just 48 hours after singing her 2003 hit single "Suds in the Bucket" onstage with Post Malone at 2024's Stagecoach Festival in Indio, California.
She's also dropping "Unbroke," her 11th album in 17 years, on June 7. The album rather intimately deals with the therapy that allowed her to remain married to her husband of 15 years, ex-college and professional football quarterback Jay Barker. This is, yes, the same Jay Barker who allegedly attempted to use his car to hit Evans while she was a passenger in another vehicle in 2022.
And then, while she's speaking with The Tennessean, Barker delivers his wife a cup of coffee.
For 20 years — and clearly for 20 more years to come — the whirlwind of energy and harmony that is Sara Evans will equally defy and embody every heartwarming and salacious stereotype of a female country music superstar.
'Unbroke'
For "Unbroke," Evans departed from her usual creative process by not merely choosing songs that "felt good." Instead, she wrote as inspired by attempting to evolve her life past the potential of being separated from her husband.
The perspective of potentially having a life defined as much by being an Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association and Dove Award-winning artist as by being a twice-divorced empty-nest parent of three who was also a child of divorced parents is one Evans bravely faced.
"I endured the lowest emotional point of my life by often crying in front of songwriters I didn't know very well," says Evans.
Songs like "21 Days" reflect how Evans and Barker took three weeks to develop a new habit of spending quality time together, defined by Barker's evolution into a better person through therapy.
The album's titular single also arrived as the performer was working through psychological tropes like "hurt people, hurt people" while also contemplating the idea that divorce hurts hearts as much as it damages lives.
"The lyrics 'nobody's heart gets out unbroke' eventually meant that (Jay and I) saved our marriage," she says. "Sure, we'll be in counseling for the rest of our lives, but we're stronger together."
For Evans, it was also crucial that the album didn't become as, in retrospect, awkwardly lovelorn and classic country-feeling as George Jones and Tammy Wynette having their most significant success via "Golden Ring" coming a year after their 1975 divorce.
However, that's not to say that newly minted Grand Ole Opry cast member Evans isn't keenly aware that her life was headed down a similar path.
The power of 'double therapy'
Country music's lineage of songs detailing breakdowns and breakthroughs to healthy emotional reckonings with the power of love aided Evans in her process.
Songwriting and therapy have made Missouri-born Evans aware of the unique value of her heart, which has felt every possible emotion throughout her life, since childhood, as a country music performer.
"Country music gives you a special kind of direct way to process sadness" she adds. "And processing your authentic sadness in the song is double therapy."
Songs like "Cleaning Out Your Closet" involve Evans processing traumatic relationship moments simultaneously in counselors' offices and songwriting rooms.
Thus, Evans notes that the song is written in an "AAA BBB" rhyme scheme instead of the traditional "AB AB" pattern to reflect how exactly she wanted to remain in the flow of emotions she felt at that moment.
"Sometimes it doesn't have to rhyme but instead eventually make sense," she says.
Regarding the album's lead single, "Pride," the song does rhyme. Those couplets specifically deal with Evans' history related to toxic relationships and domestic violence.
"You left a mark on my face and brought a dozen red flags in a vase," Evans sings.
'Impeccable vibes'
Evans also arrives at this record as somehow being both 53 years old and impressively ageless and timeless in her relevance to 100 years of country music history. Frame her by age compared to country music's commercial industry, and there she is, in the middle of it all.
She's equally comfortable singing on the Grand Ole Opry stage with "Whisperin'" Bill Anderson and performing at Stagecoach with Malone.
"Just like generations of the most successful singers in country music, I can't be put in a box and my interests are as much in pop music as they are anything else," Evans says.
Digging deeper, she cites loving Malone's half-decade to decade-old hits "Circles" and "Congratulations" with the same earnestness of heart that made her mimic the Chicks' 1999-released "Cowboy Take Me Away" when recording her debut album's title single "Born To Fly" a year later.
Ask her to flatly describe what makes country and pop work so seamlessly and her answer jumps across genres and stereotypes as effortlessly as she peppers her conversation with laughter.
"We share a fast vibrato and are fans of each other."
For one of Evans' longest-term fans, her 24-year-old son, Avery, her embrace of multigenerational and multigenre appeal should remain a part of her work moving forward.
"Avery commented 'impeccable vibes, mother,' on my Instagram post (about working with Malone). In general, I think my kids are right when they say that the work I'm doing right now (which also includes her "Diving In Deep" podcast) is creating another era of career-redefining highlights.
"I love that people are discovering me and still enjoying my music at this point of my career and life," Evans says, reflecting on the seeming never-ending myriad of wild occurrences in her life.
"I'm still a great artist with a respected music catalog who is a better singer than I was 20 years ago. With all of this ability, there's still so much I have left (to accomplish).
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's Sara Evans evolves on her latest album 'Unbroke'
