Sara Evans

HISTORY WITH BILLY BOB’S: 

In the September of 2003, Sara Evans played the main stage.

ABOUT SARA EVANS:

Sara Evans was born Sara Lynn Evans in Boonville, Missouri on February 5, 1971, and led a life on a farm with six other siblings. Her large family formed a band and she was made the lead singer. A tragedy struck at the age of 8 which led to her determination to become a singer. An automobile accident forced her to sit in a wheelchair and sing to make up her medical bills.

By 16, Evans was a club performer in a nightclub in Columbia, Missouri. She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was 20 with the hope of becoming a bigger musician. The opportunity came when she met fellow musician Craig Schelske whom she later married in 1993. Spending a little time in Oregon, Evans and Schelske were back in Nashville and started recording demos. One of them, called “Tiger by the Tail” landed her a contract with RCA Nashville.

She released her debut album “Three Chords and the Truth” under the label and received attention from Billboard, CMT, and MVPA. But it wasn’t until her second album “No Place That Far” which was released in 1998, that she gained wider popularity. One of the songs, “No Place That Far”, was a duet with Vince Gill that reached No. 1 on the Country charts as well as entered the Billboard Hot 100 Top 40.

She geared up the release of a third album which was eventually released in 2000. “Born to Fly” achieved greater success than the predecessors, thanks to its title track and three other singles. The album became Evans’ first album to receive a “Platinum” rating by the RIAA. By 2004, “Born to Fly” was officially certified two-times Platinum by the RIAA.

The success was rewarded with multiple nominations at the 2001 Country Music Association Awards. She won her first CMA award when “Born to Fly” took the coveted Video of the Year. Evans did not waste time to release another album, coming out two years later with “Restless”. The first single “Back Seat of a Greyhound Bus” did well on the Country Songs chart but it failed to secure a place on Billboard Hot 100.

Nevertheless, the album sold fairly well, debuting at number 20 on Hot 200 with 40,000 copies sold. Perhaps it was the case of a wrong choice of the first single because her second and third experienced chart success. “Perfect” and “Suds in the Bucket” hit Top 5 in the country chart and the latter entered the Top 40 of Hot 100.

In 2005, she dropped another album, her fifth, and called it “Real Fine Place”. Again, it spawned a country hit “A Real Fine Place to Start” which also broke Billboard’s Pop 100 and Hot Digital Songs. As a result, the album performed well on Hot 200 by selling 130,000 units in the first week and landing at no. 3.

To tide fans over to her sixth album, she released a compilation album titled “Feels Like Home” which included her best hits like “Born to Fly” including their remix. There was also a special Mother’s Day album called “Always There” released in 2006. It boasted live and acoustic versions of “Born to Fly”, “Suds in the Bucket” and more, in addition to two new songs.

Her effort came to fruition when she was announced as the winner of the Top Female Vocalist at the 2006 ACM Awards. The accolade was followed by a Greatest Hits collection in 2007 which also featured four new songs including the hit “As If”. She spent the next two years writing books, hosting ACM, writing songs for movies, and supporting Texas Congressman Ron Paul. In 2009, she released an EP containing Christmas songs in order to embark on a Christmas tour.

The bridge from the fifth to a sixth album release is six years away due to her high-profile divorce from her husband of 13 years, Craig Schelske. Evans had to withdraw from “Dancing with the Stars” to take care of her messy split, which was marred with cheating allegations. Evans married a former University of Alabama quarterback, Jay Barker in 2008, a year after the divorce was finalized. Their children witnessed the wedding taking place in Franklin, Tennessee.

Her sixth album is called “Stronger” and is released on March 8, 2011. It is led by the single “A Little Bit Stronger” which was co-written by Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum.