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Country star Sara Evans coming to Greensburg as part of Blue Christmas tour

By Rachel Basinger rbasinger@heraldstandard.Com 5 min read
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Sara Evans will come to the Palace Theater in Greensburg tonight as part of her Blue Christmas Tour.

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Sara Evans will come to the Palace Theater in Greensburg tonight as part of her Blue Christmas Tour.

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Sara Evans will come to the Palace Theater in Greensburg tonight as part of her Blue Christmas Tour.

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Kristin Barlowe

Sara Evans will come to the Palace Theater in Greensburg tonight as part of her Blue Christmas Tour.

Country music star Sara Evans has a career that has endured over 20 years, and she will be making a stop in Greensburg tonight as part of her Christmas tour.

Evans said this is the 10th year that she has been doing a Christmas tour, but this year they’ve changed some things up a bit, adding seven new songs and performances with her family.

“The show is a mix of both cover songs and originals,” she said. “I have one original that my friend Shane Stevens whoĢƵ a very successful pop song writer wrote for me called ‘At Christmas.’ ItĢƵ the name of our Christmas album that came out about four years ago.”

All three of her children are in the show, her brother is the bass player and her sister is Evans’ harmony singer.

“ItĢƵ a really, really fun show,” she said.

Evans is originally from New Franklin, Missouri. She started singing with her family when she was 4 years old.

“My parents started booking us in bars and at wedding dances and rodeos and fairs and anywhere that we could perform, and then we sort of became celebrities in Missouri,” she said. “When I was 19, I moved to Nashville and got my record deal with RCA in 1995 or 1996. My first number one was ‘No Place that Far.'”

Evans said her rise to notoriety was gradual.

“It wasn’t like just one day I woke up and said now I’ve made it,” she said. “I think that I still wonder if I’ve truly made it because you’re always looking for the next big thing — the next big hit record. The next big successful tour. The next big opportunity or some kind of TV show or endorsement.

“ItĢƵ sort of never ending for me, but I mean I gradually knew things were happening with first getting signed with RCA,” she added. “At the time, I’d been signed to the biggest record deal that had been given to an artist in years. It was a really big deal.”

Her first album, “Three Chords and the Truth” — with more of a hillbilly, West coast type of sound — was more critically successful, but not really commercially successful.

“We went back in the studio to come more to the center of what country radio was wanting and thatĢƵ when we had ‘No Place That Far’ and then things just kept growing and growing and growing,” Evans said.

Singing at such a young age herself, itĢƵ not surprising that her children are also musically inclined. Evans released an EP recently with them called the Barker Family Band, along with a live show version thatĢƵ available on iTunes.

“ItĢƵ been so much fun,” Evans said. “I knew that my kids had the musical gift from the time that they were really, really little. They’ve grown up on the road with me, they’ve travelled in the tour bus their whole lives and so itĢƵ a really natural progression for them to do what I do.”

Her son Avery started playing guitar at 14 and before that, he was a drummer. Her middle child Olivia began singing.

“SheĢƵ fabulous,” Evans said. “And then Audrey showed all the same interests in performing, except her interests are really more geared toward dancing and acting, although she can also sing.”

Evans said the Barker Family Band project was done partly so that the fans could see what her kids have been up to.

“We made an EP and did a little tour,” she said. “The best part of it all is the live show that we released — The Barker Family Band Live at City Winery in Nashville.”

The whole thing was recorded and put out exactly as it was, which included all of the talking in between songs.

Touring around the Christmas season is always special for Evans.

“Everybody loves this time of year — ItĢƵ fun, itĢƵ cozy, itĢƵ nostalgic,” she said. “Christmas music makes you feel happy and sad at the same time, and I think itĢƵ just that feeling that everyone gets. The year is winding down, and we’re about to go into a little time of hibernation and rest and relaxation and getting together with family, and for me, just thinking about what Christmas really means. As they say, itĢƵ the most wonderful time of the year.”

Evans shows no signs of slowing down any time soon with a big schedule ahead of her in 2020 including the release of her memoirs called “Little Bit Stronger” and a new album some time in the spring.

“ItĢƵ a really, really big deal,” she said of the album. “I can’t say what it is because we’re waiting for the big release, but itĢƵ different from anything I’ve ever done in my whole career.

“We’ve been in the studio since August working on it, and itĢƵ just been so much fun,” Evans added. “ItĢƵ going to be a really exciting year. The years that we release new albums are always the most fun.”

“The Blue Christmas Tour” is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight at The Palace Theatre, 21 W Otterman St, Greensburg. Tickets are available at the door and start at $48.

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