Sara Evans – Three Chords and the Truth

If Music Row is regularly to be chastised for abandoning country music’s past — and they should — well, they should also be congratulated for occasionally getting it right. Sara Evans’ debut isn’t a big and important record, it’s just a first-class example of the nearly lost art of country torch singing. And it’s charming.

Evans was tentative opening for George Jones at the Ryman recently, trying too hard to do too much; she’s a crooner, not a belter. Pete Anderson’s sympathetic production (and I’m not normally a fan of his studio aesthetic) plays to her strengths, yielding an elegant, sophisticated and understated set of (mostly) shuffles.

It may be the prejudice of a fading rock critic, but it can’t hurt the album’s consistency that Evans co-wrote seven of the eleven cuts (including “If You Ever Want My Lovin'” with Melba Montgomery and Billy Yates). It makes a world of difference to have the singer so directly invested in the songs. When she steps out to cover the Buck Owens/Harlan Howard classic “I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail” and Bill Anderson’s “Walk Out Backwards”, they play as companion pieces, not as jarring (or, more commonly, lifeless) nods to the past. Her take on Justin Tubb’s “Imagine That” is about as close as any contemporary singer has come to the slow, sultry phrasings of Julie London.

Some of the originals are in that class, notably “Shame About That” (minus the cheesy opening bars), co-written with Jamie O’Hara. Evans sings with a pure tone, swoops into notes with unmistakable joy, and has marvelous phrasing. She’s not Patsy Cline (and k.d. lang would still have her for breakfast), but that’s the tradition these songs echo. There’s a difference between torch singing and the divas on the radio, and it’s mostly a matter of the effortless subtlety with which she approaches the microphone.

See how easy that was?