Born to Fly RecordsGiven today’s political climate — and the fact that female artists struggle more than ever to be played on country radio — it seems like a brilliant move for a female singer to cut an album crafted solely by female writers. But Sara Evans wants you to know that’s not how her new project, Words, came to be.
“I’m always like, ‘May the best song win!’” she tells ABC Radio. “And I think this makes it even more legitimate, because when we were done, we looked, and I had no idea who wrote any of these songs.”
“Some of them, you can kinda tell…” Sara goes on. “I knew Ashley Monroe wrote ‘Make Room at the Bottom,’ ’cause I can just tell her voice. But it was fourteen female songwriters, including myself. So I didn’t just pick women songwriters — they really made the list. And it just goes to show you that there are incredible female writers.”
The 2006 ACM Top Female Vocalist points out that she doesn’t see her record as part of the renewed wave of feminism the U.S. has seen following the election.
“In the world today, there’s just all this stuff… about equal rights for women,” she explains. “And you know, a lot of women are mad and there’s the whole ‘nasty woman’ thing. And so I think that a lot of people are trying to attach me and these female songwriters to the fact that I’m on board with that.”
But Sara clarifies that’s not the case.
“I have a son who is a singer/songwriter, guitar player. So I would never want anyone to discriminate against him,” she says.
All of Sara’s kids are on Words, in fact. Her daughter Olivia provides background vocals for the first single, “Marquee Sign.”
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