Sara Evans

Sara Lynn Evans (born February 5, 1971) is an American country music singer and songwriter.

She is also credited as a record producer, actress, and author.

She had five songs reach the number one spot on the Billboard country songs chart and has sold over six million albums.

Nine additional singles have reached the top ten of the Billboard country chart, including "I Could Not Ask for More", "I Keep Looking", and "Cheatin'".

Among her top 20 charting singles are "Saints & Angels", "Backseat of a Greyhound Bus", and "As If".

She has won accolades from the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.

She has also been nominated for several more accolades from both associations, including Female Vocalist of the Year and Single of the Year.

Evans grew up in New Franklin, Missouri, and started performing alongside her siblings in The Evans Family Band.

The group performed throughout her childhood and early teenage years in her local area.

Sara Lynn Evans was born in Boonville, Missouri, on February 5, 1971.

She was raised in New Franklin, Missouri by parents Pat and Jack Evans.

She was one of seven children (which also included her half siblings after her mother remarried).

The Evans family was raised on a 400-acre farm that included several crops and livestock.

To make ends meet, her mother became a school bus driver while her father became a pressman for the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper.

Evans's family discovered she had a natural singing ability after she started singing along with her two older brothers who were taking guitar lessons.

This prompted Evans's mother to put her siblings into a band which they later called The Evans Family Band.

Evans started performing lead vocals in the band when she was six years old.

She later learned to perform guitar, mandolin, and drums.

Evans was raised on a farm in New Franklin.

When she was eight years old, Evans was hit by a car after crossing the highway that faced her family's farm.

She was thrown onto the hood of the car and eventually landed in a grassy field along the highway.

She had suffered a concussion and a leg injury.

Due to the severity of her injuries, Evans was sent to the University of Missouri Hospital, located 30 miles from her hometown.

To avoid having a deformed left leg, doctors had to drill pins into Evans's knee.

She was unable to move from her hospital bed for six weeks.

During her teenage years, Evans and her older brother Matt formed their own band before moving to Nashville in 1991 to pursue a country music career.

In Nashville, Evans met her first husband Craig Schelske and briefly moved to Aumsville, Oregon, before returning to Nashville.

Upon moving back to Nashville, Evans found work as a demo singer, which led to her signing a recording contract with RCA Records.

Her first album Three Chords and the Truth was released in 1997.

It was followed by No Place That Far (1998), whose second single of the same name topped the Billboard country chart.

Evans reached her peak success in the 2000s with the albums Born to Fly (2000), Restless (2003) and Real Fine Place (2005).

The discs sold over one million copies each and included the number one country singles "Born to Fly", "Suds in the Bucket" and "A Real Fine Place to Start".

In 2006, Evans appeared as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars before subsequently dropping out.

Evans took steps back from her recording career to focus on her family life, only releasing a Greatest Hits package in 2008.

She re-launched her career in 2011 with her sixth studio album Stronger.

It was supported by the two-week number one single "A Little Bit Stronger".

After the release of Slow Me Down (2014), Evans left RCA and formed her own record label.

In 2017, she released her first album through the label, Words.

Evans's music was originally influenced by honky tonk and neotraditional country, but shifted to an increasing focus on country pop ballads after her second album.

While critical reception to her body of work has been mixed, many critics have noted the strength and twang of her singing voice.