Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing, October 7, 2005
I have been a fan of Sara Evans since I first heard her duet with Vince Gill "No Place That Far" back in 1998. She has a classic country voice with just enough twang and belt to make you feel every word she sings. I really loved her last album "Restless" and was unsure whether her newest album would be as good. Well, after listening to "Real Fine Place" a few times, I am happy to tell you that this album is on par with the best that Sara has ever recorded.
Sara is somewhat of a chameleon in terms of musical style. She easily shifts from an up-tempo classic country romp ("Coalmine") to mid-tempo modern country-pop ("A Real Fine Place To Start") to a slow ballad ("You'll Always Be My Baby") without sounding strained or awkward. My favorite tracks on the album are "New Hometown", "Missing Missouri" and the stellar first single "A Real Fine Place To Start".
It amazes me that Sara is not considered higher on the wrungs of the female country music ladder. She can deliver a song as good as the best in business, and she also is a solid songwriter (which can't be said of many current female country singers). I highly recommend this album.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real fine place to be for Sara and her listeners, October 4, 2005
This fifth album by one of country music's finest is my new favorite. She wrote 6 of the 13 songs on this wonderful album full of the traditional back-to-her-roots but also the modern buzz of a female country artist topping the charts. The first song "Coalmine" breaks right into an old-fashioned toe-tapping tune that makes you laugh to hear the lyrics. The description of wanting to make love to her man all sweaty and "all muscled up" just makes me smile. The second tune "A Real Fine Place to Start" has made wonderful progress on the charts, being #1 for three weeks in a row on the country charts and is such a catchy sing-along. The fourth track, "New Hometown" written by Sara and her brother Matt Evans describes the wanderlust of a couple longing for the charm of a small town where there are Friday night football games, parades, and "where everybody knows our names." This song reminds me of my traveling spirit and a longing for the little towns like the one I grew up in. Track five, "You'll Always Be My Baby", also written by the artist must have come straight from her heart as a mother of three children, telling of the deep devotion and love for her children. Sara's rendition of Sheryl Crow's "Roll Me Back in Time" on track 7 actually sounds a little like Sheryl. Track 8, "The Secrets That We Keep" is super sexy. It almost makes you blush because of the deep secrets exposed on this song about making love with your significant other. Another very sexy song about love, also written by the artist is track 10, "Tell Me", focusing on always craving and needing to know more and more about your lover. She describes the deep love she feels and how she wants to know more and more about her lover and wants to do anything for him. "Missing Missouri", track 11, seems like such a perfect fit to Sara Evans (she is from Missouri) you'd think she wrote the song herself. It was written by Mark Kerr, Trent Tomlinson, and Danny Wells, but I am guessing they wrote this with Sara in mind. You can just feel that homesick feeling of "being stuck out on this road" and the rejuvenation of being "almost home, where they love me, where they know me, where they show me back in Missouri." Track 12, "Momma's Night Out" is a fun, catchy tune about a mother/wife going out for the night for a girl's night out after a long hectic week.
This album was well worth the wait, and it is wonderful to see the maturity Sara has acquire from album to album. She has such a beautiful voice and she has a quality that seems to make you feel eaxactly what she is singing about. I have always thought that she is so real, you could just listen to her and know exactly what she means in every song. "Real Fine Place" is definitely a fine place to be for Sara. A true winner.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sara's best yet...both contemporary AND classic, May 10, 2006
Sara Evans is that rarest of performers: Not only does she improve with each succeeding release, but she's one of the few singers today who can so effortlessly appeal to contemporary pop-country fans without alienating traditionalists. To wit: Although her first single, the soaring title track, sounds very modern, two of the first three tracks on the album ("Coalmine" and "Cheatin'") are pure retro country.
Of the remaining tracks, two of the most affecting were, not surpringly, written by Evans herself. "You'll Always Be My Baby" showcases her professed love of God and Family, in a seemingly autobiographical tale of one woman's journey from child, to awkward young adult, to mother. "The Secrets That We Keep" describes the pleasures of monogamy, with a sultry and utterly convincing vocal performance.
Like any good country album, there are also songs about small-town life, missing one's home, and the power of memory. My favorite among these is probably "Bible Songs," with its bittersweet reflection, "Just because you lie in his bed/Don't mean he meant the things he said."
After 5 albums and a dozen or so hit singles, Evans still exists in the shadow of Modern Country-Pop Queens like Martina and Faith, and Redneck Heroine Gretchen Wilson. I hope that more people will discover not only this fantastic album, but Evans' uniformly solid catalog of first-rate discs. There's just nobody quite like her. And no recent country album by ANYONE comes close to this level of perfection.
A REAL FINE PLACE, indeed.
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