You'll have to excuse Sara Evans if she sounds a bit flustered, though you can hardly blame her. For one thing, she and her husband are in the middle of trying to sell their Springfield, Tenn., home and a couple of prospective buyers have arrived smack in the middle of her phone interview. Then there's the matter of her country music career, which has been a sweet and sour mix of critical acclaim and stubborn radio support. Three months after moving to Nashville, Missouri native Evans found legendary country songwriter Harlan Howard to be one of her biggest fans and supporters. At the six-month marker, she was the toast of Music Row and the bewildered prize in a multilabel bidding war. Her 1997 debut, Three Chords and the Truth, was hailed as a great white hope for traditional country, a Patsy Cline record spiked with the Bakersfield grit of Dwight Yoakam producer Pete Anderson. But the album was "too country" for country radio, and died a quiet death. Fighting fire with fire, Evans bounced back last year with "Cryin' Game," a contemporary country pop, sure-fire Top Ten hit that didn't even crack the Top 40.

At the time of this interview, Evans had her fingers crossed for the follow-up single and the title track from her new album, No Place That Far. It didn't debut in the Top 40, as she had hoped, but it has since proven to have long-distance legs: after twenty-two weeks, the single currently sits at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, smack between the Dixie Chicks and Shania Twain. Her album, meanwhile, jumped from No. 42 to No. 31 on the Top Country Albums Charts last week and was designated the week's "Pacesetter." The twenty-seven-year-old singer/songwriter has been on the edge of her seat, watching the charts and waiting for her horse to come in for a long time. At long last, here she comes.

How worked up do you get over the charts?

Oh, I get extremely worked up. I get frustrated, honestly, because I just think, "What do they want?" It's so hard to be in this business and not have radio success. It's very hard to get on a tour, it's hard to sell albums -- it's hard to do anything. You're sort of stuck between that place of having a record deal and having a hit. So there's, like, no money. I'm like the girl that everybody says, "You're the best artist who hasn't broken yet." I'm like, "Well, that's flattering for a while, but I'm sick of that title." Tim McGraw, every time he sees me, he's like, "Keep making records girl, they're gonna get it one day, don't you give up." And it's like, you know, that's easy for him to say. (Laughs)

Is it true that, because you had Pete Anderson as your last producer, your first album was perceived as an "L.A. album," which sort of got it stonewalled at country radio?

Yeah, that was a big part of it. Dwight and Pete are not considered to be the friendliest people to country radio that you could ever meet, and also the fact that it was so country. I mean, we had three shuffles on that album, and we cut "Tiger By the Tail," and all these country songs because that's what I wanted to portray myself as. And I think it was just bad timing for an album that country.

So was the change in producers for this album a deliberate attempt to play the radio game?

Yes, that was a big push by my label. They love Pete, too, but it was just real obvious that radio did not like the production of my first record. They didn't feel like it was a safe record to play on their stations. I was very depressed and stressed about it, because I had planned on making all my records with Pete, but he totally understood. He said, "You gotta do what you gotta do." So we chose Norro Wilson and Buddy Cannon because they have had great success at keeping records country yet making them progressive enough to be on the radio.

What's the abridged Sara Evans back story?

I grew up in a little bitty town in Missouri called New Frankland. I was raised on a tobacco farm, like, fifteen minutes from town. I'm the third oldest of seven kids. And when we were little, I don't know why, but my parents decided that my brothers would take guitar, bass and banjo lessons, and I would be the lead singer. And I took mandolin lessons. I started at four, and we had a bluegrass band with some other people and called it the Sara Evans Show, and I was the little lead singer playing the mandolin. And it just grew from there, and that became a source of income for our family. So that's really all I've ever done, and I haven't known anything else that I ever wanted to do.

So are you looking for Shania-level success, or would you be happy with a low-key but successful critical standing?

No, I'll tell ya, I really don't want to be just like a press darling. I mean, I love that, don't get me wrong, but...

You want it all...

Well, I do, and I think, vocally, why not? I deserve that. And I'm not trying to be arrogant at all, but why shouldn't I be on the radio as well? And I don't think I'm so different to where I'm not commercial. I think my new record is very commercial. But yeah, I would like to be the Queen of Country Music someday. Sure.

Does the prospect of that impress the people looking at your house at all?

I hope so, because I really want to sell this house! (Laughs) Yeah, it's like, "Don't they know who I think I am?" This house could be famous someday. Like the legendary Hank Williams house on Music Row, the original home of Hank Williams. And this is the first house I ever bought as well. We're asking $117,900. Old farm house with five acres...

RICHARD SKANSE
(January 14, 1998)