Sara Evans & The Barker Family Band EP

[.indulgecountry]

Sara Evans' new EP collaborative effort with her song Avery and daughter Olivia is out now:

[killintime]

She’s still got pipes! Daughter’s singing is good too. Wish there were a few more songs!

[d3vin44]

"Dreams" is an incredible cover. Sara sounds so good! Olivia has a great singing voice, but she is going to need to learn to feel the music. That is what her Momma is so good at. Overall I thoroughly enjoy this. Catch myself revisiting "Dreams" and "XO".

[.indulgecountry]

My thoughts:

"Born to Fly Intro": Man, why'd she have to go and tease us like this?!? Her vocal on this is chill-inducing. They should've just turned this into a full on cover of the song. This intro alone is better than the supposed 'bluegrass' version she attempted for the Stronger album!
"Dreams": Easily my favorite on the EP. Love, love, love the vocal she delivers here and the harmonies are definitely the best on this track imo. It's so catchy and summery. Would love it if they treated this one like a single from the project and made a music video for it or something, even though it wouldn't get any radio play beyond maybe some on the satellite stations.
"XO": This is a solid cover. Naturally I prefer Sara Evans on lead to her daughter, but her voice shows a lot of promise and I'm excited for the possibility of her following in her mom's footsteps and becoming a star of her own someday. Sara's little call backs and harmony vocals are beautiful here, too. I also really enjoy how smooth and light this one feels.
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman": Sara nailed this one vocally. The BGV fills during the chorus are so enjoyable and I think her tone sounds just so blissful and sexy on this. I love how she really goes for it near the end and that soulful little run she closes the song out on is just money.
"The View": Very pretty song and Olivia's voice shines great here. The instrumentation is simple but beautiful as well. I also really enjoy that she wrote this one herself and threw it on there amongst the covers.
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow": This cover is a little pointless imo. It doesn't really do much of anything for me, plus I've never been a big fan of this song in general to where I want people to redo it. But hey, Olivia sounds pretty here and tackled it well.


Rankings:

1. Dreams
2. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
3. XO
4. The View
5. Somewhere Over the Rainbow

If the BTF intro were fleshed out into a full song it might contend for my #1 against "Dreams." Since it's just 30 seconds though, it's realistically only above "Rainbow" for me.


ETA: Curious to hear thoughts from the likes of Kanenrá:ke, bboat11, bigfan101 (and really anyone else...) on this EP. Surprised there hasn't been a few more comments on this release.