Country singer Carly Pearce brings 'Hummingbird' tour to Tucson

Country singer Carly Pearce sounds giddy like a schoolgirl when you ask her about having Chris Stapleton appear on her months-old album “Hummingbird.”

“Oh my gosh, Chris Stapleton is one of my favorite artists ever and one of the greatest singers of all time, I believe,” she gushed during a phone interview last month. “Just to be able to have a song with him.”

But when it came time to make the ask, the “Every Little Thing” singer reached out to Stapleton’s wife Morgane on Instagram.

“I wanted it to feel authentic and I knew the best way to get to him is to probably go through the wife, who makes all the decisions,” said the 34-year-old Pearce, who brings her band and new album to Fox Tucson Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 10.

Stapleton duets on the ballad “We Don’t Fight Anymore,” one of 13 songs Pearce wrote with collaborators including Nicolle Galyon and Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, who co-produced the album with Pearce.

The album comes three years after 2021’s “29: Written in Stone,” which chronicled the fallout and pain of her divorce from fellow country star Michael Ray, whom she married in late 2019 and divorced eight months later.

“Hummingbird” is the coming-out-on-the-other side record, she said.

“This is my healing journey of coming back into my own skin and finding myself again after a really devastating period of time,” she said. “Just kind of trying to show people that if you do the work, you can come back out on the other side and come back stronger.”

The album also is an homage of sorts to Pearce’s love of 1990s country, which is the generation that first attracted her to the genre.

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She puts a contemporary face on neo-trad country; fiddle is prominent throughout the 14 tracks, from the title song with its soaring harmonies to the classic scorned-woman-gets-even cautionary tale of “Truck on Fire.”

“Liar, liar, truck on fire/Flames rolling off of your Goodyear tires/Burn, burn, you’re gonna learn/Never should’ve put your lips on her.”

“Still Blue” and “Heels Over Head” are songs that her contemporaries will wish they had recorded, while “Country Music Made Me Do It” sums up her adult life: “Country music made me do it/and I’ll do it ‘til I die.”

Her concert here Thursday comes after she spent August playing arenas with Tim McGraw’s “Standing Room Only Tour.” It was the first time she had gotten to tour with a 1990s country artist.

Pearce said it’s easy to forget that McGraw, who is still selling out arenas and recording, started his career in 1990.

“We just had a really good time,” she said. “Got to know Faith (Hill, McGraw’s wife) a little bit. They were such a joy to be around.”

But Pearce admitted she is glad to take her headlining tour to smaller venues like Tucson’s Fox Theatre.

“My music lives best in a smaller space,” she said. “My songs are based on the storyteller. I really get to do that and the musicality of my records really come to life in a theater setting.”

Country newcomer Karley Scott Collins opens the show at 7:30 p.m. at the Fox, 17 W. Congress St. Tickets are $20-$82.50 through foxtucson.com.