Country singer Carly Pearce sounds giddy like a schoolgirl when you ask her about having Chris Stapleton appear on her months-old album โ€œHummingbird.โ€

โ€œOh my gosh, Chris Stapleton is one of my favorite artists ever and one of the greatest singers of all time, I believe,โ€ she gushed during a phone interview last month. โ€œJust to be able to have a song with him.โ€

But when it came time to make the ask, the โ€œEvery Little Thingโ€ singer reached out to Stapletonโ€™s wife Morgane on Instagram.

โ€œI 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,โ€ 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 โ€œWe Donโ€™t Fight Anymore,โ€ 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 2021โ€™s โ€œ29: Written in Stone,โ€ 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.

โ€œHummingbirdโ€ is the coming-out-on-the-other side record, she said.

โ€œThis is my healing journey of coming back into my own skin and finding myself again after a really devastating period of time,โ€ she said. โ€œJust 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.โ€

Country singer Carly Pearce brings her โ€œHummingbirdโ€ tour to Fox Tucson Theatre on Thursday, Oct. 10.

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

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 โ€œTruck on Fire.โ€

โ€œLiar, liar, truck on fire/Flames rolling off of your Goodyear tires/Burn, burn, youโ€™re gonna learn/Never shouldโ€™ve put your lips on her.โ€

โ€œStill Blueโ€ and โ€œHeels Over Headโ€ are songs that her contemporaries will wish they had recorded, while โ€œCountry Music Made Me Do Itโ€ sums up her adult life: โ€œCountry music made me do it/and Iโ€™ll do it โ€˜til I die.โ€

Her concert here Thursday comes after she spent August playing arenas with Tim McGrawโ€™s โ€œStanding Room Only Tour.โ€ It was the first time she had gotten to tour with a 1990s country artist.

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

โ€œWe just had a really good time,โ€ she said. โ€œGot to know Faith (Hill, McGrawโ€™s wife) a little bit. They were such a joy to be around.โ€

But Pearce admitted she is glad to take her headlining tour to smaller venues like Tucsonโ€™s Fox Theatre.

โ€œMy music lives best in a smaller space,โ€ she said. โ€œMy 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.โ€

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.


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Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at cburch@tucson.com.

On Twitter @Starburch