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With her new album ‘Rare Bird,’ Sara Petite tries to find the silver linings

When Sara Petite hosted a livestream party in celebration of her new album, “Rare Bird,” on Friday at the Belly Up Tavern, there were no party guests. COVID-19 saw to that. But the San Diego-based singer-songwriter, whom I spoke to before the release party, said she wouldn’t really be alone when she stepped out on what she considers her “home stage.”

“I won’t have the crowd I want,” said Petite, “but the silver lining is I have people in the U.K. and Sweden and Norway and on the East Coast who have wanted to see my shows, and now they can.”

Petite, whose music resides heavily in so-called outlaw country with dabs of Americana and rock ’n’ roll, sounds philosophical about these difficult times in the way that country songs themselves often are.

“I’ve been through many things in my life,” she said. “There’s a season for everything. That just what this is. Sometimes you just have to sit and wait for things to be over. You have to find other ways to make yourself happy.”

The creation of the “Rare Bird” album, partly inspired by Petite’s artist great-grandmother who painted a lot of birds, is likely to make her fans happy. It features a rocking self-affirmation called “The Misfits” and another tune titled “Keep Movin’ On,” dedicated to the late congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis.

If there’s a unifying theme of “Rare Bird,” it would be love, Petite says: “Everything really does have to do with love. And trying to learn compassion and forgiveness for yourself and for the world around you.”

John Lewis would like the sound of that.

Sara Petite just released her new album “Rare Bird.”