Just admit Im what you want. AMANDA SHIRES: (Singing) Youre leaving now through the hole of an argument. SHIRES: Theres this song called Milk Cow Blues. Its blues, you know? We found music, and then being in the Shoals area just gave us an early look at all the places music can take you. It occurred to me the thing that broke my heart the most was when I grew up and realized everything wasnt an adventure, he says. And I dont know. It was love at first listen. AMANDA SHIRES AND JASON ISBELL: (Singing) Everythings going to be OK. Its going to be all right. I know I can take it like Amanda. Amanda Shires is a singing, songwriting. Tax ID: 26-2810489, Copyright 2022 Fresh Air. Amanda Shires appeared on The Late Late Show to perform her recent song Take It Like a Man. Playing with her band, the singer offered an emotive take on the And then my mom would drive me down there. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. Is there a song that youd like to do? It was it took Dave Cobb and it took Brandi, and then it took Natalie and Maren Morris. Here was my life five years ago, and heres my life now. (SOUNDBITE OF AMANDA SHIRES SONG, HAWK FOR THE DOVE), GROSS: Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Recently, I had an ectopic pregnancy, she tweeted. Tommy Duncan was the singer. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Grammy Award-winning songwriter Amanda Shires and bestselling author George Saunders discuss inspiration, songwriting, and Amanda's new song, "You Don't Get to Go." Amanda Shires has become a coveted presence at the intersection of nervy artistry and activism, folk and country acclaim, rock attitude and Nashville influence. And Milk Cow Blues goes like this. A few hours later, his band is peeling the wallpaper with their customary encore cover tune. The sound of silence rings in every room. You used to lean in like I was whispering, any excuse to get near again. Me and @JasonIsbell RCA studio B making a musical recording. Refunds at point of purchase but were working on rescheduling. ", Shires and Isbell have a toddler daughter together, and thanks to gendered assumptions about the distribution of their parenting duties, Shires has fielded more than her share of questions about how she balances motherhood and music-making. You can keep the car and the house. GROSS: Thats the title song from the new album. 1,286 talking about this. And Lanny Fiel, he would say, youre really, really great at the parts you love. Life cant help but interfere. And then in my mind I thought, well, if he couldnt hear the frequency of my voice before, maybe he could hear it through music, you know? The timing of The Problem and the fact that its benefiting the Yellowhammer Fund are both important, as draconian, punitive abortion laws have been enacted in Alabama and neighboring states in the last year. People forget that, if you take away access to reproductive healthcare, youre going to be killing moms like me. When do you show him the songs? So when I would write the songs, I dont know whats going to come out, but sometimes, it was so I was just so down that the only way I could get better was to take it out on writing a song. I mean, is it fatal for a woman if nothing is done? And then I asked Chance, and Chance was like, no, those are real documents. Someone saw me sleeping naked in the noon sun. Were you just, like, the cute kid who could play but, you know that audiences would go wild over because you were a girl in the band and there wasnt much of that? "Isn't it just like a daughter to make a fool of you? Theres a lot of things you do with your hands, but it struck me the most is matching the feeling of desperation or even begging. SHIRES: No, not until a couple of years ago. And so I felt in my mind, I felt those things. Yeah without you asking. The next year, she won a Grammy for best americana album as part of her husbands group, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Oh, I could have crowed. I was playing a music festival, and I noticed that there was a fiddle on stage with Billy Joe. And I was reading mine. It was love at first listen, Shires says of the fiddle songs. So I couldnt really get into it. On Shires' latest record, her songwriting is more fearless and vulnerable than ever but as always, it's a reflection of an artist focused intently on community, equality You can say I lost my grip. I know what the cost is in the octaves of consequence. Its no fun but well be alright.. GROSS: Oh, thats great. Other than that, I think were all right. Lets get back to my interview with singer-songwriter and musician Amanda Shires. fiddle-playing damn Texan. But this part of my life in our marriage was difficult. And I said, I dont know. In 2020, The Highwomen won Album of the Year at the Americana Music Honors and Awards ceremony. Can you play something that you think kind of epitomizes the style that you learned and fell in love with? I dont care if somebody wants to put a target on me. ISBELL: (Singing) And all I could think to say was. I see you talking, but I cant hear a thing. And I was still dealing with all of it two and a half weeks later. hide caption. If writing came easier sober, playing live was terrifying at first, he says. I am your man. GROSS: Were you nervous about being on stage or just about singing? "I'm daring to do what she couldn't bring herself to do," Shires ruminates, shadowed by her own feathery harmonies. Lets get back to my interview with singer, songwriter and musician Amanda Shires. So when you started taking lessons with Frankie McWhorter and then became part of the band, how much did you know about Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys? When Roe is overturned, some healthcare workers may feel afraid to help people. But a lot of times when youre growing up and taught what how to be successful and how to be to survive in the world as a woman with a career and all this stuff and probably young many young kids are taught this. / And the fear that I feel when I see my features reversed in my own daughter's face." GROSS: You know, youve said that a lot of the songs on this album come from a troubled period of your marriage to songwriter and singer Jason Isbell, who you perform with and who plays on this album. It was Fault Lines.. Its as opposed to being in the uterus, where it belongs. Some of the reason [The Problem] is only coming out now is fear on my part, and Ill admit that. Got myself a breakthrough case of Covid- feeling fine but well have to cancel the next few shows (Asheville, Louisville, Columbus, Wilkes-Barre, and Wilmington). And I said, yeah, I feel like theres not a lot happening there emotionally for me. And I know that Jasons platform is bigger than mine. I said, itd be cool if I was The Highwomen or maybe had a band The Highwomen. It was there I found, beside the Alamo, enchantment, strange as the blue up above. It de-stigmatizes the conversation. Will you look at me the same? And I save them all and I return to them often I own one of his guitars My whole left arm is tattoos of Leonard Cohen I really do feel like he did a lot of work for me that I dont have to do. GROSS: With the Texas Playboys when youre performing with them or something that you learned from one of your teachers but that really made you fall in love with the style and that epitomizes what that style is. My daughter was about a year old, and I was getting into my touring van because I hadnt worked my way into a bus yet. Well definitely get to your verse, which is the second one. Our guest will be Mark Bergen, author of the new book Like, Comment, Subscribe in which he reports on how YouTube ushered in a world of abundant content and creativity of influencers and online hustlers, of information overload and endless culture wars. AL.com spoke to Isbell last September about when he decided implementing these COVID restrictions at his shows was the right thing to do, how this stance has affected the relationship with some of his fans, what its like to finally hit the road and play again and what it will take for Alabama to have a change of heart on getting vaccinated. Since writing that op-ed, I have had reproductive healthcare that some might call an abortion when I was hospitalized in Texas on August 9, 2021, with a ruptured fallopian tube caused by an ectopic pregnancy. Thank you for doing the interview. When we left off, we were talking about when Shires was 15 and started playing fiddle with the Texas Playboys, which used to be Bob Wills band. Shires new album, Take It Like A Man, includes several songs she wrote that came out of a difficult period in her marriage to Jason Isbell. But it was true. These really arent personal. And I save them all. When it reopened, he was in the first 200. You know, its Jimmy Webbs song originally, but. But I think she probably knew. SHIRES: So I thought if I could write a song with my feelings in it, that it might bring him around to the walls that arent really walls that we put ourselves behind sometimes. Wade was leaked last month, Amanda Shires shared some personal news on social media. On August 9, 2021 my fallopian tube ruptured. Im all for freedom, but I think if youre dead, you dont have any freedoms at all, Isbell said. All the time, the want, the overwhelming volume of breathing. I am Terry Gross. He still cant seem to notice when the dishwashers unloaded and all the dishes are put away. Upcoming Dates Past But whatever. I still miss the way you lean in. No more? Amanda Shires. For the past decade or so, Amanda Shires has sung about the dark shades of relationships lapsed communication, broken trust, fading intimacy with a devastating eye for detail. It's a sentiment that Shires has echoed many times since. In a June 2022 follow-up, the artist detailed for Rolling Stone her experience of ending a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy in August 2021. And we had a TV that wed watch, you know, Saturday Night Live on Saturdays. "Maybe it was circumstance, but I saw my chance and I took it," she boasts, her tone fuzzed-out by distortion. credit: John Shearer. And (laughter) I, like, played the part. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) Three months after an emergency heart transplant, Grammy-nominated keyboardist, producer, songwriter and artist Peter Levin SHIRES: I didnt know anything about them. And I return to them often. I know the cost of flight is landing. I had no problem taking direction, but and I had no problem helping when I needed to help, so. Jason Isbell and his wife, Amanda Shires, were walking around last weekend in Newport, Rhode Island, where they played the Newport Folk Festival. In 2016 I was going on the road. And sometimes, you know, you can, like, cup your hands and drink water from them or you could cup your hands and I dont know. I didnt want to do more damage. And all I could think to say/Was everythings going to be OK/Its gonna be all right/Im on your side, he sings. Shires plays fiddle in the band. Im so glad you wrote it. (Singing) Time was all Id want. SHIRES: In 2016, I was going on the road. While Shires might not have set out to make an album that reminds us of the power of women pursuing their own impulses, desires and ambitions with abandon, that perspective enlivens this bracing 10-song set. I want to talk with you about The Highwomen. Editors picks If youre just joining us, my guest is songwriter, singer, musician Amanda Shires. I mean, only just now nine months later, interestingly enough have I returned to having normal periods. GROSS: Was this your mothers father or your fathers father? Shires character wrestles with the decision and the right thing to do in her situation, while Isbells character offers his support for whatever decision she makes. GROSS: So that was Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys from 1940, their song, New San Antonio Rose, with Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar. And as it happened, eventually the auxiliary cable quit working in the van so I was left to the radio choices of sports ball and Top 40 country music. Girls high school basketball team forfeits a game because it refused to play against a team with a transgender player, Fox Leaders Wanted to Break From Trump but Struggled to Make It Happen, Not Going to Read That: White House Press Secretary Brushes Off DeSantis Op-Ed, Sunshine returns to SoCal on Thursday but cold temps stick around, AccuWeather: AM showers before a mild afternoon, Opening arguments heard in court for 2020 Conway fatal shooting that killed a 19-year-old. Thats the song Faultlines, performed by Amanda Shires with Zach Setchfield on guitar in Amandas home studio outside of Nashville, Tenn. Thats one of the songs on her new album, Take It Like a Man. So lets talk about that song a little bit. GROSS: Well, in 2020, you and your husband, Jason Isbell, recorded a duet of a song you wrote called The Problem. And the song is from the perspective of a teenage couple. Lets get back to my interview with Amanda Shires, a great singer and songwriter who also co-founded the band The Highwomen, which is a kind of all-star country music band. But I just got up on a stage and took the fiddle and started playing it. So by the time I went into the hospital, my fallopian tube had already ruptured. Interracial marriages cant happen. Privacy rights are going to be gone. GROSS: Amanda Shires, its been such a pleasure to talk with you. And I know I can take it like a man. But anyway so I went and I sat down in my barn of internal wandering. Related Opening with solemn piano chords, The Problem features Isbells voice first, then Shires joins, and the pair trade lines as they move the story along. Well be right back. And I also went to Greece and hung out at his house. Do you need the reasons why? Im glad to be a listener and also glad to see folks from those generations supporting the right to choose. And, you know, she. GROSS: I think its time for another break. Snubbing the King: Why Don't Big Stars Want to Perform at Charles' Coronation? GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. SHIRES: Well, myself and Brandi wrote the song. When the band step back from their microphones to begin the extended breakdown, Isbell smiles like a boy on a great adventure. Is there a song that you could play a Leonard Cohen song you could play an excerpt of for us in tribute to him since were both such great fans? As they talked, And she was like, I had no idea. I would like to challenge other folks who have platforms to actually use them. Its not more threatening than the idea of taking away the services and the work that doctors and nurses do. Isbell took a stand, even facing backlash from his fellow artists. In my case, I blame the education system, but I didnt even know what an ectopic pregnancy was. Ive found and scrounged and continue to for every interview that hes done in any form, in any language. The players in the band, they took me seriously as a player, but they also understood that I was a kid.. And I said, OK, well, Ill be the healer. But I thought, what am I going to do about that, in the event that she does go into country music? It makes it feel like youre tough enough for the fight, all the way down to your bones. After Isbell announced last week that he would require enhanced Covid countermeasures at his show in Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter Marc Broussard took to Twitter to lash out at Isbell, calling him bourgeois and elitist. Broussard asserted, Some working-class fans cant afford the risks associated with either the vaccines or even getting a test, adding, Id rather quit music than become a pawn in the pressure campaign. He did not provide any evidence of the risks he claimed were associated with getting the jab or receiving a test. 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