Im Terry Gross. Lets get back to my interview with singer-songwriter and musician Amanda Shires. SHIRES: No, not until a couple of years ago. I know I can take it like Amanda. And I also went to Greece and hung out at his house. So lets hear a song about when things werent so all right. When she paints a picture of motherhood in the subdued jangle-pop number "Charms," she doesn't dwell on its oft-idealized and sentimentalized facets. It was keeping me up at night. SHIRES: I didnt know I was going to work it into a song until I got to the to writing it. You know, like, how does that go? SHIRES: (Singing) Trying not to think of names. Members get extended access to PBS video on demand and more. I was doing fine, and then, I was just like no sound would come out of my mouth. I remember thinking, Wow, theres a lot of potential for me to really mess this up.'. Her latest album is called Take It Like A Man. Well be right back. Just admit Im what you want. Musician Adia Victoria also tweeted at Isbell and praised the artist for continuing to put the health and safety ofhis crew, my band, venue employees and fans first and foremost, to which he replied with three heart emojis. And it took me back to the reason I came to writing and doing music in the first place, which is expression and trying to do something for me that could make me make sense, I guess. When her distinctive vibrato appears on To the Sunset, as a subtle emotive tool or punctuation in her storytelling, it feels like an electrical charge shuddering through the live wire of her voice. You could say its all my fault. You may opt-out by, U.S. Where the fuck are the rest of them? For my children, I did what I had to do. If youre just joining us, my guest is songwriter, singer and musician Amanda Shires. Wade was leaked last month, Amanda Shires shared some personal news on social media. And that song, its part my story and part, you know, stories I know from friends. So I think she did a good job. Refunds at point of purchase but were working on rescheduling. SHIRES: Sure. In an interview on MSNBC Monday, Isbell stated the response he has received from people who work at the venues and in the music business has been positive because they understand we could go back to not working at all, adding that smaller venues might not be able to reopen if they go through another round of shutdowns. Its as opposed to being in the uterus, where it belongs. I mean, only just now nine months later, interestingly enough have I returned to having normal periods. Is that right? So I started just taking notes on the radio because I heard it. How are we going to police that? The players in the band, they took me seriously as a player, but they also understood that I was a kid.. Her new album of original songs is called Take It Like A Man. She also co-founded the country supergroup the Highwomen, which includes Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby. And we would be quiet so that she wouldnt get in trouble because it was a lot then to be a single mom and deal with the difference in pay for men versus women. We found out that, yes, our grandmothers are pro-choice. Lawrence Rothman has been a model of self accepting themselves. So it was just like a week and a half or two weeks afterwards that Texas banned abortion. But for me, I was just happy to be up there playing music I loved. GROSS: Well, thank you for doing that. 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 also want to thank Zack Sedgefield for playing guitar and also Diana Walsh, who engineered your end of the music and the conversation from your home studio in well, outside of Nashville. Its yet another thing that, when policing does happen, is going to happen haphazardly and ruin lives. Why werent you accepting it? Chris Tompkins, a high school friend who has co-written mainstream country hits including Carrie Underwoods Before He Cheats and Florida Georgia Lines Get Your Shine On, says Isbell seemed on a different level even back when they were covering Stairway to Heaven together. Tommy Duncan was the singer. The singer, songwriter and fiddler found comfort with an unexpected collaborator and plumbed new depths on her latest album, Take It Like a Man. Amanda Trump Melts Down Over Murdoch Admitting Fox Lied About Election Fraud, If you say those things out loud, it makes a difference. What does he have to lose? A person having a miscarriage may have to fly to another state, just so they or their doctor doesnt get into legal trouble. Which would I rather have? And then I asked Chance, and Chance was like, no, those are real documents. And I know I can take it like a man. But theres a medication you can take that aborts the fertilized egg from your fallopian tube. Thats, like, part of your identity on Twitter. On your Twitter, you describe yourself as a disciple of Leonard Cohen. How did you come up with the image of my hands are two empty cups? SHIRES: Oh, yeah. 99.99%. If you want a driver, climb inside or only want to take me for a ride, you know you can. And I return to them often. Im a big, big fan. 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. Editors picks But I thought, what am I going to do about that, in the event that she does go into country music? And here it sits. With vacations lagging and the dangerous delta variant spreading, the United States is averaging more than 100,000 new cases a day for the first time since early February. When it came down to it, when I finally got it done and recorded, Amy Coney Barrett had gotten sworn in. Some people are upset at the way iPhones charge. Amanda Rose Shires (born March 5, 1982) is an American singer-songwriter and fiddle player. I didnt believe it. I am Terry Gross. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. And she was doing the bail bonding on the night. Former Drive-By Trucker is enjoying a breakout moment with new album 'Southeastern'. Amanda Shires is in Serious Trouble in Hawk for the Dove Fallon Performance In 2020, The Highwomen won Album of the Year at the Americana Music Honors and Awards ceremony. GROSS: Amanda Shires, how did you decide you wanted to write a song about abortion? I dont feel like it matches whats going on inside my brain. And I said, yeah, I feel like theres not a lot happening there emotionally for me. SHIRES: Theres a medication that you cant take right now after, you know, about two weeks after this happened to me. feeling fine but well have to cancel the next few shows, He then shared his symptoms and expressed his gratitude for getting vaccinated: Lotta sinus drainage type stuff, scratchy in my throat and some muscle aches but no cough or breathing issues fyi. 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. People will have to prove that they have been raped. Were proud to be from that area. Its an often-times divisive topic, and I dont want to bring any hurt to my family by doing something like putting out a song about this topic, but I lost all that fear when I got angry. And after we recorded it, he said, thats a really good song. It was Fault Lines.. SHIRES: Oh, right, in Alcatraz. Too caught up in the way I want you rolling over me. Recently, I had an ectopic pregnancy, she tweeted. I could just trust based on how Leonard Cohen did all that work for us. Theres not a lot of filler, not a lot of songs I would skip through, he says. She has a big conscience, a big heart. BRANDI CARLILE: (Singing) I was a Highwoman and a mother from my youth. I had to spend the night with her at work. AMANDA SHIRES AND JASON ISBELL: (Singing) Everythings going to be OK. Its going to be all right. (SOUNDBITE OF AMANDA SHIRES SONG, SWIMMER), GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Become a member of WLIW ($5 monthly or $60 annually) and get access to WLIW Passport as our thanks for your support. I just feel like that invites a lot of conversation and questions, you know, into our marriage and our relationship. After recording and touring for several years with the Drive-By Truckers, for whom he wrote standouts including Decoration Day, Outfit and Danko/Manuel, Isbell launched his solo career in 2007. You know, its Jimmy Webbs song originally, but. See where your favorite artists and songs rank on the Rolling Stone Charts. 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. Since publishing my op-ed, Ive heard from some folks who are in their eighties. Do you need the reasons why? If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. It made me think, You know, I bet our grandmothers are more pro-choice than everybody leads us to believe.. Im not joking. Ive listened to all of his records. A woman threw a house party with 65 men she matched with on Tinder and Hinge and connected with the man she's been dating for a year. So did you ever visit her at work? Sign up for Rolling Stones Newsletter. We want to hear it. Interracial marriages cant happen. Privacy rights are going to be gone. And I followed a dress code. No more? GROSS: Without him asking? And then my mom would drive me down there. GROSS: Thats Empty Cups from Amanda Shires new album, Take It Like A Man. Thats such a great song, Amanda. I could tell my milk cow I could tell by the way she lows. 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. Singer, songwriter and fiddle player Amanda Shires still remembers the moment she fell in love with the fiddle. And so I just had to get emergency surgery to remove the tube and clean the blood from inside of my body. And then, we did it, sing the song. Thank you for doing the interview. I laid hands upon the world. Where are our Nashville folks? I tried so hard to make myself clear. And so I felt in my mind, I felt those things. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Kitty Eisele adapted it for the web. It's not often in country musicor pop music for that matterin which an artist addresses a very personal and sensitive subject like abortion through a song. But I did move a couple of times out of the house, not because it was a leaving thing, but because I didnt want to do anything that would harm, you know, make it worse. Lets start with a track from the new album. 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. GROSS: Well, I want to play a song performed by The Highwomen, and the song is actually called The Highwomen, and its a song sung from the point of view of different women. GROSS: So that was Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys from 1940, their song, New San Antonio Rose, with Leon McAuliffe on steel guitar. So since they are personal songs, you had to decide to say 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). Soon after a Supreme Court draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked last month, Amanda Shires shared some personal news on social media. So she did daytime job. Theres so much attached to folks thinking women treat it as a kind of birth control. GROSS: What I hear in your voice is that it rings out. Theyre just songs because everybody goes through troubles in their relationship. But I am living still. And it also made me stronger in the fact that I could feel comfortable singing about it and talking about it. We followed a coyote through the dust of Mexico. You can just say Im crazy. Are they just going to sit around and drink beer? Theyre just, you know, scans of them. 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. GROSS: Lawrence Rothman produced your new album. The sound of silence rings in every room. SHIRES: But I like it because I like to imagine like, if he was alive and I got to play this for him, I would be singing Im your Amanda. So what didnt you like about your voice? The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time And I was like, my granddad was in Alcatraz? Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, well talk about the power, promise and potential harm of YouTube. "I did a parking lot pirouette / I said, 'You're right I'm not done with you yet.'" GROSS: So that was the Highwomen, which is a song performed by the supergroup The Highwomen, which was co-founded by my guest, Amanda Shires, and Brandi Carlile. I guess for awhile youve been looking for the exit. Despite the many questions as to why she was undergoing the procedure which she described as having "cells removed" despite trolls labeling her a "baby killer" Shires wrote at the time, "The reasons that I chose to have an abortion are personal, and they are mine." It's a sentiment that Shires has echoed many times since. Shes also one of the founders of the group the Highwomen. Well close with the opening track from Amanda Shires new album. The song is called Hawk For The Dove.. Not saying something is not helping. Were you in Texas at the time? He has since learned to tell the story of his recovery. Im Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. In Portland, he led the band (including his wife on fiddle) through charging, heartfelt songs that often sounded like the cavalry was coming. She was going to school. But I had about seven different album sequences going on. And after he did his time, he didnt say anything about it. Victoria is scheduled to open for Isbell on this tour. This part of my life and our marriage was difficult and it took me back to the reason I came to writing and doing music in the first place, which is expression, she says. People forget that, if you take away access to reproductive healthcare, youre going to be killing moms like me. If you want a boxer, Ill step in the ring for you. And thats when the fertilized egg stays in the fallopian tube. Isbell said he had to cancel his Asheville shows scheduled for Jan. 11-12, but he and his team are working to reschedule shows in Louisville, Columbus, Wilkes-Barre and Wilmington. Its not competition, Isbell makes clear with a chuckle. Fully renovated in 1994, the Ryman has never been more vibrant, attracting entertainers and fans from around the globe to enjoy its now legendary acoustics and rich history.Connect with the Ryman Auditorium:Like the Ryman Auditorium on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/rymanfbCheck out the Ryman Auditorium on INSTAGRAM: ttp://bit.ly/RymanInstagram Follow the Ryman Auditorium on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/tweettherymanBEHIND THE SCENES with Amanda Shires | Backstage at the Ryman | Ryman Auditoriumhttp://www.youtube.com/user/RymanAuditorium#AmandaShires, #Ryman, #TheHighwomen, #RymanAuditorium, #BackstageattheRyman GROSS: So you ended up, like, accompanying him. And Bob Wills was, like, the father of Western Swing, which combined country music and jazz. SHIRES: I feel like its a little nasally, and I wish it was, like, a little bit lower. And, you know, she. We both know that none of that was keeping, keeping me anyhow. And this is the iteration of the band Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, which got their start in they were most famous in the 30s and 40s and 50s. I would like to think that fans can hold their role models and their favorite musicians accountable. And but I think for the players in the band, they took me seriously as a player. And then it was never like, oh, they have to be on a record once I do record them. The election is November 8. I own one of his guitars and. Dont support artists who dont support your rights. And Milk Cow Blues goes like this. 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. Recognition has been building steadily; he won Song of the Year at the 2012 Americana Honors and Awards at the Ryman Auditorium last September for Alabama Pines. He calls his superb backing band the 400 Unit, after the psychiatric ward of a hospital near Muscle Shoals, the part of the state where he grew up. Why not? You can call me serious trouble. And I said, I dont know. Amanda Shires, performing during the Americana Awards at Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 22, 2021 in Nashville. During "Break Out the Champagne," Shires wryly relates an account of a female friend who was dumped by a dullard, only to realize that he'd never really satisfied her anyway: "I'm rock and rock and roll, and you're golf." And there was a guy that also played the guitar, like a multi-instrumentalist side person. Im glad to be a listener and also glad to see folks from those generations supporting the right to choose. I mean, many songwriters would say, oh, theyre not about me. Will you look at me the same? And then coupled with the pandemic and all that, he was on self-preservation mode, and I was too. Thanks., RELATED: Jason Isbell slams Morgan Wallens appearance at Grand Ole Opry: Not surprised Just sad, Jason Isbell on the road, hummingbirds, fan requests and critical thinking in America, Jason Isbell on COVID vaccine mandates at concerts: No, were not taking away your freedom. And I really liked it. At age 34, hes got the baggy eyes of a man who has spent a lot of time thinking hard late at night. It rings out like its supposed to. I was learning orchestra and classical music in school and privately. You can say its all my fault. And your verse, you are somebody who thinks of herself as a healer but was hung in the gallows during the Salem witch trials. So one of the things you learned, like, I think in the past few years is that your grandfather had spent years in prison. So theres thinking my thinking is that my granddad married my grandmother knowing that she was pregnant with somebody elses child. I think she probably knew 100%, but.. And luckily, my teacher was one of those good and rare teachers that notices when you know, when a student needs a little more help. And why did you want to work it into a song? The subject isnt talked about enough, Shires says. Never one to shy away from his beliefs, Isbell implored his fellow man, in Alabama or otherwise, to get vaccinated, that is, if they wanted to see him perform in person, hoping to make a difference. And I hadnt heard the fiddle being played at all. Essentially, shes just a good person. She performs in several settings and has received awards in each of them. SHIRES: Well, myself and Brandi wrote the song. Im going to play fiddle and Im going to sing in. I also received responses from trolls. GROSS: Oh, I wish he could have heard you do it. And thank you so much for having me as a guest. SHIRES: You want to come to the play the show tomorrow night, too? It de-stigmatizes the conversation. Amanda Shires opens her new album To the Sunset with a strikingly different scenario. Bergen is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. What made you think of yourself as his disciple? Another is a freedom rider who died during the Freedom Rides. This is FRESH AIR. Here was my life five years ago, and heres my life now. Its not more threatening than the idea of taking away the services and the work that doctors and nurses do. With artists and concert promoters nationwide forced to confront a surging spike in infections and hospitalizations attributed to the spread of the delta variant, Grammy award-winning musician, Jason Isbell, announced Monday that he and his band, the 400 Unit, will require concertgoers to provide proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test to attend all their future shows, whether they are held indoors or outdoors. Fertilized egg stays in the way I want you rolling over me songs called... Was going to be up there playing music I loved its Jimmy Webbs song,... 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