Amanda Shires made a visit this week to the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. Fresh off her recent tour in support of her latest album “Nobody’s Girl” was the catalyst for appearing as one of the featured artists for “The Drop” where the Grammy Museum stages an evening with an interview, followed by audience Q&A then a short concert set. Typically the interviewer is noted music journalist but for this event it was the legendary Judy Collins who performed with Amanda at her 85th birthday celebration at The Ryman.
Amanda experienced a very public break-up from fellow music artist Jason Isbell in 2023 and their divorce was finalized this past April. The personal upheaval in her life has become an album that’s about as personal as it gets. She lays it all out there for all to see as she sifts through the separation and pain, self-evaluation and reflection. The resultant work is not so much what happened but more of here’s what I’m feeling and thinking about it all. In capturing this turmoil this album the musical excursion is more stripped-down than her previous release “Take It Like A Man” and uses her voice and her violin to convey it all.
Interviewer Judy Collins approached the evening with a great set of carefully crafted questions that probed at the process of the process of writing, initial composition and then bringing in producer Lawrence Rothman who masterfully picks out the good parts in the music and builds on these to craft the final product. There were several reflective pauses during the interview as it straddled the crafting of the music intertwined with the feelings and emotions that were the driving force. In a motherly and caring fashion Judy navigated this interview beautifully. A five-song set followed that started off with Take It Like A Man and followed by 4 songs from the new album. In addition to her singing we got the usual dose of Amanda on violin but also on ukelele as well. We learned in the interview that Amanda loves using the ukelele in the initial composition of songs as the small size of the instrument allows greater focus on the music at hand versus the wingspan nature of the violin.
If you don’t yet know Amanda’s work I would check out 2022’s Take It Like A Man, then dive into this album and you’ll get the full experience of Amanda’s breadth and depth. During the Q&A Amanda let us know that her other effort the Highwomen, the supergroup with fellow femmes Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby & Maren Morris will be coming together at the end of the year to work on their next project!
Images from this eveningappear in the gallery below.
Amanda Shires web site
Written and Photography all rights reserved by Don Adkins
https://www.instagram.com/donadkinsphoto
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