Amanda Shires and Her Band

Amanda Shires is not an entertainer. She isn’t looking to help listeners escape their everyday lives or soundtrack celebrations. She isn’t reaching for celebrity, and she isn’t concerned with cultivating a personal brand. She is an artist in the true sense of the word, meaning she creates because she has a real need for the process of creating.

Ms. Shires began her career as a teenager playing fiddle with the Texas Playboys. Since then, she’s toured and recorded with John Prine, Billy Joe Shaver, Todd Snider, Justin Townes Earle, Shovels & Rope, and most recently her husband Jason Isbell. Along the way she’s made three solo albums, each serving to document a particular period in her life while improving on the perceptive qualities of the previous record.

In September of 2017, Shires released her latest album My Piece Of Land. My Piece Of Land represents an artistic milestone for Shires, inspired by a series of milestones and realizations in her personal life. Shires contemplates love, fear, stability, self-esteem, and even anxiety, which she beautifully articulates through her thoughtful lyrics and emotive vocals.

My Piece Of Land is the follow-up to Down Fell The Doves (2013) which garnered accolades from outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Texas Monthly, Huffington Post and The Los Angeles Times who called it, “Emotionally dynamic… the beauty of her voice belying the menace of her message.”

My Piece Of Land was mostly written while she was seven months pregnant and unable to travel. Ms. Shires used the time for self-reflection, and she used songwriting to soothe her growing anxiety. The songs on My Piece Of Land are a very personal account of what she was going through at this point in her life. While balancing touring with new motherhood, Ms. Shires was also working towards an M.F.A. in creative writing from The University Of The South (Sewanee). As part of her studies, she workshopped poems, three to four poems per week, a process through which she learned the value of editing while strengthening her songwriting. The themes on the new album range from questioning self-worth in “I Know What It’s Like”, the connection between two people in “Harmless” and most importantly finding sense of place in “You Are My Home.” Ms. Shires also included the song “Mineral Wells” which speaks of her home state of Texas and the part of us that always feels connected to where we’re from. Amanda chose to record her album with award-winning producer Dave Cobb at his Low Country Sound studio, an easy decision as she’d worked with him previously on Jason Isbell’s latest two albums. My Piece Of Land is a true milestone in the creative arc of an artist who has found her voice and come into her own.