How the beauty and grace of musician Amanda Shires led her to success.

Buzz Knight:

I’m Buzz Knight, the host of the Takin’ a Walk podcast. We’re in Nashville for this episode. If you want to find out when the next episode is ready, or if you’re interested in becoming a guest, sign up for our newsletter @takinawalk.com. Today’s guest is an absolute musical force of nature, Amanda Shires is an American singer, songwriter and fiddle player. Her latest release is called Take It Like a Man. She’s released seven solo albums. In 2019, she formed the amazing group, The Highwomen, along with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby and Maren Morris. I’m so grateful and so excited to meet her. Please share this episode with a friend as we take a walk with Amanda Shires. Oh, Amanda Shires, it’s so nice to be with you, taking a walk.

Amanda Shires:

We took a walk from the cars to the barn.

Buzz Knight:

We had a plan, but Mother Nature had its way.

Amanda Shires:

Yep. We’re one of those other gods.

Buzz Knight:

But we’re okay, we’re inside your beautiful surroundings here. You call this-

Amanda Shires:

The Barn of Internal Wandering.

Buzz Knight:

And why that?

Amanda Shires:

I think for me, part of the way my process works is that I don’t try to get in the way of that part of the brain that needs to find its own way or do its own thing when you’re creating. So if I wake up in the morning and I do TM, so after I do my transcendental meditation, I’ll come out here and do at least five minutes of writing, or 20 or however long it feels like going. And then I’ll be told or led to record or paint or practice or play Ms. Pac-Man or go grocery shopping if I have to or garden.

Buzz Knight:

But every day is this, let’s see where it rolls.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, on the days when I don’t have familial obligations.

Buzz Knight:

Which is many days.

Amanda Shires:

Well I do. Well, I find that no amount of good parenting makes up for an unhappy mother. So I find that balance is super important. I do the job of mothering and I have to set boundaries to make sure I don’t just do that all day. Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

Because it could be all day long.

Amanda Shires:

It could be all day long.

Buzz Knight:

Event.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah. And sometimes those days happen, especially on the weekends and things like that. Those are definitely all for Mercy and Jason, but we all have to maintain our own identities first before we could be other identities for others.

Buzz Knight:

So can you take us back to that moment when you knew that you wanted to ask your dad to buy that first instrument?

Amanda Shires:

Yeah. It would seem random except for it wasn’t random. My dad had a good relationship with this guy named AD Garrett who owned AD Garrett’s pawn shop in Mineola, Texas. At that time, the population was 14348. And it was the place where you went and traded guns or knives or instruments. All kinds of things were bought and sold there. But he went in there specifically for a new knife for … He hunts deer with bow and arrow and stuff. But at that time we ate deer and squirrel and stuff, poor folks is what I’m describing.

And he needed a knife, and he went in there to get a new one because he had broke his somehow. And I saw it hanging on the wall and I just looked at it, I walked around some, tried to feign interest in knives and I just stood there. And then the smart salesman, the AD Garrett saw me looking at the fiddle and came and got it down for me. And then after my dad picked out his knife, he came and get me, and I was by that time begging for the fiddle. And I just didn’t know why or how it worked or anything, I just … And it was about as high up as that little old electric ukulele right there.

And I just had to have it. And then my dad was like, “No, I don’t have that kind of money.” It was $60. And then AD was like, “Well, you could take it home and just come back and pay me as you get it.” And my dad was like, “Geez. Okay.” And he said, “You have to swear to me, you’re going to learn it because I don’t know this. I don’t have this kind of money.” And then I took it back to his house and broke all the strings. And after the summer was over, I took it home to my mom and she enrolled me in the school orchestra.

And then after that, my teacher recommended that I have private lessons. And then my private lessons’ teacher decided that I also needed to learn fiddle. And when he showed me Spanish two step, that’s when I decided I was going to be a fiddle player. And I went to my mom’s car and said, “I’m a fiddle player now.” And she said, “As long as you maintain your classical and your orchestra learning, you can also learn fiddle.” And I said, “Okay.” And that’s all that got started.

Buzz Knight:

That was the beginning of everything, right? You were stuck.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah. I try to think about why that happened. And the thunder agrees, it’s accenting my words here.

Buzz Knight:

And by the way, people like on this podcast, the sounds so, they like-

Amanda Shires:

I mean, we can go out closer to it if you want. There’s a bar right there and there’s some birds that won’t be flying so it’s [inaudible 00:06:13]-

Buzz Knight:

I’m very comfortable right now.

Amanda Shires:

Okay, cool. Awesome. I think about it sometimes, and I think there’s a lot going on in my childhood and stuff at that time and being nine, eight and nine years old, you don’t really have, or we didn’t have, the kind of language that we would need to teach kids. My parents were young when they had me, they didn’t have the language to even verbalize their own emotions, much less teach me how to do it. So I had no vocabulary or no means of which to even talk about my feelings. And I think by divine intervention, it was put on me to learn to be a insurmountable chore of what it is to play the fiddle. [inaudible 00:07:05]-

Buzz Knight:

Did you ever doubt that you would figure it out?

Amanda Shires:

No. I didn’t doubt I would figure it out. I knew that if anything, the worst thing could happen would be I’d be the worst in the class, but I’d still be doing something I liked. Or maybe I’d not be the best one in the world, but I’d still be doing something I loved. And during that learning, I figured out that music helped me best when it came to expression. And that helps you daily when you’re going through anything, how to get the emotions off yourself and figure it out.

Buzz Knight:

So then you’re 15 years old and you end up playing with this incredible band, the Texas Playboys.

Amanda Shires:

Mm-hmm. Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Okay, I’ll start from the beginning. So in my lessons with my violin teacher privately, Lanny Field was noticing that I was only drawn to certain types of passages and I would excel at certain very difficult passages. And the rest, I was bored and doing poorly. He said, “Why don’t you play this part as well as you do the other parts?” I said, “That doesn’t interest me.” And he was like, “Well, if you do it or when you do it, I will also show you something that I’ve been learning and it’s fiddle.”

And he was actually in the process of transcribing … Actually, I have it here randomly. Well, hold on. One second. He was in the process of transcribing Old Fiddle Tunes from Frankie McWhorter, and taking them from learning them by ear, all the parts from Frankie McWhorter who I eventually learned fiddle from, two years later. I’m getting to that. Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. A lot to talk about all at once, isn’t it?

Buzz Knight:

It’s awesome.

Amanda Shires:

So Lanny was learning fiddle from Frankie. And Frankie learned from Eck Robertson, the first recorded fiddle player, 1926 somewhere in Texas. So I think that’s the right year. And anyway, so it’s like Eck, Frankie then me and Lanny were learning from him. But it wasn’t stuff you could read on the paper. And this is what I’ve been studying, this reading music and classical. So he was transcribing it so that it wouldn’t get lost in the shuffle of time. And I’m going to put it on, the first song I learned. And he showed me this song and there was this song where I ran out to the car and said, “I’m a fiddle player, Mom.”

This song, Spanish Two Step, the Bob Will song. And I just loved it. And it’s Frankie’s arrangement, but it’s a Bob Will song. So he showed it to me. And then he showed me the work he was doing and transcribing and learning from Frankie McWhorter who played with the Playboys, who was a foreman of the J. Abrams Ranch in Lipscomb, Texas, which is just a few miles away from Turkey, Texas. And actually, more turkeys live in Lipscomb than people. That’s really funny. And incidentally, Frankie’s dog was Hank the Cowdog, the actual one. And do you know Hank the Cowdog book?

Buzz Knight:

No, no.

Amanda Shires:

It was a series of books. And this wonderful writer wrote these Hank the Cowdog children’s books that I had heard of. And I thought it was the coolest thing Frankie’s actual dog was Hank the Cowdog [inaudible 00:10:39].

So I eventually, after becoming very interested, decided to tell Lanny that I was going to help him with all this and play music with him. And Frankie and I was going to learn by ear too and all this. So my mom would drive me down there to Frankie. Through Frankie and Lanny, I met Tommy Allsup who was in charge of the Texas Playboys at that time. And he was at one time in the Buddy Holly band, he was the bass player. No, he was a guitar player. Whelan was a bass player in that band. Right?

Buzz Knight:

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah. And Tommy Allsup was a fantastic producer and human. And lots of [inaudible 00:11:21] existed about Tommy also. He was the guy that flipped the coin, Ritchie Valens. And he had a lot of a long history, he had Liberty Records and he did all kinds of fantastic stuff.

But anyway, so through Lenny and Frankie, I met Tommy and that’s how I wound up with the Texas Playboys. They were all in their ’70s and ’80s during this time. And sometimes not all the fiddle players could make it. Sometimes people passed away, and I found myself in the lucky position of being in the group. So all I had to do was be willing to play any of these parts in the event that somebody didn’t show up. So I memorized all the parts first, the melody and the harmony and the low harmony. And most of the time, I got stuck on the low harmony, and I was happy with that. And then eventually they had me learning to improvise. Then I sang for the first time, which was a disaster. And yeah, they’re my best friends, I compare everything to that experience.

Buzz Knight:

Now why was that first singing experience a disaster?

Amanda Shires:

Oh my God. Luckily, they were all my friends. It was like having seven granddads, is what it was like. So we had talked about it and I was going to sing, because I could sing harmony. So they’re like, “You should take lead at the Christmas show.” And I was like, “Okay, I’ll try.” And we practiced it, ran through it once. It was all great. And then had the show comes around and I stand up there to sing A Little Walk with You, Sure Would Go Good, which is the first line of the song, Sure Would Go Good, the song that I first chose to sing. And we played the part, (singing), the little intro. And then I go up there and nothing came out. And I was like, “Oh no, this is the worst. This is terrible.” And I have a picture of it. And my friend Shelby was there with me and she took the picture, but they’re all just cracking up. Looking down and I’m like, “Oh my God, what is happening?”

And then they don’t stop playing. So I’ve learned a lot of things from them about when things happen on stage or not, they don’t go right and what you do and don’t do, you don’t have to stop the whole song and make a big deal. So they turned it around again. And during that time, Leon Rush, the singer of the band, grabbed my hand and he said, “I’m going to hold your hand and I’m going to sing it right here in this invisible microphone while you sing it on the real microphone.” And I was like, “Okay.”

And it was very wavery and terrible I think in my mind’s eye, my memory. But I got through it. And I think that probably what got me is the fear that comes along with standing in front of a bunch of people and there’s lights on you. And that goes back to somewhere primal that makes you feel like, “Oh, I better run. This is flight or fight here, I better run. It seems unnatural.” I don’t know what it was, but I was terrified. And after that, it started getting a little easier with the lead singing. But not much, it took some time.

Buzz Knight:

But it was a defining moment.

Amanda Shires:

Oh, it was, definitely. And the problem is that when somebody asked me to do something and I say yes … My granddad drilled that into me, and my dad more than any other thing, “If you say you’re going to do something, you do it. If you say you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, you be there at a certain time.” And I don’t know why that seems to be so important to me, but I do it. And I told them I would do it, so I carried on.

Buzz Knight:

I’d say you did.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes I wonder why I say yes to things, but it’s okay.

Buzz Knight:

I hope you’re not second guessing this interview?

Amanda Shires:

No. Sometimes I don’t think too hard, and that’s instinctive yes or no answers. And I’m shy, should take more time and just think things through.

Buzz Knight:

So who were those other influences as you were growing into the business that were musical influences on you?

Amanda Shires:

The best ones. I didn’t have any kind of heartbreaking music till I was much older. The first songwriter that I fell in love with was Cindy Walker, and I got to play for her 70th birthday party, then become friends with her. And the first side person I ever saw that was a woman was Bobby Nelson. And recently, me and my friend, Lawrence Rothman, a producer, we both produced a record on her before she passed away and we’re almost done with it. And it’s beautiful. There’s a song she wrote on it. I don’t know if you’re familiar with her work, but-

Buzz Knight:

No.

Amanda Shires:

… she’s Willie Nelson’s sister. She taught him almost everything he knows about music, and she was in this band. Then she wasn’t for a minute because they called her an unfit mother for doing that. And then went back to work and became what society calls a fit mother. And demoed Hammond B3 organs, the one they came out and all that, then returned to his band later until the end there. And she was always playing the piano, wearing the black hat. And we did that record on her, it came out great. She even has a song on it she wrote. Sorry my ringer was going off. It’s not a real cat.

Buzz Knight:

Oh, okay.

Amanda Shires:

I find the alarms on phones very alarming, so I have mine on a cat sound.

Buzz Knight:

So that’s good. I like that better.

Amanda Shires:

I don’t have a cat but I have a cat sound.

Buzz Knight:

You have a cat sound. Great idea.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

But the influences that you have, I find so remarkable. You are across so many different generations and types of styles. And one of the people I’m fascinated by, that I know you’re fascinated with is Leonard Cohen.

Amanda Shires:

Oh, my gosh.

Buzz Knight:

When did that attraction occur?

Amanda Shires:

Oh my goodness. Okay. So I was working at the record store in Lubbock, Texas because I’m a [inaudible 00:17:32]. This thing about the people that I meet and feel close to, I think has a lot to do with how I was raised. Anyway, all that to say gravitate to people with real stories and real life experience. And I think I learned a lot of that from my granddad. And then my work ethic is also from been bred into me from both sides, my dad’s side and my mom. My granddad was a cotton picker before he became a nursery man, a man that grows plants and greenhouses and things. And had pecan orchards and pit orchards, and we’d have to pick things and sell them. But I have a work ethic and I always feel funny if I’m not working. So when I wasn’t playing with the Playboys or doing schoolwork, I would work at the record store.

And this guy I was working with named Jake, all he would play was Fugazi. And I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that. But let me just tell you, I can put up with a lot of things for a long time, but two weeks of Fugazi will drive anyone bonkers. I mean, I lost my patience and I said, “This is it. This is it. I don’t care that you’re six seven and you weigh 300 pounds. I’m not putting up with this anymore.” And he said, “When the last song is over, if you don’t have a record on, it’s going to be the next Fugazi record.” And I ran as fast as I could to the aisle where I’d been staring at this Leonard Cohen record. And I’d never heard it or anything, just the picture once again or the look of it looked interesting, the eyes. It was something about the eyes.

And I put it on and he was like, “Oh, I love Leonard Cohen. And I was like, “Well, hell yes, this is a win.” I was like, “Who’s Leonard Cohen?” And then the record was playing and then I was like, “Who is Leonard Cohen?” So I took Leonard Cohen home with me in record form, and dove in and found that by reading and watching every documentary and interview, and finding every kind of bootlegs that I could of interviews and everything within the business that I could get my hands on, I feel like a kinship and I feel like a lot of things about him and me align, and that we would’ve been a perfect couple had he not died.

Buzz Knight:

Yeah, no kidding.

Amanda Shires:

We would’ve married. He would’ve finally found his wife. He never got married because it was always supposed to be me.

Buzz Knight:

So you never got to come to the opportunity to meet him or?

Amanda Shires:

No, I didn’t. Don’t know a lot of people that did.

Buzz Knight:

Would you have been in awe to run into him?

Amanda Shires:

No, no, no. But I’ve his band members and managers and all kinds of people. I found his coat hanger once, and I kept it. Still have it. It was at a club that he had left it behind on accident, so I kept it. I’d never met him, but I think that I would be comfortable just sitting there, not saying anything. And I think that he would be too. And since he’s not here to disagree, we’ll have to just assume that’s true.

Buzz Knight:

Thunderclap.

Amanda Shires:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly.

Buzz Knight:

Where did you get the notion that I know is important to you of, “Play it like it’s the last time you’ll ever play it?”

Amanda Shires:

That’s Texas Playboy?

Buzz Knight:

That was from the Texas Playboys?

Amanda Shires:

Yeah. They also said, “If you’re not proud of it, don’t do it.” Frankie specifically. “Play it like it’s last time you’re ever going to play it.” Because it’s easy to walk through things like you’ve done it because you’ve done it a few times. It’s easy to think, “Oh I’m going to play this song, I’ll play it every day.” But that’s not the spirit of music. For the real connection with people, you got to be in the song and you’ve got to mean it. And as Bobby Cofer, the steel player would say, “You got to sell it.”

Buzz Knight:

But that’s a metaphor for how you live your life, isn’t it really?

Amanda Shires:

Oh, definitely. And I think that has something to do with them coming in and me learning in my early development, because my frontal lobe wasn’t developed till I was like 24 or 25. So a lot of the things that they told me and taught me still stick with me to this day. I can show everybody in any room where their tire pressure sticker is and how to make sure their tires are good and ready for the trip to Lipscomb, Texas.

Buzz Knight:

So your trip bar is in the way.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, I can look at them and tell you. Yeah, I do live my life like that. It’s important. You realize that as you get older, but I also think that, I realize that a lot when I was young because my friends were very old.

Buzz Knight:

And you didn’t just look at them as old, you look at them as wise.

Amanda Shires:

I didn’t even really notice their age by the way they acted. A couple of them had many girlfriends. And I didn’t say boo about it because it was understood. They were gentlemen about it, but the couple of them that did. I do remember walking out of my hotel room, wants to go to breakfast at the hotel lobby, and one of the Texas Playboys escorted a lady to her car. And I was like, “I did not know that she was going to be here all night. Interesting.” I wonder what she thinks about that. Then I was like, “I’m not going to say anything.” And he looked at me and he said, “Breakfast.” And I said, “Yep.” That was awesome. But I didn’t see them as old or anything. They were very witty, and most of them had great retention and wonderful stories. They’re in inner band stories and jokes and all that, and it was very fun. And I didn’t see them as old, but I did start seeing them as old when they started passing away.

Buzz Knight:

But they’re still in your heart.

Amanda Shires:

Oh yeah. We’ve got this music here. Yeah. They’re not gone forever, the music is still there.

Buzz Knight:

So when did you first encounter John Prine?

Amanda Shires:

Well, to know when I first heard him is hard to say. I think everybody’s heard them their whole lives. But it was three days before this picture was taken. Interesting you’re asking about the things I have pictures of. So three days before this picture, I got to play my first shows with John Prine opening and then joining his band. And he had me for three shows to try it out. He was like, “We’re going to just have you open three shows, see how that goes.” So I went and opened the three shows. And I was driving a Ford Econoline van. And I dressed up for the shows, but for long drives, I find that pointless. So I was wearing this onesie that I found at the Target and my friend Kelly was wearing her little leopard one and my bass player was wearing a matching one like mine.

And I got to the soundcheck, there was a long drive between one of these shows and I was still in it because I didn’t have time to change for soundcheck. And he had just finished his check and he said, “Man, if they had one of those in a sock monkey, I’d wear it.” And I said, “Really?” And I said, “Are you serious? Because $26 is a lot of money. And if I find one, there’s a sock monkey, you better wear it.” And then he said, “If there was, I would.” And on the last day of those three shows, I got him some white wine because I heard he liked that. And I made him a parting gift. And then it was a sock monkey onesie.

And before I went to do my set, I put it in his dressing room. And then during my set, he came to the wings of the stage wearing it and I was like, “What the hell is happening?” I lost all of sense of what was happening. I was like, “John Prine is in a sock monkey outfit.” And he was in the wings, he just walked off. Nobody believed me. Oh he had took the top down. I have another picture where he’s still wearing it. And I took that little Polaroid that day and he signed it. And that was our first experience together, and then he called me to do more shows and then I toured all over Europe and the UK and Canada and all those places. Do Brunswick and goofing, all the places I toured around with him.

And a lot of the times, he would drive his own car, a rental car, .so I’d ride with him a lot and overseas, we’d take little planes here and there and drive some, but not really trains. We did mostly trains and flights over there. And we’d always sit together and hang out together and talk. Yeah, we were just really good friends. And talked a lot about rhyming because I was finishing up my master’s thesis in poetry when I was on that last tour with him. And he was like, “How are you doing this if you don’t have any books?” And I said, “Oh, I have my rhyming dictionary on my computer. I have these apps.” And then he was like, “You could get a rhyming dictionary on your phone?” And he was like, “Can you do that to mine?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And he was like, “Here you can have all these books?” I was like, “You carry those around.”

So then we started talking about that and then we started talking about the little tools we use rhyming and all that. This is not just one conversation, that’s where it started becoming … It was during Tree of Forgiveness and we were … That end part where he’s talking about the syphilitic critics and all that at the end, that’s when we were on the plane, just seeing how far we could take the rhyme. Yeah. And that was without the app because we were in the air and we couldn’t download it, but which I did save him the trouble and downloaded it for him later when we landed. But we started talking a lot about rhyme and showing each other songs and early forum and stages too. And then I got to see how he did it and how he worked. And I didn’t take that lightly. And I asked him questions, and he’d give me real answers and he did. And I feel like I learned a lot of things from him.

I used to try and avoid the dead-on rhymes. And he said, “It’s a song. How else are they going to remember it? If you’re doing near rhymes so much, they’re not going to remember the words.” And I was like, “You’re right.” And I said, “Well then, how am I going to make it different?” And he was like, “Well, you got to put the details in there, the details of the story and all, that’s what makes it different to the experience of another.” And he said also, “You’re a different person than the other songwriter, so it’s always going to be different. And everybody’s bringing their own experiences and their own take on the world to a song and that’s why [inaudible 00:29:03] are the same.”

Buzz Knight:

You made a deal with him when he wanted you to go out on the road, didn’t you, about a particular song?

Amanda Shires:

Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

Can you-

Amanda Shires:

Two.

Buzz Knight:

… talk about that?

Amanda Shires:

Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

Oh, two songs?

Amanda Shires:

Two, yeah. He called and he was like, “Can you do this? You’re up, run with me.” It’s about six weeks, almost seven, really. And I said, “I don’t know.” And it was during Easter too, which at that time was Mercy’s favorite holiday, my daughter. And she loved it because she liked to find things and also eat candy. So that’s what you do when you’re two and three, you love Easter. And because you like to eat candy and go on scavenger hunts, digging in bushes. Anyway, it’s fun. It’s fun. With motherhood, you get a fresh look on what childhood really looks like that you didn’t see in your own experience, and that can be helpful. But all that to say, I said, “I don’t know, John, that’s a long time to be gone from my family.”

I mean it was in the school Mercy had later grow up and be like, “You weren’t here with me on Easter,” and all this kind of stuff. And he said, “She probably won’t remember that at all.” He said, “I really need you to go on tour.” And I was like, “Okay.” And he said, “Well, it’ll be double duty, you’ll be opening the show and then joining me for the whole duration of the music.” And I said, “Well, there’s only one thing I’m good at, John and that’s music, so I can do that but I don’t know.” And I was like, “What’s the pay here?” He was like, “Normal pay.” And I was like, “Well, we got to put something else in there.” And he said, “Well, what do you want?” And I said, “Well, I’ll do it but only if you bring two songs into the set. It has to be these two songs.” And he said, “I bet I could do that. What songs are they? Are they my songs?” And he was like, “Yeah, of course they’re your songs. What am I going to do?” Say, “Play a little Cohen song.”

And I said, “First, we got to bring back Clocks and Spoons.” And he’s like, “I don’t know about that, because I feel like that song is too sad for me at this point in my life.” And I was like, “Well, it’s your song, can you just make it less sad?” And he said, “Oh, I think about that.” And I said, “The other song is Saddle in the Rain. I love playing that song.” And he said, “Okay. Yeah, we can play Saddle in the Rain.”

And then I printed the words out to Clocks and Spoons and I have it in my office. When I showed it to him, I was like, “What part of it is sad?” And he said that part about (singing). And he said something about when he wrote that, he was in a different place than he was now because as life happens with the good and the bad, it’s all beautiful. And he said, “I’m going to change that to singing.” And I said, “Are we doing it?” He said, “We’re going to do it.” So we did both of them. And when we played it live, from then on, we’d sing (singing). Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

That’s awesome. So this little band that you spearheaded called The Highwomen, congratulations on that.

Amanda Shires:

Well, thank you. And thank you. Started out as a tiny idea I had in 2016 when I went on tour with John Prine and then my own solo tours.

Buzz Knight:

What an amazing triumph. And had you known your other collaborators on the high women before?

Amanda Shires:

No, only in passing. I met Marion when she was young, about 12 or 13. We were playing at a festival. I was playing fiddle, I had been playing with Billy Joe Shaver, and I saw her mom dragging her around the campfires and singing. And she had an incredible voice. She’s a Texan, so I’d heard she moved to town at some point, but I was touring with … Between writing songs and waiting tables to pay for the recordings I would do later on my own as an artist, I was also playing as a side person for Justin Townes Earle and other folks, whoever would have me that I thought I could learn something from. So I didn’t hear from her much, I would see in passing on social media that she seemed to be doing well. But the producer friend I made, Dave Cobb was the first person I told my idea to after I’d …

So it doesn’t seem like I’d sit quietly by being here with me, but this is what my natural go-to around people is to get real nervous and talk. But in my real spending of time, I’m sitting in here and I’d stare at things or I do slow things, thinking things, play music. I was working on how to describe what I wanted to do with the music and the idea and the intention of the band. I mean, I make lots of notes and I’d been paying attention to radio stations at that time. I figured out the pictures of what I wanted to do in my mind, and I’d write notes and try to figure it out. And the end of 2017 or ’18 beginning, I told Dave Cobb when I was there working on a session, I said … I can’t remember if I was singing or playing the fiddle or what I was doing. But at the end of it I said, “So I’ve been having this idea.” And we’ve been friends for a while so he’s patient and was willing to hear me out.

And that’s one of the great things about producers, is the good ones are very patient. And they also know what it’s like to try and translate what an artist has in their mind. So they’re patient with you and they’re listening and they’re not like, “Whoa, you look crazy. What are you saying?” They never do that. That’s why it’s always cool if you’re with a good producer that’s clear at the time when you’re talking seriously, because they’ll give you that time. But I said, “I want to start this group,” and I said, “Here’s the rest.” And I was scared to say it because it sounds crazy. I said, I want to be called the Highwomen. And he said, “The high women?” And I was like, “Not high as in I got high but is in high as in exalted, and taking the high road and all that kind of stuff.”

And he was like, “I love it.” And I said, “Here’s another thing I want to do. I want to rewrite that song, it’s going to be like … If you could picture this,” because this is how I describe things in pictures. I said, “If you could picture our record, it’ll be like … Imagine that the songs are a tree. So the main part of the tree is like there’s the roots, but the centerpiece of the record will be the Highwomen’s song that I’m trying to rewrite. And the rest of it will be other stories that come off of it, like the branches.” And he is like, “That’s a fantastic idea.” And I said, “There’s not going to be a tree on the cover though, because sometimes if you … Just don’t just leave the tree out of it, I’m just trying to tell you my idea.” But he’s really good with that.

And I don’t want it to be sassy music and I don’t want it to look distressed. I want it to look like what we’re trying to do, but I also want to take it back to what it’s supposed to be, and where we could sing about more than unrequited love or that we really miss our man or that we’re going to … Whatever we’re going to do, go out, burn some lady’s house down, I don’t know. Those are fun, but we also need the other stuff on the radio too. We’re not on the radio, just that people know that we’re out there and they can identify with us if they feel the same, and support each other and all this. And he said, “That’s a great idea. And I said, “Okay.” He said, “You should call Brandi Carlile.” And I didn’t call her.

And then next time I saw him, I thought he would’ve forgotten. But he said, “So did you call Brandi Carlile? The idea is really good.” And I said, “I can’t just cold call Brandi Carlile. What am I going to say? I’m going to start laying into this big long weird story about the Highwomen idea, what’s that going to …” I said, “I’m just not going to call her and talk about this. This is just a hard thing to explain over the phone, I think. I don’t know, I just don’t know about this.” I was like, “Why don’t you do it?” And he said, “No.” He said, “She’s playing tonight, and we’ll go down there and see her. I’ll introduce you and you’ll tell her then.” And I said, “Okay, I’ll go there and we’ll see what happens.”

And we went to the basement, the new basement at the time, I think. Seemed like that’s where it was. And he walked straight back into the back green room and he said, “This is Brandi Carlile. Brandi Carlile, this is a Amanda Shires.” And she was very clearly about to walk up on the stage and sing. She’d given her wife a hug and was walking on the stage turning up, and I said, “I’m Amanda Shires and I have this idea. We’re going to start a band, it’s called the Highwomen, and we’re going to do this, this and that.” And she looked at me and she said, “Hi, Amanda Shires. How about we talk about this some more later?” I said, “Okay.” And then I called an Uber and left.

And Dave gave her my number, and then we talked later and started talking more about it. And Dave introduced us to Natalie Hemby, who at that time, we were just writing with her on different things and we were writing with different folks just to see what we could do. And one of the days of the session that me and Brandi were doing … Because really it was just me and Brandi at first, but during the session, Natalie came over because we wanted her to sing because we’ve developed this friendship. And she sang and then I got down on one knee and I said, “Would you please join our band?” She said, “Oh I don’t know.” And then Brandi said, “You really should, you really should. You should join our band.” And she said, “We’re playing with Dolly at Newport and you could be in our band and go play with us and sing with us and meet Dolly.”

And then Natalie said, “Well, I’m in. And Brandi called Maren. Brandi called Maren. Maren was at Fallon or something. And Brandi said, “Hey, come sing some songs on the Highwomen record. Bring two songs that you like of yours that you think would fit what we’re doing.” And she said, “Okay.” And that was such a good time that we kept her in there and then made her join the band. And wrote some more in the studio together. Yeah. And then I was thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if some other people could come and go?” Because the idea of the group too is because it’s our second group to all of our own individual careers is, somebody needed to take a break and have babies or somebody’s parents were sick or if they just needed time off for mental purposes or whatever, they could just go do that, and we’d expand the platform, let somebody else come sing in their stead.

And even if you weren’t in the original four that made the record, that we are Highwomen and we accept all, whoever wants to play any instrument or sing or even if your gender isn’t female or non-binary or whatever, you could still come be in our group too. You could be in our group. Doesn’t matter your race or creed or your gender or anything. We’re open, we’re Highwomen. And Jason even has the high women tattoo and-

Buzz Knight:

That’s awesome.

Amanda Shires:

So Cheryl Crow came and played the bass, and we’ve had guests maybe Staples sing with us. And just anybody that’ll sing with us, we do that. And invited Brittany Spencer to be a part of it recently, and we’re going to go appear together at Maren’s final concert of this tour this weekend at the Bridgestone.

Buzz Knight:

Oh that’s just made up my mind. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to go.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, we’re going to sing a couple songs and then … when does this podcast air?

Buzz Knight:

This is now 2023.

Amanda Shires:

So then the next day, we’re going to fly down to the Kennedy Center Honors and play there, the Highwomen. And at the Marin Show, Brandi won’t be there, but Cheryl and Brittany will. But then the next day we’re going to go play at the Kennedy Center Honors and meet the president. And I still haven’t figured out what to wear to that, and I honestly don’t know what to do on those kind of things. I have to watch some YouTubes about where the forks and knives go on the plate. I’m good at sitting up straight and having good posture, but not fidgeting and having a poker face at a knot poker table or a knot craps table or a not blackjack table is just not me. I can play, I can gamble but it’s hard to sit still at one of these things.

Buzz Knight:

So will there be another Highwomen album?

Amanda Shires:

I think so. When I think about it, when I’ve been noticing on our phone, we’ve been playing more shows recently, making more appearances and we all put up out our own records. See this is how I lead with the art. I’m doing it right now, so I’m not forcing or doing anything, but I know already. You let it happen. There’s less of us sending pictures of our kids and what we’re cooking and it’s turned into more about song ideas. Even in passing at the Loretta Lynn thing, me and Natalie had a strong idea, unconsciously we all know that, that’s happening.

Buzz Knight:

But that’s just honesty, right?

Amanda Shires:

Oh yeah. And then also not getting in the way of the intention. Because it’s easy to be told by folks on the outside or by anybody, any kind of influence. If you all toured or did this, you could make so much money and all that. Or if you did that and you did that, you’d make so much money. Yeah, we’d make money for ourselves and others, but that’s not why we started it. It’s our group that we do to affect change. And like I said, we do our individual artistry, that’s our identities, and you have to maintain your own before you can be in service of another identity as a different part in a bigger collective.

But naturally, it feels like it’s that way, because if you look at it just from the outside, everybody put out records and they’ve toured them. Was a bummer when Covid happened because we had shows planned and things like that. Then we all took financial hits and stuff because of that, and we all survived it and made records and put them out. And it feels like the world is riding itself and in the direction where we could think happily and positively again about not getting our hearts broken that way.

Buzz Knight:

Congratulations on Take It Like a Man.

Amanda Shires:

Oh, thanks.

Buzz Knight:

My God.

Amanda Shires:

Thank you.

Buzz Knight:

How long of a process? That was during Covid that you worked on that, right?

Amanda Shires:

Mm-hmm. I was disenchanted with all of it during Covid. I think I was working myself to burn out. There’s all kind of things going on. I write every day and it’s not necessarily for songs, it’s just to keep the pin sharp. And I also do poems, I have a master’s in poetry. I’ve published one and decided that I would wait until I had a whole book before I published a whole collection and not pressuring myself to finish it. Because I want it to be done with the right choices behind it and not ever be influenced by things like deadlines or advances. I don’t even want an advance, just want to turn in a done book and not have anybody say boo about it or offer their input on the collection, because I’m the one sitting with it all day.

Anyway, but they can’t edit it and decide which ones they want out. They just can’t tell me to write more. Yeah. But anyway, so when I get there, I’ll get there. The problem is this, I’m Amanda Shires and I play the fiddle, and I learned to play western swing and country. I grew up doing it. I also learned at the same time how to play in rock and roll bands because nobody was playing country or western swing. And I also learned how to play classical because I loved it. And I also learned a little bit of bluegrass but not too much, because western swing folks would get mad. So I was very well versed on this instrument. Now at the same time, growing up, fiddle is not a popular instrument. What are you going to do with that? There’s not a lot of lead people, lead singers and rock bands playing a fiddle.

Buzz Knight:

The band had a little run with that.

Amanda Shires:

I mean, they did and Bowie had a little bit of a fiddle player, but it was like you weren’t the artist though, like Charlie Daniels, but that’s country and all that. I do rock and country and folk songs and songs of the people or whatever, what people now call songwriter music or Americana. But I take it further, I try to make new sounds and keep the instrument going too further in with people my own age or people younger. Because you could see classical violin, that’s a thing people do, and sometimes jazz. But in the mainstream part of the world, there’s not a lot of folks doing it really.

Buzz Knight:

Lawrence gave you some added confidence for your mission, didn’t he?

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, he did. When they see the fiddle, they want to make me more country. And I like country, I love it and all that, and I get it. But I’m not trying to do what’s already been done. And not that all country has been done, I have a thing I’m trying to do. Even though I broke my finger in 2011 and still have three pins in it, on my fiddle plan finger, I can still get down and jam the hell out of it. If we were in the dueling fiddle situation or cutting heads, as Jason was saying, if we were having a fiddle off or even with guitar players, I can out solo some of the best of them. And if you don’t believe me, get me on that stage and I will show you your ass.

So what they did, they don’t try to make me do … Like me in service of the song, they’re not like, “Oh, we can’t do effect pedals on your fiddle and do effects.” Guitar players use all these cool pedals, why can’t I? Because it’s a fiddle and you have to stay country. And I like country, but country tends to go forward too. We’re not all singing like Hank Snow right now. I love them, but we’re not all singing Hank Snow right now.

Buzz Knight:

So if somebody was just dropped onto this planet and had never experienced music in their life, how would you explain to them how important music is and what it does and why it’s so a part of our lives?

Amanda Shires:

Well, it’s our first language. We didn’t really have a language before music, we communicated with little rhythms and grunts and sounds. Apparently, that’s what I’ve been told. Singing and then connection, whether or not … Past that idea, doesn’t matter what language you speak, we’ve all been making joyful noises for a long time. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, when you put on music, you can feel a way, feel a certain way, and that makes you feel things. And music also is so attached with our memories that you can remember … If you hear a song, you’ll remember a detail about your own life or something that occurs to you that you haven’t thought of in a long time and might make you call somebody or think about something or change your mind about something. Music has the power to change people’s minds.

And more than that, you get in a room with people to see music, you’re in that room and it’s like a synergy. It works both ways of the live concert. You got a community in music, when you go out to a live show, those people and yourself have something in common with one another. So in that room, you feel less alone in the world. But if you hear songs too, it gives you language to your own emotions and feelings. How many times were we even younger or even grownups? Now do we say, “Oh, I was thinking about you today. Here’s this song.” Or, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re going through that. There’s this song that I like to play sometimes when I feel this way.”

Or sometimes when you have nothing to say, you can just listen to music. Not only is it the background to our lives here, this person that we’ve never met, that’s landing on our planet, also, do you need something different than oxygen to breathe while I tell you this story? Because if you’re running low, that’s cool. I heard you live in a spaceship under the water. Is that true? Okay, back to music. I was talking to our invisible alien or whoever it was. But you could even play some music for this creature that we haven’t named and they’d probably … Have you ever read that book, Stranger in a Strange Land?

Buzz Knight:

No, I know the song, I don’t ever read the book. Is that Robert Heinlein?

Amanda Shires:

Yes.

Buzz Knight:

I think, yes.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

Okay, I have read it. That was many years ago.

Amanda Shires:

I could be mistaken. Is there a part in there where he hears music for the first time? I haven’t read in about six years.

Buzz Knight:

That’s a good one to go back on.

Amanda Shires:

I just wonder. But there’s a thing that happens where you can feel it or you can tap it out or not, or you can just hate it. You could listen to Fugazi for two weeks and you want to turn it off. I don’t know. There’s things to like about it because it led me to Leonard Cohen. But it is, if you can’t sing or even hold a tune, you don’t have to play an instrument to enjoy it, a place where you can oftentimes find common ground or conversation with folks. If you have nothing to talk about, you can generally talk about music. I don’t know many people that you can’t talk to about it, of course, except for the hearing impaired. And there’s different way for music with that, for sure. Then we’d have to get into specifics of what type of music we’re listening to. But anyway, all that to say, it’s a connective and it’s universal, and I treat it very, very seriously. I don’t take myself seriously, but I take the music seriously because it’s an energy. If you’re going to sing something, that energy goes somewhere.

Buzz Knight:

I like how you take a question inside out, you find something on the end of it to nip and tuck and poke at. That’s a fun way to take a question. I wasn’t on my best behavior for it at first, but hopefully I’m learning the Amanda Shires’ way.

Amanda Shires:

Oh, I’ve been told I’m a non-linear thinker.

Buzz Knight:

Totally, totally.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah.

Buzz Knight:

So your attraction-

Amanda Shires:

That’s part of my self acceptance, I’m working on it. Because for a long time I didn’t like any part of the music business that wasn’t music, because the interview part would freak me out because I always get in my head about, “They’re not going to understand me,” and then I just look forward to something like, if they care enough to interview you, they’re going to put up with your non-linear joke.

Buzz Knight:

Of course. No, it’s very linear.

Amanda Shires:

And it’s in a circle, it’s a steady circle.

Buzz Knight:

It is, but it’s not a boring circle-

Amanda Shires:

Oh, that’s good.

Buzz Knight:

… by any stretch of the imagination. Circles inside a circle.

Amanda Shires:

Yeah, you could ask me anything now.

Buzz Knight:

So what about birds?

Amanda Shires:

So it’s about freedom and it’s about the way they look, and it’s about their traits and their unique to them things like with the crows. And they can make tools. It’s all very fascinating to me how there are different bird calls and what they mean, all that. I can’t get over it.

Buzz Knight:

Well, I think it’s about the joy of them too.

Amanda Shires:

The joy of them. They’re magic though, aren’t they?

Buzz Knight:

I mean, the joy is spectacular. Yeah.

Amanda Shires:

And they don’t seem to want for much. It’s not like they’re seeking a new car or a shiny new birdhouse.

Buzz Knight:

Well, I think the great joy of being able to have this opportunity to speak to you on my podcast, I can’t thank you enough, Amanda Shires.

Amanda Shires:

I’m really so glad that you’d have me, really.

Buzz Knight:

This is so special. I’m so grateful, and thank you for this. But thank you for your music as well.

Amanda Shires:

Oh, no problem. I’m just now starting to settle down, so I promise I’ll talk less about me, more about you all. I know it’s an unnatural thing in the interview where we just talk about me. It feels funny, but I’m doing it.

Buzz Knight:

Well, you did a terrific job.

Amanda Shires:

Well, thank you.

Buzz Knight:

Thank you very much.

Amanda Shires:

Thank you. I had a coffee and lots of candy.

Buzz Knight:

Thank you, Amanda.

Amanda Shires:

And if you ever need a break, you just say, “Hold on, I got to eat this candy.”

Buzz Knight:

Taking a walk with Buzz Night is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.

After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.