Amanda Shires

Amanda 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. 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. That is not to say that the songs on her new album, My Piece Of Land, aren’t entertaining, but that quality is a by-product. The real intention here is to relate.

The Jayhawks are back with a stunning new album. It’s their first in five years, and one of their finest achievements in a long, acclaimed career. Praise for Paging Mr. Proust is plentiful.

“From the opening notes of “Quiet Notes & Empty Spaces,” it quickly becomes clear that Paging Mr. Proust will be something special. Gary Louris’ delicate tenor floats atop beds of lush harmonies through the song’s unforgettable melody and chorus, and it’s only the beginning. Proust is the Jayhawks’ ninth album since coming together in Minneapolis in 1985….Louris and the band’s late 1990s lineup play like they never parted, with scintillating results.” – Sam Gnerre, Daily Breeze