Amanda Shires hasn’t had much of a 2015 recorded wise, her Sea Songs EP is a bummer, with a lousy version of “Mutineer” included, and a Bruce Springsteen cover earlier in the year didn’t do much either. Her last album is two years old and her life has been on the road when she isn’t recording. It makes you wonder just how much “Americana” has to offer her. If in 2015 country is the child of Jimmy Buffet what does that make Americana? Steve Earle’s bastard of young drag that’s what, and not the cool “Guitar Town” Earle, not even the post junk Earle of “I Feel Alright”. Nah, the proselytizing jerk “OxyContin Blues” Earle.
That oh so serious Americana infects so much stuff, and it is where you find too much country. It is either puerile or self-important, Amanda and Jason sound like the latter. If there is an excuse for the terrible “I Follow Rivers” (stuff happens), and if you figure “Born In The USA” is a restless song anyway, and open to misinterpretation at the best of times, what about “Mutineer”? Bob Dylan had already provided a blueprint for how to get off on Warren Zevon’s monumental love song, there was no excuse for this messy harmonizing, melodic tweak of the nose, and less than glorious take… and kissass rockcrits, who seem in Isbel’s pay nowadays, opinions can be safely ignored in this case.
I blame Amanda’s husband for “Mutineer” because closing her fleet footed 30 minute set last night at City Winery, Amanda took the lead on it and lead her back up performer, husband “Jason Shires” ( she cracked -“I’ve been called worse” Isbel deadpanned), through a deeply moving performance. Perhaps it was the proximity to real country‘s Princess and Prince that made it more enjoyable (it felt like an honor), or maybe the look on Jason’s face, a uxoriousness compounded by Amanda being with baby, deepened the feelings already very strong, or maybe the vision of true love made the most tangible of emotions both a form of voyeurism and empathy that you couldn’t get from file sharing. Whatever the reason, it felt like a truth of love and it was excellent.
Monday was the third of a four date tour supporting another real country icon Lee Ann Womack (I’ll write that review tomorrow), and Amanda had the casual ease of a woman who knows what she is doing. Amanda has played in Jason Isbel’s the 400 Unit band for years, since before they married, they have a comfort level on stage, whoever might be leading and really, Isbel can’t take his eyes off his wife (neither can we). She has an easy going flow, her conversation is mostly interesting, insightful not of the art but of the life she is living, and it is the theatre of the real… “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m pregnant” she says towards the end, but it is just a sweet nod to the self-evident, it doesn’t mean anything.
Am I making Amanda sound maybe a bit of a ninny? I hope not because from an a capella opening, through a whistling (whistling is the new 808) song intro and all the way to a glorious travelling song, Amanda has the set under control. Accompanying her lovely voice on ukulele and violin, and with a husband on acoustic guitar (he breaks into solos twice, first a mariachi finger picker and next a slide guitar) she has the sort of confidence that allows the audience to relax and let her do the driving. Amanda looks on at her husband with unabashed pleasure and feeds off his and our adoration.
But I am not that big a Shires fan; she is a little too tasteful for me. 2013’s Down Fell The Doves, has the name of a chick flick and a consistent wistfulness that drags me. I wasn’t crazy about the songs either, didn’t hate em, but if you wanna sing “A Song For Leonard Cohen”… actually, why do you want to sing “A Song For Leonard Cohen”? “Bulletproof” is the nadir of the album and the evening, she tells a wandering, somewhat unpleasant story leading to the song, which, in a short opening set, felt like robbing Peter for no good reason whatsoever. “Bulletproof” doesn’t stand up to the hard sell either, though it is certainly better live than on record. There is something almost genteel about the woman, resolutely middle class –she is certainly not Kacey Musgraves. According to an interview in the Washington Post a couple of years ago, “(Amanda’s) mother is a onetime rodeo barrel-racer who is now vice president of a hospital in Lubbock; her father owns a wholesale nursery in Mineral Wells, Texas and prospects for gold in Alaska in his spare time.” That genteelness of upbringing informs her personality, she might be able to get Nashville on ya, but I don’t think she can get Waco. If this affects her recorded work, on stage it deepens our relationship with us, she is from the South, but she seems lefty, liberal, educated, beautiful… you know, cool.
Any other complaints? A little more violin would have been nice; that’s her instrument and she is a very melodic player (she plays it like neither a classicist nor a country star, but like a pop performer). That is it for whining. Anybody watching Amanda must admire her sense of self, her strength of character, and by how songs you might not have been much impressed get better on stage: 2011’s “When You Need A Train It Never Comes” for one never really made its point strongly enough, but on stage reveals itself as a gloriously “Up The Junction” story song.
If that wasn’t enough, we are all in the business of gossip, and watching Amanda and Jason so closely, you can see exactly what she did to the former Drive By Trucker guitarist. On stage she matched a passion for music, a sweet but slightly dry vocal, with a charm that felt like we were sharing her life, she let us in, like a door cracked just a little and you could see Shires through Jason’s eyes. You completely get how this brilliant woman could force a man to straighten himself up: forget anything else, if the choice is between Shire and ANYTHING SHE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO DO, choose Shires and be much the better for it.
We did what she wanted us to for just over 30 minutes and now I am gonna have go back through Amanda’s catalog on the assumption that I missed something obvious because I sure underestimated something there. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Grade: A-
