Naming The Beast: Jason Isbell And Amanda Shires On Speaking Up In 2017
In music and the culture it reflects, 2017 was predictably unpredictable: idols fell, empires shook, consensus was scarce. All this week, NPR Music is talking with artists, makers and thinkers whose work captured something unique about a chaotic year, and hinted at bigger revelations around the bend.
On the first night of Jason Isbell's December residency at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, he chose to share the stage of CMA Theater with only one other performer: his wife, Amanda Shires, a member of his band The 400 Unit and a singer-songwriter in her own right. He was clad in loafers and a blazer, she in sneakers and a leather jacket. Midway through the show, she offered an impish explanation for why she was dressed-down in pants: She'd tired of wearing pantyhose earlier in the day, thanks to a family photo shoot with their young daughter.
The two were operating without the safety net of a set list. He'd pluck gems from his celebrated songwriting catalog, and she'd guess from the initial chords where he was headed, embellishing his storytelling with her wild-eyed, lyrical fiddle solos and fluttery harmonies. They played songs they'd co-written for each of their most recent albums, then he asked her to do another from her repertoire. Between selections, they bantered like highbrow vaudevillians about language use, literary influences and the editorial roles they sometimes play in each other's songwriting process. Though it was Isbell's name attached to the series, an honor shared by the likes of Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Rosanne Cash and Guy Clark before him, the interaction between him and Shires felt like that of artistic and intellectual equals.
In life and music, the couple has a partnership that's closely observed). Separately, each of them piled up professional accomplishments in 2017, she headlining her biggest solo tour yet and winning Americana Emerging Artist of the Year on the heels of her 2016 album , and he besting his previous sales records with and raking in award nominations, including his first for CMA Album of the Year, a category otherwise populated by major label, mainstream releases.
