This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. My guest Amanda Shires is a singer,

songwriter, and fiddle player. She performs in several settings and has received awards in each

of them. In 2017 for her solo work, she was named Emerging Artist of the Year at the Americana

Music and Honors Awards ceremony. The next year she won a Grammy for Best Americana album as part

of her husband's group, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Shires plays fiddle in the band.

She co-founded the country's supergroup, The High Women, which includes Brandy Carlyle,

Marin Morris, and Natalie Hempi. In 2020, The High Women won album of the year at the Americana

Music Honors and Wart ceremony. Shires started playing fiddle professionally when she was 15,

with the band The Texas Playboys, which used to be led by Bob Will's The Father of Western Swing.

Shires' new album Take It Like A Man includes several songs she wrote that came out of a difficult

period in her marriage to Jason Isbell. I recorded my interview with her last week. She was in her

home recording studio with her fiddle and with guitar and sax-setch field, and they played a few

songs. Let's start with a track from the new album The Song is called Empty Cups.

This

That's

That's Empty Cups from Amanda Shires' new album Take It Like A Man.

That's such a great song Amanda, I'm so glad you wrote it.

How did you come up with the image of my hands or two empty cups?

Honestly, a lot of times my thoughts come to me just in pictures and I kept imagining

how I had nothing left to give and nothing I could do or say to make anything feel right within me somehow.

And so I felt in my mind I felt those things and it was a picture of hands holding on to nothing.

And sometimes you know you can like cup your hands and drink water from them or you could cup your hands.

...