Following her parents' divorce, Shires' childhood was divided between the Texas cities of Lubbock and Mineral Wells.[4] Her mother is a retired nurse. She also used to be a barrel racer at rodeos.[5] Her father owns a wholesalenursery in Mineral Wells and has a hobby of gold prospecting in Alaska.[5] She is distantly related to noted photographer Erica Shires, who produced the video for the song "Swimmer".[6]
At the age of 10, she happened to be with her father while he was shopping for hunting gear at a pawn shop in Mineral Wells.[5][7] She saw an inexpensive Chinese-made fiddle for sale and her father agreed to buy it for her on the condition that she learn to play it.[5][7][8] It took a while for her to play it well; she usually practiced outside because her dog had a habit of howling while she played.[9] When she was 12, she started taking fiddle lessons in Lubbock from Lanny Fiel, who knew Frankie McCourter from the Texas Playboys.[10] She then started learning fiddle from McCourter and was later invited to play at the band's shows.[10] At the age of 15, she joined the Texas Playboys, the former backing band for Western swing legend Bob Wills.[11]
Musical career
Shires performing in 2016
At the encouragement of Billy Joe Shaver, whom she joined to play fiddle with on tour, in 2005 Shires released her first solo album, the mostly instrumental Being Brave.[12][13]Todd Snider then further promoted Shires by having her open shows for him as a solo performer.[12]
Four years later, having relocated to Nashville,[11] she released West Cross Timbers. Shires considers West Cross Timbers as her actual debut album as a solo singer-songwriter, explaining in interviews that she sets Being Brave aside from her later releases as "just demonstrations of my fiddle playing",[14] describing the album as a type of résumé offered to Texas Playboys show attendees: "When we toured it was expected that the fiddle players would have their own stuff to sell; which is why I recorded Being Brave, which isn’t really a ‘debut’ album, but more of a showcase for my playing and occasional singing."[15]
Carrying Lightning, Shires next solo album, was released in 2011, and she was named Artist of the Year 2011 by Texas Music magazine,[23] appearing on the publication's Winter 2012 cover.[24]Down Fell the Doves followed Carrying Lightning in August 2013, and My Piece of Land was released in September 2016. The latter proved to be Shires' breakthrough, gaining her a nomination from the Americana Music Association.
After researching the lack of airplay women artists received on American country radio stations, which an academic paper found had dropped to less than twenty percent of songs played by 2018,[28][29] Shires formed the country supergroup The Highwomen, along with Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, and Maren Morris.[30][31] "Redesigning Women" was the first single from their self-titled debut album released on September 6, 2019.[32] Following her 2021 holiday album For Christmas, Shires released her eighth solo album Take It Like a Man on July 26, 2022.
Shires announced her ninth album, Nobody's Girl on July 18, 2025 alongside the release of its lead single "A Way It Goes". It was recorded at Sound Emporium Studios, produced by Lawrence Rothman, and it set for release on September 26, 2025.[33]
Musical style
David Menconi of the magazine Spin said that Shires "sings [...] like an earthbound Emmylou Harris",[18] and her vocals have been likened to those of Dolly Parton.[34][35] Reviewers have variously described a "catch" or "quaver",[36][37] musically called vibrato, in Shire's voice that allows her to express vulnerability or apprehension, or as Jewly Hight writing for NPR explained, acts "as a subtle emotive tool or punctuation in her storytelling, (which) feels like an electrical charge shuddering through the live wire of her voice".[38] The imagery in her songwriting has been compared to that of Tom Waits.[4][35] Although her principal instrument is the fiddle, she also plays the ukulele.[35]
Personal life
Shires began dating fellow musician Jason Isbell in 2011. The couple married on February 23, 2013[39] and had their first child[40] on September 1, 2015.[41][42] She was previously in a relationship with singer Rod Picott.[43] In December 2023, Isbell filed for divorce from Shires.[44] Their divorce was finalized in March 2025.[45]
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