Lubbock-born gem Amanda Pearl Shires steps into the spotlight with the release of her new album, West Cross Timbers. Her clever songs glitter with a tinge of the Western swing she honed so expertly as a side woman for Tommy Allsup and the legendary Texas Playboys, with whom she began work at age 16. Though Shires hasn’t left the band she co-founded, raucous Texas indie rockers The Thrift Store Cowboys, she’s shifted her focus to her solo work for the time being.

“I’ve worked gigs for Billy Joe Shaver, Buzz Cason, Will Kimbrough, Justin Earle, Rod Picott, and lots of other folks. I enjoyed that life but now it’s time to write and play my own music,” says Shires. “For me that took moving away from where I was comfortable. It took waiting tables, being scared, getting lost—it took turning gigs down and staying home versus fiddlin’ on the road. And it took going at it with all my intention and all my heart.”
 
High praise for Shires also comes from Kinky Friedman, who can’t resist any opportunity to sneak in a tongue-in-cheek wedding proposal, as Amanda’s got the grace and beauty that any front woman needs. But don’t let her looks fool you: it’d be a mistake to underestimate the grit underlying her obvious charm, as one listen to West Cross Timbers will tell you. From the first line of the opening tune, “Upon Hearing Violins” (“I hope I haunt you good”), through the pain and confusion of her parents’ early divorce in “Mineral Wells,” Shires keeps the listener enthralled with heartache.

Shires co-produced West Cross Timbers with frequent collaborator Rod Picott. The two left the record roomy, presenting only the essentials. This sparseness is most evident on the murder ballad “I Kept Watch Like Doves,” complete with real birdsong flowing in from the trees outside the studio. “Since they are Nashville birds, I imagine they normally charge a lot for a session, but I think they really believed in this song,” laughs Shires.

Shires tours regularly, often backed by her Band of Men. She’s performed over 300 shows in Europe and the U.S. Her first Jeep, with its two broken windows, four bald tires, absent front brakes, blown radiator, broken taillight, cracked oil pan, and hole-where-the-radio-used-to-be has been retired to a field in Maine.