It’s none of my business but it breaks my heart

Very sad days for Americana-oriented LGMers…

Jason Isbell and his wife, fellow singer and frequent collaborator Amanda Shires, have filed for divorce after nearly 11 years of marriage.

The two singers were married in February 2013 following Isbell’s decision to get sober the previous year and time in rehab. They were married shortly after finishing Isbell’s Southeastern album, on which Shires performed vocals and fiddle. And the leadoff track, “Cover Me Up,” was a deeply personal song written by Isbell to his wife.

Isbell credited Shires with convincing him to go to rehab and sober up, after he confessed to her that he needed help with his addiction.

I’ve seen Amanda three times on her own and Jason a great number of times, both on his own and originally with the Truckers. I am pretty sure that we caught their last show together on October 13 at the Ryman, when Shires opened for Isbell then played with the 400 Unit. The dissolution of a marriage is simultaneously public and private, no matter how famous the partners are; you always have to manage relations with the community of in-laws and friends that have a certain kind of investment in the relationship as a social building block. A divorce impacts all manner of different communities, from work to school to neighborhood to work to civil society. Jason and Amanda have lived an extraordinarily public marriage, and while I’d like to wish them both the privilege of utmost privacy, especially regarding the nasty bits that always exist and no one ever wants to surface, it’s also the case that they’re relationship has had an unusually broad social impact that a lot of folks are feeling today. Furthermore, the marriage has been key to the evolution of each as an artist, both in the standard ways proximity between artists will affect one another’s work, and in that each has written multiple songs about the other and about the relationship as a whole. In any case, I wish both of them (and their daughter) a smooth process and a tolerable aftermath.