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Top-Selling British Country Duo‘The Shires’ Release New Album Recorded In Nashville

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The new album Good Years is actually their fourth. Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle, who together make up The Shires, have been going strong in the UK for a number of years, but their music is new for most country fans in the U.S.

“To the American market we’ll be brand new,” says Crissie, “but we’ve been established for a while. And we’re such huge fans of Nashville country music.”

Although they not be well-known to fans, the country music industry has been paying close attention to The Shires for a while. In 2017, the duo became the first-ever British act to win a CMA Award. The received the Jeff Walker Global Artist Award for a country act outside the U.S. They’ve also performed on the Grand Ole Opry, at the Bluebird Café, and have opened for Little Big Town, Sam Hunt, and Shania Twain, as well as Carrie Underwood during her Cry Pretty tour stops in England last year.

The duo recently signed with Broken Bow Records and the just-released Good Years album is their first for the label. It features 12 songs, 10 of which they wrote or co-wrote themselves. along with a group of Nashville-based songwriters. Every song showcases The Shires’ signature harmonies and relatable lyrics.

For both Crissie and Ben, their love of country music began long before “country was cool” in their native country. Chrissie discovered the genre at a very young age, thanks to her grandmother.

“My gram used to teach me all of these old country songs and we’d sing them together,” she recalls. “My granddad was in the U.S. military so I can only imagine that she would listen to these songs with him. But the two of us used to sing Tammy Wynette, Jim Reeves, Charley Pride, and Dolly Parton songs. Then, growing up in the 90’s I got to listen to the likes of Leann Rimes, Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and Martina McBride.”

During the 90’s however, the type of music she’s referring to wasn’t considered country in Great Britain and didn’t have the same sound there, that it did in the U.S.

“When those women were being played on the radio here, there weren’t any country instruments behind them at all,” Crissie says. “So, I just thought it was pop music. But I loved the sound of their voices and I used to sit home and practice their songs over and over again.”

Ben has always had a passion for music, but didn’t discover country until about that same time.

“My background is similar to Crissie’s in that I grew up listening to the 90’s artists and I loved them, not knowing they were country,” he explains. “The song “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum was the song that really turned me on to country about eight years ago. I was about to give up on music and I heard that song. Someone said, ’This is country,’ and I thought, wow, this is what I’ve been wanting to do, but didn’t think you could do in music.”

He went on Facebook and wrote a post saying he was looking for a country singer in the London area. Crissie responded and when he shared some of his songs with her, the two hit it off right away. They began creating music together and soon realized they’d have to educate the fans they were hoping to attract.

“When we first got together, people didn’t really know country music apart from the classics like Dolly and Tammy Wynette, and so on. Then we met and wanted to put our British spin on it.”

Crissie explains that in the early days, it was difficult for people in the UK to understand and appreciate country music.

“I think previously people couldn’t relate to the genre because it was all about American things, like cowboys and trucks. And we don’t really have that over in the UK. So, I think it was a relatability thing that we didn’t get. There were also no radio stations that ever played country music and if they did, they removed the banjo and the fiddle, and it was basically a pop track for us. But, with more popular influences and maybe it’s more universal now, as people have listened and seen us on the telly, they’ve said, oh, I like that band, and they’ve looked for other country artists. It’s opened the door so much more.”

Ben says he was drawn to country music because the songs are so real, true to life, and relatable.

“It’s the honesty and the storytelling,” he says. “I think one thing that makes us fundamentally country is that when we sit down and write a song, we start with the lyrics, always. That’s something we did anyway, but we really learned a lot more about that in Nashville, and from writing with Nashville songwriters over the past seven years. I love how we’ll just sit in a room, maybe with us or with another writer, and we’ll have this birth of an idea, and it’s sort of like an imaginary jigsaw puzzle. Then it comes together, you record it, and suddenly you go live and are playing that song to 50,000 people in our shows at home. It’s such a magical thing to be part of.”

He says the songs on Good Years share a little bit of where he and Crissie are in their lives and careers right now. One example is a song called “Crazy Days.” It’s about the hectic life of being on the road, and he wrote it late at night in the shed at the back of his home where he keeps a piano.  

“I have a very young family with two small boys and I wrote the song literally at about midnight with a whiskey on top of the piano. It’s all written to my wife and says, I know it’s really hard right now, but these are the crazy days, and they’re the days we’re going to look back on and remember. We’ll smile about them and say how crazy they were. And I think that kind of set the tone for the rest of the album. It’s very reflective.

Crissie agrees.

“There’s one song called “Independence Day” which you would assume is about your American Independence Day. But, it’s actually about a relationship that’s ended and you’re having a conversation with a friend and kind of giving them that empowerment to know they’re going to be okay on their own.”

The Shires are excited at how country music has grown in Great Britain and are proud of helping making that happen. There are several radio stations that now play country music and there’s also annual festival called Country to Country that features major acts from the U.S.

Ben has a warm memory of how those two worlds came together when he and Crissie had the chance to perform for the first time on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry.

“We walked out into the circle, they’ve got the original circle in the floor from the Ryman Auditorium. And we looked out and we could see a British flag in the crowd and it was funny because it felt like a turning point for British country. For a fan to come and see us play there, we felt really proud. We’d dreamed of playing on the Grand Ole Opry and it was such an honor to be invited.”

And now, with their new Nashville-based album, they’re hoping to bring their style of country music to an even broader fan base.

“To make it in the U.S. is the absolute dream and goal for us,” says Ben.

The Good Years is now available on all music platforms.

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