Amanda Shires Wants Your Country Radio Station to Play More Women

As part of

, we spoke to 

about a whole host of things, from coming up as a side player before releasing her own music to her attraction to gardening and poetry. Shires also spoke frankly about what it means to be a woman in today's male-dominated music industry, particularly in the country segment of it where there's an overwhelming tilt toward male voices.

If you doubt that, just turn on your local country radio station. And if you don't hear any women, maybe you should call them up. That's what Shires did recently while she was driving down the highway with her band, as a Knoxville station played man after man after man. You can read in the interview about her conversation with a DJ at the station, in which she explained her frustration with the fact that they'd just played 18 songs, somewhere around an hour of music, and included just two female voices. Better yet, you can watch the video of the call above. 

The story has a dispiriting coda, too. After Shires hung up with the station, she tells the Scene, the parade of male singers continued for 10 more songs.