She Is The Music And Nashville Women Team To Give Young Female Artists A Voice

Forbes

5 days ago

L - R Maggie Rose, Sinclair, Jillian Jacqueline, Mary Margueritte, Stella Prince, Summer Joy
Look at any list of the greatest country artists of all time and you'll see the number of female artists who have dominated the genre – Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood, Barbara Mandrell, Emmylou Harris, June Carter Cash, Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker, Taylor Swift, The Chicks, The Judds, Crystal Gayle, Alison Krauss and Martina McBride leading up to the more contemporary artists; Shania Twain, Kelsea Ballerini, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson, Dasha, Megan Moroney, Sierra Farrell, Willow Avalon, Alana Springsteen.
There's no question from the roots of the genre until today women have played a pivotal role in the success of country music. All of this begs the question: how the hell can only eight percent of the artists played at country radio right now be women?
That's right, eight percent! This is according to a recent study by The Tennessean.
Gender inequity at radio is sadly nothing new. I remember Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow telling me in separate interviews how rock radio told them both separately at the beginnings of their career that rock radio could not add two women at once.
However, where other genres are getting better, country seems particularly egregious. To not even reach 10 percent is insulting to all involved and indicates how much needs to change, which is exactly what a group of industry power players are attempting to do in Nashville.
She Is The Music, a non-profit organization co-founded by Alicia Keys, Jody Gerson, Ann Mincieli and Samantha Kirby Yoh, dedicated to increasing the number of women working in the music industry, has teamed up with radio veteran Leslie Fram's FEMco and Marcie Allen's Anzie Blue, Nashville's only independent female-owned venue, which has a 95 percent female staff, have teamed up for a monthly showcase dedicated to featuring up and coming female artists in all genres.
'We are thrilled to announce our Nashville She Is The Music artist showcase and educational workshop series in partnership with Marcie Allen and Leslie Fram. There are so many talented women in Nashville; artists and songwriters deserving of a break and recognition, as well as aspiring executives who can learn more about our business through the workshops. Bringing these events together monthly will allow us to continue to spotlight and increase the number of women working in our industry,' Gerson told me.
Leslie Fram and Marcie Allen
'This monthly series is about more than just performances and panels—it's about creating real access and opportunity. By connecting talented women with the right people, resources, and education, we're helping to open doors that can lead to lasting careers and a more inclusive future for the music industry,' Michelle Yablans, Executive Director of She Is The Music said.
The series kicked off last week, Wednesday July 16, with a sold-out show. The next one will be August 27 and will include Brittney Spencer.
I spoke with Fram as well as artists Maggie Rose and Stella Prince, who performed last week, about the series and why it is so essential to wake up country radio to the glut of female talent out there not being given a chance by radio.
Steve Baltin: How has your radio background influenced you?
Leslie Fram: It's tough because I came from a radio background, but not country radio. I came from rock radio, and I always as a program director thought that the best way to really serve the audience and to get ratings was balance and that was balance of sound and balance of gender. Unfortunately, it's not like that in country radio. I've never programmed country radio, but I worked at CMT for 13 years. We started in 2000 programming all of our channels 50/50 male female because of the disparity for women on country radio. It was really our way of supporting female artists.
Baltin: When did you start in radio??
Fram: I started radio in 1980, and I did top 40 radio for many years and then in 1992, me and several other people created 99 X in Atlanta and it was the beginning of in the early 90s there were a handful of alternative radio station stations around the country. KROQ L.A., 91 X San Diego, HFS Q 101 Chicago, 99 X Atlanta and it was right at the beginning of the whole Seattle movement. So, I was on that radio station doing mornings and program director at that radio station and I worked there for 17 years. So, my early beginnings in radio were top 40, then right into alternative and then I worked in New York for three years at a radio station 101RXP and I did mornings with Matt Pinfield and programmed that station. And it was like a rock hybrid. Then I came to Nashville to do country in CMT in 2011. And the first thing I noticed was the lack of support for women. I was shocked because women dominate pop and the pop charts. The way the system worked here, especially around that time, is it was really difficult to even get on a tour unless you had a song on the radio. So, all of the elements were really against women and yeah, there was a time when it was great for women in country, but the fact that the numbers are so low and that we've gone backwards, we're really hurting livelihoods. A lot of the programs that we established at CMT were for women, like 'Next Women of Country.' We started this franchise at the end of it. Before I left, we had over 111 women that were in the program. We'd play their videos and push out content. We started a tour for women, all because women needed a stage to play on, to get paid, and to be recognized. And I believe women are making some of the best music. It's just really difficult for them to get on terrestrial radio. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to, when I started my company, really start another franchise to support women in all genres.
Baltin: How have you seen the lack of support affect women?
Fram: It's really been my fight from the beginning of supporting women because what I've seen firsthand and heard stories, I've seen how the lack of support has affected a lot of women, especially in the country genre.
Baltin: So, tell me about then the event Wednesday night and how this will lead to change.
Fram: I think because our missions are all aligned with, She Is The Music and what Marcie has been doing at AB, what I did at CMT and what I'm doing with FEMco, I think it just reinforces our mission to combat gender discrimination, to try to create equitable opportunities for female artists. We want to create this broader movement for inclusivity in music. And I think what we're doing with all genres, if you looked at who played the other night, the beauty of it is that some of the artists that didn't know each other, now they know each other, they're all exchanging phone numbers, they want to write with each other. Sinclair, who I've known since I moved here 13 years ago, who's an amazing pop artist, fell in love with Summer Joy and wants to work with her. So, those are the type of things that we see happen. And knowing now that She Is The Music wants to do this on a monthly basis is really meaningful.
Summer Joy
Baltin: What are the long-term goals?
Fram: In Nashville, we also try to support the female producers, engineers and songwriters. But it's still not easy in those [other] genres as well to even get on to festivals and tours. It's very difficult in country because a lot of the artists really dictate who go out on tour with them. What's great is we do have a lot of male artists that bring women out on tour. Keith Urban's one of the best, but then you have the female artists that really support other female artists. Miranda Lambert's been doing it for years, and so this is really a way to broaden this appeal and broaden this movement, and I think it will. We had a great turnout the other night, and again, seeing the camaraderie between the artists to me is the most special part of that night.
Baltin: Will there be plans at some point to take this out on the road?
Fram: I one thousand percent believe it's viable because if you look at what Brandie Carlile has done with her festival and again, it's all genres. There are so many amazing female artists, as you mentioned, even in the Americana space, that I completely love. And I think the time is now to do something like this. Again, I think the genre lines are blurred. You have a lot of artists that cross a lot of different lines. And it's just about great music and celebrating female voices. I was at those original Lilith Fair's. And what's great is that when I worked at this alternative station in the '90s, 99X in Atlanta, we played Sarah McLachlan. We were the No Labels station. We just wanted to play great music. We supported Sheryl Crow and Sarah McLachlan. And Sheryl, living in Nashville I get to see her all the time, she waves the flag for other women all the time. And a lot of these women that are up and coming are just getting into their careers, she has been a mentor to them. So, I think the time is right.
Baltin: Like you said, the time would be right for another touring package. But for the moment you're starting in Nashville, it's going to be monthly. Will you also be looking to bring in special guests, because obviously if you're having new artists do this, you want to bring people in to draw attention to it?
Fram: Yeah, we will definitely have special guests. I think it's going to grow into something that we don't even know what's going to happen next, but at least we've started, and we've seen that the environment is perfect. Nashville has so many talented women in all genres. And we're starting to get outreach from women that have heard about it, they would love to be part of it. So, I'm really excited that she is the music and AB want to do this on a monthly basis. It's probably one of my dream come true scenarios. I love all music, but I really, right now want to help the female artists.
Baltin: Leslie was telling me that one of the nice things about Wednesday was artists developing these relationships.
Stella Prince: That is absolutely true. I think my favorite thing about Wednesday night was obviously that it was an all-female lineup, but something interesting about it was that it was all different genres of women artists, and I feel like that doesn't happen too often. Every artist was in their entirely different genre, and I thought that was just the coolest thing, just going one after the other. There was folk, country, Americana, rock. It was really interesting, And I know that they did that on purpose, and they want to continue to do that and have it be all genres. I thought that was the most unique part of the whole evening.
Baltin: Do you feel like you learn then by being with artists at different points in their career?
Prince: That's exactly right. Maggie Rose is an artist who I've heard of for years and it was my first time meeting her on Wednesday night. She was so sweet, she came up to me and said, 'I moved to Nashville when I was 19 and I did this and this at this age.' It was such a moment where it was so amazing to have that connection with another female artist and learn from them and hear about their story. I feel like that's kind of the whole goal of their events is passing down the torch and having female artists just learn from each other and get to know each other and support each other. That's exactly what it was Wednesday night.
Baltin: So how would you like to see it expand? We talked about bringing in bigger artists who could draw attention to it as special guest stars.
Prince: Yeah, I think that's an unbelievably brilliant idea. And what I've done for the past couple months is do the Stella Prince and friends events at AB. (t's been four to five female artists each time and I just started doing that in LA at Hotel Café. So, I really love that idea of having it be a continuous thing and the idea of taking it on tour is so interesting to me because I've done one event like this in London one event in Berkeley in Maine and Connecticut and then we did it in New York city. And that I almost think is my favorite part of doing it, because when you pick the local artists, that is so interesting and so cool to find those up and coming local artists.
Baltin: For you, how important are things like this to not only draw attention to the fact there are so many female artists out there, but also get to meet everybody?
Prince: The fact that it's not competitive and it's lifting each other up, I think is the single thing that's going to change everything. And I know that everyone talks about how it's so competitive, especially among young women, but the fact that it's just a different mindset, especially Wednesday night, of everyone going into it, everyone being on the same page, and everyone being supportive of everyone, I think that positivity and that attitude is really going to change the game. It really is going to change everything.
Baltin: How do you see it changing?
Prince: What this is doing to me is it's giving women opportunities. The reason there's so much competition is because there's not that many opportunities for women or there haven't been. Now that all these initiatives are starting to take place that's what's making it feel like women have a place, women can do this too and It's really phenomenal. What I want to come out of it is I want the industry to see that female artists can do this, that women have a place in music.
L - R Cathy Lewandowski, Nicole Onufrey, Scarlett Burke, Marcie Allen, Stella Prince Baltin: What did this show mean to you?
Maggie Rose: I would say that the inequity at country radio specifically was a big factor in me leaving the genre, but the inequity is pervasive and it's in every space. Leslie Fram has been a cheerleader of mine for a long time. I picked up a magazine that had a feature on her and I'm just reading through it and there's a quote from her about me specifically saying, 'This town can't figure it out. All these labels went to go see Maggie for a showcase and they said they loved what she does, but they don't know what to do with her.' And she just got really sick of this complacency that she was seeing in our town of, if there's not this cookie cutter mold that the female artist fits in, or if the radio station has met its quota for, having however many females on their playlist, then they say, 'Okay, we're good.' And it's just been stagnant for so long. And the other night was so awesome because every artist was really different and had their own voice and originality and there is variety and the female artistry in Nashville, I think was represented so wll that night. We haven't mined that gold in our town well, and we all need to do a better job of it and Leslie is such a great proponent for that.
Baltin: Why do you think that is?
Rose: Kacey Musgraves doesn't get played, Margot Price doesn't get played. I have a podcast called Salute the Songbird. It's all women and there's no shortage of guests that I want to have. I've done four seasons of it and the list of who I want to interview is way longer than who I've gotten to talk to thus far. Sadly, a portion of the conversation always comes to this topic, at least for a little bit of our conversation, because my theory is that country music in the commercial sense has been co-opted by a larger cultural thing that doesn't really have as much to do with the artist as it does with the movement and like the associations with commercial country music. The Recording Academy just came out with a new category of traditional country music. I think that's a step in the right direction to start to identify the nuances in all the sub-genres that are emerging in that genre. But my nomination for the Grammy last year was the Americana Album nomination. And I was in that category with Sierra Farrell and Charlie Crockett and people who I think consider themselves to be country. But there's not really a home for them in Nashville, in country music, in that community, where they're going to get played on the radio.
Baltin: Do you see change coming?
Rose: I am an optimist, and I believe that excellence will survive and rise to the top. It just takes some persistence and tenacity to get there but a song that I have coming out a week from yesterday is a song called 'Poison in my Well' that I played on Wednesday and my duet partner is Grace Potter. She and I have talked about this at length too because she has that career where she's beloved, she's every musician's favorite musician but she and I are not getting played on the radio, we're not in that short playlist on any station but I think we have meaningful careers and people that seem to follow, but we're not getting that like commercial push that I think we would both enjoy a break like that. And I do think some people are getting breaks where it's not a meritocracy and it's hard to figure out why something gets all this weight thrown behind it and other things don't. So, I think we do need a conversation of what Leslie is doing with FEMco.
Baltin: Tell me about the show Wednesday from your perspective.
Rose: What I would like to see happen specifically as it pertains to Wednesday is a higher frequency of events like that because there is an abundance of artists who I think need to be amplified. And I realized that we just need a little nudge within our own community of female artists to share those trade secrets and to feel comfortable to be like, 'Yeah, this does suck. And this is how I navigated this situation.' Feeling like we have an open forum to talk about it cause there's some of that happening on social media, but I think it still makes us feel like we're all working within silos, and we aren't. We're very much connected to each other. And musically, we were all really different the other night but those are relationships that I feel like I'm going to have for a long time just because of what the night was about and the things that we got to talk about backstage. So, having that community there and feeling like it's okay to air our grievances and try to find solutions together I think is what will result from more of the family.