Kalie Shorr Talks “Time’s Up” by Song Suffragettes

Article by CMT's Lauren Tingle

"On the night of the 75th annual Golden Globes, Kalie Shorr dressed in black and went to a viewing party at her friend Kim Paige’s house. Other girlfriends were there rocking the same matching color as a show of solidarity with the Hollywood actors supporting the Time’s Up movement at the ceremony.

Shorr says everything the female winners said onstage at the Beverly Hilton that night was something she and her girlfriends needed to hear. The entire party represented all realms of the Nashville music industry and each of them have either experienced workplace misconduct or counseled others who have survived it.

'The speeches that night were so incredible,' Shorr tells CMT.com. 'We were all just super inspired. It was mostly female artists in the room and all girls in the industry who have seen it to some degree and most of them to a pretty high degree.'”

Watch Female Country Musicians Band Together in Powerful 'Time's Up' Video

Article by Rolling Stone's Jon Freeman

As the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements begin to make their presence felt in country music, the Nashville-based songwriting collective Song Suffragettes is taking a strong stand against discrimination and harassment with the song "Time's Up." The video made its debut on Friday.

23 Rising Female Country Singers Unite for 'Time's Up' Song, Video

Article by Taste of Country's Billy Dukes

"Twenty-three of country music's rising female stars got together to make a powerful statement. "Time's Up" is a collaborative message that adds to a swelling conversation about mistreatment of women in society.

The seed of the song was planted during the Golden Globes, where dozens of actors and actresses wore black to support Time's Up, a legal defense fund set up to support victims of sexual harassment and assault."

Song Suffragettes Cover Keith Urban’s New Song “Female”

Article by Nashville Gab's Jen Swirsky

"Last week on the 51st Annual CMA Awards, Keith Urban debuted a new song, “Female.” The song was inspired by the many reports now emerging in the public about sexual assault and harassment in the entertainment industry.

Penned by Shane McAnally, Nicolle Galyon, and Ross Copperman and produced by Urban and Dan Huff, the song has made waves and touched people nationwide. The proof came when the song soared to No. 1 on iTunes immediately following Urban’s award show performance."

Keith Urban Shouts Out All-Female ‘Female’ Cover

Post by Radio.com's Robyn Collins

"Song Suffragettes, a woman-only showcase in Nashville who live by the motto, “Let the girls play,” have collaborated to create a moving cover of Keith Urban’s new “Female.” The country superstar was impressed.

“LOVE this cover!!! You all ROCK!” Urban wrote, sharing a link to the video."

See the Song Suffragettes' All-Women Cover of Keith Urban's 'Female'

Review by Rolling Stone's Marissa R. Moss

For all the discussion surrounding Keith Urban's "Female" – whether it does too much, says too little, uses the wrong pronouns – one thing it has done is help keep afloat the conversation about the never-ending gender imbalance in country music.

#LetTheGirlsPlay: Savannah Keyes More Than Just "Talk"

Review by Billy Dukes, Photo by Sean O'Halloran

It’s a strange thing to hear Savannah Keyes talk about the things that have gone wrong in her life. It’s a strange thing to believe anything has.

But the California-born, Sandy, Utah-raised singer-songwriter is human, so her life has featured plenty of highs and lows. On stage Keyes talks a mile a minute with teenage enthusiasm straight out of central casting. She’s wide-eyed and witty. Call her anything but “shy.” A favorite response to good news or the most mildly remarkable occurrence (like say, a 90-year-old in the audience) is, “Oh my God, that’s incredible.”

The 19-year-old is infectious in every good way possible. When asked for a 5-year-goal she immediately lights up with, “If you’re talking big picture, I would love to perform on Good Morning America. I watch it every single morning. I’m not even kidding. I wake up at 7AM just to watch it.”

Somehow it feels like April’s #LetTheGirlsPlay artist of the month wakes the world around her up as well.

While she admits she may forever consider herself a newcomer, Keyes has been at it for years. At age 13 Ellen DeGeneres discovered a cover of a Miranda Lambert song and brought her to the show to sing the Dixie Chicks. A few short years later she was living on her own in Nashville, a 16-year-old signed to Republic Nashville. That marriage dissolved in 2016 and songs like “Talk” are finally free for the world to hear. It’s best to hear it without introduction:

“Imagine if you’re walking down the street and somebody just walks up to you out of nowhere and says, ‘Hey, by the way I’m your dad,’ and asks things of you that you’re not willing to give,” Keyes says.

That’s more or less what happened last year. Her birth father, a man she had never known, tried to reach her on Facebook. Her response was to write a song she hopes he hears. It’s a devastating way to repudiate someone’s advances, but who could blame her?

“I have a dad now, and he’s amazing and I didn’t want anything to do with it,” she says.”I gave him 19 years … and you can’t come around when it’s going right.”

The mood of this conversation hardly breaks from the upbeat, positive, professional tone set by her telling stories of karaoke at age four in a sleepy California farming town (Disney and Dolly Parton songs were her jams). Keyes recalls feeling liberated at age 16 when her mother went back to Utah, leaving her to figure out life on her own. Even separating from her record label and learning an ex-boyfriend had written a hit song about you (she won’t say which) sounds like something we’d want to happen to us!

During a recent Song Suffragettes concert, Keyes performed “Talk,” an ex-boyfriend song called “Bad Tattoos” and a modern pop-country original called “2000 and Us.” Between songs she told bad jokes and jumped into the normal #LetTheGirlsPlay banter like a seasoned pro, which even at a young age she is. There’s no sense of giving up, nor any sense that there ever was. She comes from a family of athletes, and so often a first-generation starving artist lives in fear of that phone call from home that says, “Why don’t you come on back and get a real job?”

“I think that that’s a fear of anyone at any stage of life when you’re chasing a dream,” Keyes admits. “It’s taking a little longer to work out than the way you originally planned it would.”

It’s working out, however. A publishing deal and one of her songs on hold by a major artist (again with the secrets Savannah!? Geesh!) have her looking way ahead in 2017. You’ll also find her on red carpets doing correspondence work for Radio Disney. She even got to interview Lambert recently, who recalled writing her own songs at age 20. Ironically she’s getting her chance to “Talk” to her heroes.

Song Suffragettes: All You Wanted

Five Song Suffragettes singers brought an early 2000s hit to life during a recent #LetTheGirlsPlay show in Nashville. Kalie Shorr, Lena Stone and three more rising singers and songwriters closed a show with a cover of Michelle Branch‘s “All You Wanted.”

This acoustic version of Branch’s 2001 hit from The Spirit Room features Stone and Shorr on guitar, and Lexi Mackenzie adding percussion. Savannah Keyes and Jessica Roadcap are also onstage. Each artist takes a part of the verse or chorus before all five come together to carry the song through its climax to a calming end.

The weekly #LetTheGirlsPlay shows at the Listening Room in Nashville are the place to find the response to country music’s lack of females in the format. It’s not just about getting women on the radio. Songwriters join together to sharpen their skills and try out new ideas in a safe space. Shorr is the group’s first breakout star, with a song called “Fight Like a Girl” on SiriusXM and Spotify.

---

#LetTheGirlsPlay was created in response to the lack of females having success in country music. Female songwriters are also poorly represented, but last year saw some significant shifting after years of ignoring the problem. Taste of Country is proud to be part of the solution.