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.

Taste Of Country: Greatest Influence

Review by Billy Dukes, Taste of Country

Savannah Keyes is getting the chance to meet some of her idols, but meeting the artist most influential on her music is still a dream that has yet to come true. Still, the April #LetTheGirlsPlay artist of the month imagines what she might say to Dolly Parton if she had the chance …

Parton, Miranda Lambert and others like Ryan Tedder are who have influenced her singing, songwriting and musical career the most. She’s met Lambert. As a correspondent for Radio Disney, Keyes got to speak with the “Tin Man” singer recently, and the advice was to, ‘Stay true to who you are and enjoy little moments like hearing your song on the radio for the first time.’

During a conversation with Taste of Country, the Utah-raised 19-year-old talked about emulating Parton’s humility, her own ups and downs since moving to Nashville (by herself) three years ago and what inspires songs like “Talk.” That may be obvious, actually — anyone who has longed for and then given up on having a parent involved in his or her life can appreciated the ballad’s message.

Keyes’ energy is her signature. She speaks with infectious enthusiasm and sings with equally captivating emotion. As a member of Song Suffragettes, her songwriting skills have only sharpened and her confidence has only skyrocketed as she’s among talented contemporaries. Expect big things from her in 2017. If fact, a major country artist may have one of her songs on hold, but she can’t talk about it.

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.

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#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.

#LetTheGirlsPlay Cover: Little Big Town, ‘Better Man'

Five #LetTheGirlsPlay artists gathered in downtown Nashville recently to deliver their own version of Little Big Town‘s current single, “Better Man.”

The Song Suffragettes always pay tribute to the musical importance of a female performer, and nobody has been more single-handedly important in breaking down barriers, in country music and elsewhere, as Taylor Swift, who conquered country before leaving to go pop. Swift was recently revealed as the songwriter behind “Better Man,” and the five aspiring stars give the song a treatment that is somewhat different from LBT’s, while still honoring the spirit of it.

Kalie Shorr seems to be more and more the ringleader of the movement; as usual, she kicks off this performance and anchors it with acoustic guitar, delivering the opening lines in a muted, introspective near-whisper. Tenille Arts takes the next section, helping to build the intensity, and Lena Stone ratchets up another notch to set up the chorus, for which the ladies join in for the kind of group harmonies that LBT brought so beautifully to the song.

Ashley Gearing jumps in for the first part of the second verse, followed by Stone again, who gives way to Savannah Keyes as the group keeps ebbing and flowing in volume and intensity, crafting a performance that actually takes the song somewhere instead of simply singing it. Gracie Schram sings lead on the second chorus, again accompanied by group harmonies.

The Suffragettes consist of a rotating lineup of the best up-and-coming female singer-songwriters in Nashville, and their Monday night performances at the Listening Room offer them a platform for their original songs, ending each time with a group cover. Taste of Country features a new cover weekly, as well as a monthly feature article on one of the talented women. This month’s featured artist is Tenille Arts.

Savannah Keyes and Friends Honor Reba McEntire at Bluebird Cafe

In the wake of her 2015 divorce from manager/husband Narvel Blackstock, country legend Reba McEntire will manage her own career going forward with the help of her team at Reba’s Business Inc. (RBI). She was previously managed by Blackstock under the couple’s Starstruck Entertainment venture.

“My new management structure is me, my team,” Reba said at Nashville’s famed Bluebird Café on Tuesday while serving as the special guest mentor of the inaugural Change the Conversation Presents: Rising Young Artists Mentoring Sessions. “Narvel has been my manager since 1988, and so I thought it was a good time now to break free of that. So what we’re doing is my team at Starstruck, which is now RBI -- Reba’s Business Incorporated -- we joined together and had a little pow wow at lunch. I said, ‘What do y’all think? Got any ideas?’  And they said, ‘Yeah! As a matter of fact we do,’ and they went rattling off. So Carolyn Snell, Justin McIntosh and Leslie Matthews and I have been having a wonderful time.”

Reba McEntire Teams With Brooks & Dunn For 'Why Haven't I,' 'Play Something Country' at the 2015 CMA Awards

McEntire will serve as president of RBI.  Snell, who has been with Starstruck for nine years as McEntire’s tour manager, will now serve as associate manager/tour manager with RBI. Matthews is brand manager, Theresa Connelly is controller and McIntosh is vp, creative & marketing (RBI/Starstruck).

The singer says she, Snell, Matthews and McIntosh came up with a plan and took their ideas to her label. “We went over to Nash Icon and said, ‘Ok, here’s our list. What do y’all have to add to it?’ We were just going to meet with a few people at Nash Icon and the table was full,” McEntire says. “Everybody was so excited that we were excited and wanting to do things we hadn’t got to do before.”

McEntire let the label know she was open to new possibilities.  “If there was something they had asked for in the past, bring it up again,” McEntire told the staff. “Maybe the situation is different now. Maybe we are ready to do it. We’ve been having a blast.”

Reba McEntire Forgoes Radio Fare for Mature Ballads on 'Love Somebody'

The veteran entertainer stressed her new management arrangement is a team effort. “It’s teamwork. I am a team player. I grew up singing as a trio -- Pake, Susie and myself,” she says of her siblings. “When I had to get out there in front by myself, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as when everybody would come to the front with me and sing and play their instruments. That’s what I’m loving about our team now.  It’s team management. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I sure do like it.”

At the Bluebird Café event hosted by Taylor Guitars, McEntire did an onstage Q&A with Nashville journalist and Change the Conversation co-founder Beverly Keel where she discussed her lengthy career, future plans, the role of women in country music and took questions from the audience.

Formed in 2014 by Keel, CMT senior vp Leslie Fram and Rounder Records Group’s vp of A&R Tracy Gershon, Change the Conversation is a coalition designed to “tackle country music’s gender issues.”  In addition to the Q&A with McEntire, the sold-out Bluebird event also included a new artist showcase featuring up-and-coming country singers Savannah Keyes, Lexi Mackenzie, Kalie Shorr, Alana Springsteen and Allison Veltz.