Woman's Hour - Women in Music: Woman’s Hour at the 6 Music Festival

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

We’re celebrating women in music with this special collaboration between Woman’s Hour and BBC 6 Music, recorded at the 6 Music Festival in Camden, North London. Presenter Georgie Rogers goes backstage at the historic Roundhouse venue to speak to some of the brilliant female artists on the line-up about the women that inspire them and their experiences of the music industry. Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes tells Georgie how it feels to call the shots as a solo artist and shares the women that have inspired her in music and in life. Singer Nadine Shah discusses the gender pay gap in music, why there aren’t more women on festival line-ups and why the ticking of her generation’s biological clocks inspired new album Kitchen Sink. We speak to Jehnny Beth of Savages about starting out in the industry and how both David Bowie and her friend PJ Harvey inspired her first solo album. We also hear from composer Anna Meredith and 6 Music presenter and DJ legend Mary Anne Hobbs - who tells us why an event like the 6 Music Festival’s all-female line-up for International Women’s Day is so vital. Sunday’s bill at the Roundhouse saw Nadine, Jehnny and Anna perform alongside Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon and poet, playwright and rapper Kate Tempest. The BBC 6 Music Festival took over Camden for three days of live music, DJ sets and talks with artists from Bombay Bicycle Club to Paul Weller, Hot 8 Brass Band to Roisin Murphy. You can hear highlights on BBC Sounds and watch some of the best performances on the BBC iPlayer and the 6 Music website. All music featured in this podcast was recorded live at the 6 Music Festival and broadcast on BBC 6 Music. Presenter: Georgie Rogers Guest: Brittany Howard Guest: Jehnny Beth Guest: Nadine Shah Guest: Anna Meredith Guest: Mary Anne Hobbs Producer: Sarah Jane Griffiths Editor: Karen Dalziel

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Woman's Hour podcast, recorded here at the BBC Six Music Festival in Camden, North London. I'm your host, Georgie Rogers, and we're at the historic venue, The Roundhouse, to hear from some of the biggest and best female artists playing the festival, including the women on Sunday's all-female line-up to mark International Women's Day. Hello, this is Nadine Shah.

My name is Brittany Howard. Nice to meet you. Hello, I am Jenny Buff. I am at Six Music Festival with Women's Hour. Let's go inside and speak to some of them. The stage here at the Roundhouse has played host to so many legendary names, like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix. And all of the headliners here ended up being women this weekend. Brittany Murphy was bumped up Friday night's line-up

because Michael Kwanuka had to cancel on doctor's orders. The Alabama Shakes frontwoman performed tracks from her debut solo album, Jamie, and she did a very crowd-pleasing cover of Jackie Wilson's The Alabama Shakes frontwoman performed tracks from her debut solo album, Jamie, and she did a very crowd-pleasing cover of Jackie Wilson's Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher. Brittany Howard, welcome to the Sixth Music Festival. Very exciting to have you here, and you're now headlining tonight. Yeah, it's a huge room. I'm excited to see all the beautiful people in here tonight. Have you played Roundhouse before with Alabama Shakes?

No, this is the first time ever. Yeah, it's a beautiful space, quite a lot of columns. It's really dramatic in there. Yeah. I like that. This solo album that we got last year, Jamie, is an incredibly personal record. How has it been playing these tracks live? Incredible. I have the best band in the world.

When I perform live, a really important thing to me is for everyone to be interacting together. And I just kind of open the door to that and then let people just have an experience, have a moment that doesn't involve cell phones or digital media or anything like that. It's just kind of,

we're just all celebrating something that's really ancient, which is just connection. That's like the most important thing to me about what I do. It was just being seen, showing up, and doing me. And people appreciate that, and I appreciate those people. I just want to stay high with you. Who are your female role models? Wow, there's like so many. One of my role models is my grandmother, just because she grew up through a lot of hard times living in the South

and really resilient, really tough, raised like five children. She's a role model to me because she was a maid for so many years. She would take me with her to do the domestic worker thing and then seeing her not get paid what she should and really not be treated how she should be treated and then always see her being so resilient and so kind. I think that's someone I look up to. And as far as inspirations go, I mean, I really love Nina Simone. I really love Roberta Flack. And then I also really like Kate Bush.

And I also love Bjork. So, like, Bjork, if you're out there in Iceland watching this right now, hit your girl up. It would be great. It would be amazing. It's a matter of time. I feel like I'm ready now, though. Yeah. Yeah.

There's been a lot of talk lately about female representation on festival lineups. So in the UK, some of the major festivals aren't doing so great. Have you noticed more girls and women around over the sort of eight to 10 years that you've been making music? Has it changed at all? It's changed a little bit. I mean, we had Beyonce headlining Coachella. So there was that. I definitely see more female musicians being represented, which is huge for me because I'm a musician first. I would say it's steadily been the same with little upticks here and there. When you want to change an entire system, though, it takes more than a few years. It takes a lot of people not putting up with it anymore.

There's a lot of money in these festivals, and you really do have to hit them where the money is. It's the only way anything changes nowadays. So hit them in their purse. I like that. Kim Gordon is playing on Sunday night from Sonic Youth, and she has an iconic T-shirt that stated, Girls invented punk rock, not England.

Are there any women that changed the course of music history that you think haven't had enough credit, should get some more? Sister Rosetta Tharpe, she created rock and roll. Where's her crown? You know, people just now are starting to learn the history behind the history. And a lot of women were forebearers for a lot of different types of music. And don't ask me why, I don't know why, but the history's there. It's just we've been taught something different

because at the time that was more socially fitting. Do you remember when you first saw Sister Rosetta Thup? Yeah, it was one of those things, like, in my early 20s, just being like, who's this woman with this cool-ass guitar? And then starting to listen to her songs and listen to her playing especially. Her playing's amazing. And people like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry took from her style, and they said, this is a new sound, and just took it and ran with it. How could you call me your baby? You don't provide for me. You don't offer me.

You don't, you don't. How could you call me your baby? The album is titled Jamie, and that's named after your late sister, who taught you poetry and also how to play the piano, didn't she? What impact did she have on your music and the start? My sister had an impact on most things in my life. First off, I try not to complain so much. And second off, she taught me how to tune into my imagination and my creativity,

which is super, super important. Because to me, that's like one of the greatest gifts we're given as people on this earth is our imagination and how we can use our resources to change our world for the better. She taught me and I started doing that from a very, very young age, just putting a lot of energy into that, into my imagination. And is there anything that helps you do that? Do you do meditation?

Do you do, like what centres you when you are trying to kind of tap into that creative imagination part of you? I think doing anything other than playing music inspires me. Because when I'm sitting there trying to think of something to come up with, I'm standing in the way. But if I'm driving a car, if I'm taking a shower, if I'm going for a walk, if I'm making a sandwich, that's when the ideas hit. You have to have relationship with things just coming in at an inopportune time and then have a place to run to, to go jot it down. Because, you know, I'm not in control of where the inspiration comes from. Doing a solo record, you know, you said in the press that you kind of had to do it all by yourself.

It's a different vibe. How was it different and what did you learn from doing a solo record off the back of the two Alabama Shakes records? So many times when I demo the songs, it gets changed, which is not a bad thing. But now when I'm demoing my songs, I'm like, no, this is exactly what I want this part to sound like and this is exactly where I want it to go. And yes, this is a little hiccup and yes, this is really dissonant and it's a mistake, but I want to keep it.

And just literally steering my own own ship making my own mistakes. Being a producer and being seen for being a producer. Doing a little engineering here and there just stepping outside the box of singer-songwriter. I'm an arranger, I'm a composer and I want for especially little girls out there to see that you can do this and you can do this on a successful level. The BBC Six Music Festival has taken over Camden for three days of performances, DJ sets and talks from artists including Bombay Bicycle Club, Roisin Murphy and Radiohead's Ed O'Brien.

But it's Sunday evening's bill here at the Roundhouse that got us really excited. It features five of today's most visionary female artists, poet, playwright and rapper Kate Tempest, former Sonic Youth frontwoman Kim Gordon, the Mercury Prize nominated Nadine Shah, composer Anna Meredith and Jenny Beth from Savages. Thanks for having me. I feel very, very happy to be playing. I want to go back a little bit, I guess, to when you were first starting out in Savages. Were you given a lot of support and encouragement? A lot be playing. I want to go back a little bit, I guess, to when you were first starting out in Savages. Were you given a lot of support and encouragement?

A lot of support. I mean, after four months of existence, my friends from the band British Sea Power called us to say, like, we've got a band that pulled out in Brighton for a festival. Can you play in two days? Our first show. It was a great show.

Like, you could sense there was a big moment of wow, even from us, because we had been rehearsing in a small room for months. And suddenly we were playing in a big drums and a big PA and we're like, wow, we sound huge. It was a massive surprise. From that moment, I think a lot of journalists or people who were in the audience wanted to contact us and write about us. You start a band, but you're not ready for whatever's going to come from the music industry, which is contracts, money, deals, and all that things. And for us, it arrived really, really quickly. Thankfully, I had signed a deal before with my previous project,

and it's quite a big deal, but it was a very bad deal. And I had struggled with lawyers to get out of it. And I had suddenly opened all the books on knowledge about what it is, what is a publishing deal, what's a record deal. And I learned what I could. So when I started Savages, I had that knowledge with me, but the management at the time were like, if you don't sign this deal now, you will be no one in four months I knew they were wrong I knew that was an old-fashioned way of seeing the industry and that cost us to separate and break away from a couple of management at the beginning and and it was kind of difficult for all of us you know because you don't want to start a band with conflict but I think for any band that

starts the problem is that you get manipulated because you want to make it and you want a lot of people to hear your music, but you can be not very well advised by people who are maybe from another generation as well, who come from another time in the industry, and men or women. If you're a young musician, I think it's information. Talk to other artists, they will help you out. It feels like in your career with the band and the solo Project that you've always been able to call the shots and see through your artistic vision. Yeah, I feel very lucky that I don't have anyone telling me

what to do musically or what to... You know, there's always compromise to do in some levels. I work with people who understand that, who respect artists and artistry. It's like the LCD Sun System song where it says, you wanted a hit, well, maybe we don't's like the you know the lcd sun system song where he says you wanted a hit well maybe we don't do hits you know so i think you're just believing in in your own art or you can take another route you can say i'm gonna just write music for radio and i can't do that because i'm not good at it if i was maybe i would do it you know yeah for me it would be um

blasphemy you know but there's always a level of censorship whether you like it or not but it's whatever you're willing to let let in you know you don't do anything alone even when you're a solo artist I don't think you you know it's not like I do everything on my own and take my own decision but I mean there's a lot of things you need to do to make a project stand and a lot of money to get involved and you know but I mean there's a lot of things you need to do to make a project stand and a lot of money to get involved and you know and I mean when you make a movie that's millions of dollars right but when you make a record it's so it's still quite a lot of money so you're gambling on your on yourself on your art but you're taking massive risks you know and financial risk it is

quite a responsibility you know let's talk risk. It is quite a responsibility, you know. Let's talk about the beginnings of this new Jenny Beth record. It was David Bowie dying that sort of was the thing that kicked you into gear to make this record. It was 3 or 4am and I picked up my phone because I couldn't sleep and then found out the news, so I couldn't sleep at all after that. And listened to Lazarus from Black Star as a first track, and it dawned on me that we're mortal.

You know, it seems like, oh, we know that, but we don't. I think we forget. We forget that death is part of life, and actually death gives value to life, and to art as well, because it's going to outlive you I had a very poignant feeling of life is so short and you know I didn't have a chance to meet Bowie or to see him live so I think that was one of my biggest regrets when he died I was like god I should have booked those tickets I should have done this so that feeling stayed with me and it's kind of

with me now and things have happened. I've lost some friends. So when I started writing the record, I just I was motivated by that, weirdly enough. I was like, you might die tomorrow so go to your piano now and write a bloody song.

Write free because you might die tomorrow. So he pushed me to work harder, I think. I absolutely love Flower. Can you tell me about the inspiration for that track? I wrote a lot about women because I have a sort of childlike fascination for when they are powerful and beautiful at the same time. So I remember as a kid, because I grew up, I'm a bisexual,

but I didn't know when I was a kid. That's how you call it. I couldn't really express my attraction to women. So there was this sensation of being attracted but being at a distance. So the song is really about that sort of sensual incapacity to touch. And that distance is even sexier than the actual touch. I was in love with a girl who lived in my street. And then her mum told me to stop coming because she felt I was, you know, expressing something that she didn't feel was right. I remember those long, you know, thinking about her and it's that

sensation that I wanted to put into the song. It's a very varied record, very eclectic. I think I'm expressing a lot of things that I think make us human, so it's the good and the bad. The things that keep me up at night and the things that I'm very afraid and ashamed to confess. I wanted to ask as well about PJ Harvey. So in 2016, she gave you 10 days to come up with some tracks for the Eden Project.

Quick turnaround. It was quite a challenge. What did it mean to get her vote of confidence a lovely example of a female artist raising up another female artist she contacted me very early on when Savagy started and she gave her number

to the management for me to call her and I hesitated a few days because I was sort of shy but then I thought if she gave me her number it's rude not to call who am I to not you know answer to that very nice gesture so I called her and she was the loveliest person and also the first thing she told me is that all right I am here for you anything you need you're on tour you don't believe in it you're tired you you don't know what to do call me like I'm gonna be here for you and I was sort of so blown away and I did we started a

relationship on the phone and and then met and then she became very good friends with me and she pushed me to do a solo album I have to say like she really did when she asked me to play for open for the Eden project it was her challenging me, saying, now you're going to jump into the water, girl. No safety nets. She's so brave and inspiring in that way. I'm backstage at the Roundhouse with Marianne Horves. It's International Women's Day,

so it's a brilliant opportunity to bring together an entirely female line-up at the Roundhouse, which is so strong, it's so powerful when you look at that bill. But, you know, right across the world, we're seeing action being taken, I think, at so many different live events to try to balance up the bills, because for so long, women have been massively underrepresented. And I think often if you different live events to try to balance up the bills because for so long women have been massively underrepresented and I think often if you speak to female artists

they'll feel that they're there as a box ticking exercise almost. Frequently placed on bills that don't really serve them or suit them in any way, shape or form. They're just kind of like an afterthought from a promoter. I think it's a really vibrant example of how a broadcaster can be really proactive and really conscious that this is something that needs to change. Who is the onus on? Is it really on the promoters? Ultimately, those are the people who make the bookings. It's about bringing together groups of musicians that really make sense as a unit,

you know, and that can really complement one another on a bill rather than just booking people for the sake of the fact that they have the X and Y chromosome, you know. It's really strange, actually, just sitting here even speaking about this topic with you, because to a degree it feels to me almost like the Berlin Wall. At the point at which things change, everybody will be thinking, why didn't it come down years ago?

I mean, why has it been standing for so long, this precedent? I feel like as we dismantle the bricks one at a time, I mean, hopefully great big sways will topple over very soon. And there will be that abiding feeling of like, wow, this should have happened decades ago, shouldn't it really? It should. The sun is setting backstage, gearing up for more live music. And Anna Meredith, you've sound checked, you've got comfortable how are you feeling about tonight's gig i'm really looking forward to it it's such a brilliant venue and even just hearing other people sound checking dean shaz on at the moment

she sounds amazing i am really excited to meet kate i mean i think she's incredible uh i've never seen her live though and i've always wanted to. And what can we expect from your set? Because the tracks are so huge. Every track of yours, I feel like it's a mini symphony. Right, yeah. There's five of us in the band. So there's a drummer, electric guitar, tuba, cello and I do the electronics but I also play clarinet and I do some drums and we all sing.

There's a lot of notes in this music and it's quite relentless and some of it takes a ton of concentration. We have to really psych ourselves up because it's not something you can just coast by playing four chords. It's finger-shreddingly difficult in bits. So it's a bit of a workout, but it's fun to do

and we really love playing together, so it's good. Is there anything that you do pre-show just to get in the zone and get prepped? We've got quite a few really embarrassing little rituals We sing a few little songs together We sometimes do a little symbolic head press with some hugging and sometimes a quick round of the card game

Exploding Kittens. Oh, I've not heard of that. Oh, it's great. Really recommend it for all your pre-gig nerves. Your entry to music was in the classical sphere. What would you say that gave you in terms of a foundation of composing and songwriting? How I would handle an orchestra

and that's literally how I think of writing these pop tracks. I write them all using classical software, so I feel it's like using my strengths or at least using my skills to work with, still using drums and beats and stuff that I pop, but the pacing of them and the identity of them, for me, it just feels tied in exactly with how I would write for an orchestra.

Because you get it, you understand it. You were the former composer-in-residence, weren't you, for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra? Yeah. Which is a pretty big gig. Yeah, you know, I love writing for orchestra and it's something I do regularly-ish. And when did you discover your love of electronic music?

I've always liked about trashy 90s dance stuff when I was younger, but I think the desire to start making it for myself came partly out of being a bit of a control freak. That, you know, as a classical composer, you basically write music for other people to do. You hand music over to an orchestra or whoever. And then ultimately in the gig, you're in the audience sitting, listening to other people playing your stuff. And you have no control. And quite often those pieces are only played once.

I think I wanted to try and make something where I could make the whole, initially, the whole thing myself sit in my bedroom. And then it would just exist in that form. You could listen to it, you know, billions of times. And there's a level of autonomy. I think that was a kind of impulse behind it. And also I quite often found that I always want stuff louder. I always want it bolder. I want it brasher.

And electronics, you can do that really easily. You know, I can make huge sounds you know in this tiny little on a laptop and that's you know the power I'm like you know the cackling power like stroking a cat on a chair. Happy International Women's Day by the way.. You too, thank you very much. Who's been a big role model in you? Famous people might be Björk, who, you know, even when I was a teenager in the 90s and she bought out Debut,

and I remember thinking that totally changed the way I thought about what an album was, that all her albums are so varied within themselves that you have slow numbers and loud, big production things and things that are sounded like they're recorded or literally are recorded in some toilets at the back of a bar or on a cliff and she takes such an interesting artistic approach to each new album and realises that whole lane where she thinks about the visuals and the costumes and the instrumentation and and I think that kind of ambition and that desire to keep developing has always been well really inspiring and yeah and

then personally I've just got a couple of really good female composer friends who are the people I check in with about my writing and friends like Emily Hall who we study together at university she's now doing beautiful songwriting and I think for the two of us encouraging each other to you know step outside or expand from just in the classical world and having that kind of support of someone who's doing their own thing means a lot to me. Happy International Women's Day. Thank you to Sixth Music Festival for being a massive blast.

Tonight's programming has kicked off. Nadine Shah is on stage at the moment. She is showcasing some new tracks from her upcoming album Kitchen Sink. And as it is International Women's Day, she paid tribute to her mum, Heather Shah. She also did a cover dedicated to Amy Winehouse, who she used to be friends with and sing jazz with in Camden. They did the jazz standard There Is No Greater Love, and she said she's one of her favorite performers of all time. There is no greater love than what I feel for you.

No sweeter song, no heart's warped truth. Nadine was on the Woman's Hour Women in Music Power List in 2018 and her third album, Holiday Destination, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. We sat down for a chat a little bit earlier. Oh, can you hear the court? Me and you sound like an S&M party. We've got our kinky courts on. Kinky coats.

PVC courts. Right. Hello, this is Nadine Shah. I'm at the Sixth Music Festival on Women's Hour. Two Nadine Shahs for the price of one this weekend. You played on Friday. Doing a residency. I know.

I'm like the in-house band. It was actually, I was quite fearful of playing on Friday because there's always that worry when an artist has to pull out of a show and then there's other people who come in to replace them but normally it's a festival is the difference here so couldn't just change the date. The whole room was filled with love for myself and especially for Brittany as well. Brittany Howard who is just such a force of nature. Watching her performance, it was really like a proper education for me.

So I was really glad to share a stage with her. And that Jackie Wilson cover she did of Higher and Higher. I went into the audience and I was dancing a lot and then I got the security guards and I was dancing with them. And someone's put a video on Twitter. Please don't ask them to take it down. They're like, oh, the funniest bit was watching Nadine Shah dance with security. Me forgetting that mobile phones are everywhere.

It was to that cover, though. It was brilliant. You've got a new record coming out. I'm talking about sexism, talking about tradition, talking about marriage and the ticking time bomb of childbirth. And the policing of women's bodies and so on and so forth. I think I was very aware with the last album, the discourse being so heavily political, but not being able to be playful with those lyrics

because I was writing about the refugee crisis and writing about people who are displaced and truly suffering. And I'm not saying that women are are not suffering in their own way but I feel like as a woman I'm writing about my own personal stories I'm then allowed to be jovial because they're my stories and I'm talking about myself walking to a bus stop and getting harassed like verbally but I can I think you know one of the worst things we always talk about it often is like what do bad men hate most it's being laughed at and so I do bring a lot of humor to the lyrics

the album is called Kitchen Sink, and I guess it's about that time in your life being observational when suddenly everyone starts having kids, and like you said, the clock ticker. Oh, man. Is the whole album sort of a reaction to that in a way? No, no, it's not. I mean, because most of my female friends have children now,

and I'm very respectful of their choices to have children. And I love their kids. I'm like an auntie to a bunch of weirdos now. Christmas is very expensive. But I do feel like a lot of my friends in my position in their mid 30s did need a woman their age. Speaking of that similar frustration that they have, because so often we go onto social media and every day someone's getting married or somebody has some other significant thing happening in their life, which is more a traditional path. And a lot of us haven't, a lot of women haven't done that. And it does leave me feeling nervous and panicked. But it's because that's the discourse that people people will bring it up to me like people do actually say the phrase that oh tick tock if they're oh nearly 30 oh you're 34 now oh time's running out tick tock people genuinely do say these things and so I felt like women in

my position did need some anthems to battle it but it's the kind of external pressure of like oh you go to family parties. You're not married yet. I'm half Pakistani, half Geordie. Imagine the pressure. Actually, we're all doing this and having a great time. And actually, I'm looking around sometimes at my friends that are on the other side and I'm like, I think I'm all right. Yeah, I'm not too sure. I mean, I would hope that when the industry becomes better equipped,

I hope it will be a space where it will be a much friendlier industry towards women who do have children and to help women who do have children to facilitate their jobs. At the minute, I don't feel like in my position I'd be able to bring a child on tour because of finances for certain artists and what they get paid. And also just because the environment isn't suited to it yet. But that's where the industry needs to work hard to make sure that women who do have children

can go back into the industry after they've taken time off, whether they're a sound engineer, a tech person, that nine months off or a year and a half off doesn't mean they don't exist anymore, that they'll be welcomed back with open arms. Definitely, because that is a big problem in the music industry, women dropping off as soon as they have family then they they check out of the industry yeah exactly that and with female artists as well it's not having enough female artists

present who are over the age of 40 like in 2016 you had what three or four fellas who are 60 years old in the top 10 so they're visible um but a lot of these other women aren't so visible but we have artists like brick smith's uh start and we have lucinda williams and we have patty smith that we need more though to be visible in order that we can see that we can be it you can't be what you can't see that's a phrase that's really being hammered home at the moment it's true i know it does sound tacky that you can't can't see it can't be it but it's entirely true it's that sentiment it's the same when i'd have like young muslim girls getting in touch with me being like i didn't know i could yes you know in the time that you've been doing music, have you seen anything change with this?

More women being around in studios, in technical positions, all that kind of thing. Yeah, not enough. Not a lot and not enough. The conversation, I hear so much more, and I hear the conversation all the time. Because it's happening, you assume that, oh, well, so things must be going on, things must be changing. They're not. They're seriously not.

I found out what I was getting paid in comparison to other male artists who are my peers. But, you know, playing the same stages, same time, same festivals, and I was getting a third of what they were getting. And that's why it became... I stopped being so shy about it. I knew it was crude to talk about money and crude to talk about certain things, but I just got so sick of it,

I started openly asking fellow male musicians and fellow female musicians what their salaries were and what their frustrations were. And then there was this, we connected on it, and it was like, oh, hang on, I've got that same problem. Well, why don't we both speak together and we'll have so much more strength? So I'm seeing that, and there's a lot more solidarity with other female artists coming together. Whereas before we were kind of pitted against each other

because female solo artists was a genre, apparently. I didn't know. And so it just meant, you know, there was only ever room for one woman. But that's been the same in so many industries. You know, we have to hire one. And so that makes women competitive, whereas we shouldn't be

and I can see so much solidarity and it's like even with our stage as well it's so nice like I see these people on tour all the time and it's like the excitement to see them like I can't wait to see Kate because she's always a hoot but it's just there's a lovely solidarity there

because of Michael Cohen who cannot being able to play all of the headliners over the whole weekend at the Roundhouse have been women. And all ace. You say out the way, out the way, out You say out the way, out the way, out You must have seen the discussion around festival line-ups

and festival representation for women off the back of the Redding and Leeds picture that went online. Again, 19 female acts of over 90 announced. So much pressure is put on the festivals themselves. Well, maybe that radio station should start playing more females. Maybe that organisation, that record label, they should start signing more females. And maybe these other artists should start forming alliances

and helping out other females so we can't just place the blame solely on festivals because that's not going to actually make any change I do feel it's a thing that they they're definitely conscious about it but the whole industry has to come together and and work on this all together it will happen it means that we have to put more money into education in schools because when I was growing up, I was never really encouraged to play instruments as a child. It was like, she can sing really well, we'll put her in the choir,

but the boys, they can go and do guitar and this over here. And even in toy shops, the instruments were in the boys' aisle. They weren't in the girls' aisle. So it wasn't really an option that you thought was possible, actually. I thought you could look nice and sing. So it starts the ground up, but it's just frustrating because there's no reason, for example, that 18-year-old boys shouldn't like my music,

but they're not given it. So somebody somewhere at a playlist meeting decides, or a record label, wherever, 18-year-old David isn't going to like this. Oh, but I think that, you know, that guy who's, like, in his 50s and that woman who's in her 40s, I think they'll like it. But that's you making an assumption of how people work. And I think the general public so often are underestimated.

If you give people good stuff, i think they're going to they're going to like it like what oh who's one of our biggest artists in the uk is adele and because she writes classically great painful love songs which are timeless and could like someone like you could have been written in the 50s it's a gorgeous timely song but again it was great and people picked up on it and it wasn't to do with anything about how she looks because she got rubbish for that but it's the same conversation again I think people just underestimate all this too much

This Woman's Hour podcast was presented by me Georgie Rogers and produced by Sarah Jane Griffiths at the Six Music Festival If you enjoyed this you can hear highlights of the live performances on BBC Sounds and Six Music and watch the best of the festival on the BBC iPlayer, the Six Music website and the Red Button. Thanks for listening. Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner,

the bloke from the funny history podcast You're Dead to Me. I've got good news. We're back for a second series where historians, comedians alike will join me in learning things about, well, Mary Shelley, the ancient Greek Olympics and their history of chocolate. Find us on the BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts and you'll be able to hear comedians

ask historians questions like this one. This is Tim Minchin asking about Neanderthals. Do they have penises like us? Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.