Courtesy of Roots N Blues
Tracy Lane and Shay Jasper
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lennon Stella's music kept Roots N Blues festival co-owner Shay Jasper running. “She was this voice that kept me thinking, ‘If I could just make it to that tree, if I could just make it to the next mile.’ It was this feeling of empowerment that was pumping through my headphones,” she says. “I think coming full circle and seeing her on the stage that Tracy and I are producing is going to be a treat for me.”
That stage is one at the 2021 Roots N Blues festival in Columbia. Tracy is Tracy Lane, who co-owns the festival with Jasper. In 2019, the women teamed up to purchase the festival—the only entirely women-owned major music fest in the U.S.—which celebrates all things Americana. Think: country, blues, bluegrass, and folk. In 2020, the pair announced they were going to shine a spotlight on women in the music industry by producing a festival where each act features a woman or nonbinary musician. The pandemic postponed their plans, but their vision is becoming a reality in 2021. The festival will run September 24–26 in Stephens Lake Park.
The idea for an all-women lineup sprang from conversations Jasper and Lane had when they first started working together. The safety of women in the music industry was a huge issue. As was the lack of representation in major music festivals. In 2019, in the country’s eight major music festivals, men represented 70 percent of the lineups. Only two headliners were women or featured a woman or nonbinary artist.
“This was a conversation that we had in the office together so many times,” Jasper says. “‘Why aren't women in major festivals more often?’ ‘Why is it news that Lizzo is the very first [woman] headliner of [Bonnaroo]?’ We kept talking about it and talking about it, and we were like, ‘Let's just do it.’”
Lane adds: “If we were going to do it, now's the time. Two women just bought a festival, and that never happens. The number of female promoters is almost none.”
For Lane, raising awareness around safety and getting promoters to book more women are the goals of this year’s fest. She started working in live music in 1991, in promotions for The Blue Note in Columbia. She worked in the industry for a decade, stepped away to care for her daughter (live music was all-hours, nights, weekends, she explains) and to work at the Ragtag Film Society. When she returned to her first love, live music, she found that not much had changed.
“I think it's fair to say that in the ’90s, when I first started in this business, it was understood that you would be verbally, sexually harassed probably every single day,” Lane says. “That you would probably be physically harassed once a week maybe. Sometimes there are instances that are far worse than harassment. It's evolved, but I was kind of shocked to jump back into the industry and realize how much it hasn't evolved. We’re now reaching a place, really since 2017 with the launch of the Me Too movement, where women are talking about the workplace. This is just another aspect of that. We need to be honest about what's happening with women in our field, so that it can change. If we don't talk about it, it doesn't change.”
Because of the statement they wanted to make, the lineup was ultra-important—Jasper and Lane had to think of whose voices they wanted to elevate, not just who was available.
Brandi Carlile (listen to By the Way, I Forgive You and fall in love) headlines Saturday night, but other must-sees dot the Sunday lineup, including R&B queen Mavis Staples and Missouri’s own Sheryl Crow. Crow will also receive the 2021 Missouri Roots Songbook honor on Sunday—live, on stage. The Songbook recognizes an artist who spent a portion of their career in Missouri for their contributions to music and culture. Crow will be the first living recipient of the award.
To view the full Roots N Blues lineup and its COVID-19 policies, and to purchase tickets, visit the festival’s website.
