Inspired by the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sisters songwriter Beth Wood wrote the song “One Step at a Time.” The song became the catalyst for the virtual series She’s Speaking.
“It was a song that was inspired by RBG that got me thinking about this whole direction,” Wood said. “Wouldn’t it be really cool to invite women songwriters to write songs about women that inspire them? And so not only are we amplifying women’s voices, but also women’s stories.”
“One Step at a Time” is the first song featured in the March 8 launch video for the series, which is dedicated to female songwriters writing about the women who inspired them (and named for Vice President Kamala Harris’ now-famous “I’m speaking” quip during the Vice Presidential debate). Wood teamed with Salem’s Kristen Grainger and Portland’s Bre Gregg for the project, which will feature different performances five days a week, Tuesdays through Saturdays.
“When we started this we were hoping for like 10 videos, but instead we got 50-some,” Gregg said. “So now we’re going back through and we’re doing artist highlights.” The launch video featured 16 performances.
Wood cited a graphic listing the percentage of women in different roles in the music industry, including artists (22% women), songwriters (13%), producers (3%), engineers (3%) and label owners (15%). The graphic was posted to Instagram by Amplify Her Voice, an online platform “dedicated to helping advance the careers of women in music through educational, networking and creative opportunities.”
“My interest is in helping to lift women’s voices,” Wood said. “And there are so many amazing women artists out there that are what I like to call blue-collar musician. There’s this whole sector of working musicians that are not on the charts, they’re not on the radio, they’re not on the Grammys. They’re working people. I love taking songwriters that I think are amazing and showing them to other people, and being like, oh my gosh, check her out, she’s so good. And that’s one of the fun things about this channel too.”
Wood, Grainger and Gregg have sourced performances from a “very curated list of songwriters,” but have discussed opening it up to anyone who wants to submit a song. Featured artists so far include Mare Wakefield, Anna Tivel, Shireen Amini and Lady A, who hosted the launch video.
Submissions are limited to original songs, and for now they are sticking to the theme of women writing about women who inspired them, though they may expand to other themes in the future.
“It’s a platform channel that’ll exist forever,” Grainger said. “We hope that it will continuously grow, and there will be more women’s songs and tribute songs added to it, and different campaigns — maybe we do young women or girls or some other kind of theme to it.”
They’ve also thought about hosting a live event tied to the series when things start to open up more.
“Just judging from the energy of having us all together on Zoom the other night (for the launch video), I just can’t imagine a live event, how inspiring and celebratory that would be,” Wood said. “That’s something that I would love to work toward. … That really was for me a part of the seed in reaching out, is that I have missed collaborating so much. You can’t harmonize on Zoom. So that has been one of the biggest gifts of this whole thing, is being able to collaborate with friends and also new songwriters that I’d never heard of before.”
People can follow She’s Speaking on YouTube (youtube.com/channel/UCoVBTkpT-dWRQxqhe3c1eVw), Facebook (facebook.com/shesspeakingsongs) and Instagram (instagram.com/shesspeakingsongs/).
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