Down on Music Row

My regular Starbucks barista has a degree in audio engineering, but can't get a job in Music City because the economy is in the toilet, big studios are dying down on Sixteenth Avenue, and the old white men who run that street don't cotton to girls in the workplace no-how unless they're answering phones or fetching coffee.

My barista did brush up against a studio job when she interned at a label. That job turned out to be mostly about delivering Martina MacBride's groceries.

I think the world of country music works this way from top to bottom. (It also eats its young. See: Steve Earle).

Here are some girl singers turned out and down by the Nashville bigwig studios.

Shelby Lynne
kd lang
Mandy Barnett