"San Diego Reader" mentions Tracy Niles in article about Street Scene 2001
The San Diego Reader recently published an article anout how more local, San Diego female artists like Tracy Niles should have been added to the Street Scene 2001 list of performers. The article (which includes an interview with fellow San Diego singer/songwriter Lisa Sanders) appears below.

San Diego Reader
AUG. 30, 2001

Blurt-The Inside Track

"All I hear is that the producers are sick of chicks."

Lisa Sanders was one of the singer/songwriters buoyed by the pro-female sentiment that followed Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair three years ago. Now Sanders notices an industry-wide anti-female backlash that has impacted the San Diego Street Scene.

"In the past years, they've had Joan Osborne, Joan Armatrading, and Chaka Khan," said Sanders. This year out of 120 acts total, En Vogue, Susan McKeown, Terry Nunn (Berlin), and MArtha Davis (the Motels) are the only national female artists imported for the three-day event. Out of a dozen or so local artists, Eve Selis is the only female with a Street Scene gig.

"Where is Lisa Sanders or Randi Driscoll?" asks music writer Joann D. Ball, who contributes to SLAMM and the San Diego Community Newspaper Group. Ball also wonders why Tracy Niles, Candeye Kane, Sue Palmer, Ren Zenner, and Joy Eden Harrison were shut out.

"Somehow there's a disconnect between female artists and those who organized this year's Street Scene," said Ball.

"We went after a number of female artists, but many just weren't available," said Trish Keefer of Rob Hagey Productions, which produces Sreet Scene. Hagey himself confirms he tried to book Ani Difranco, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Laurie Anderson, Nelly Furtado, and Alicia Keys but that their touring schedules and other committments didn't allow them to join the lineup...

--Ken Leighton