This week, we celebrate songs from the amazing roster of female artists who were a part of the Lilith Fair touring festival during its run between the summers of 1997 and 1999. The Lilith Fair was co-founded by Canadian songstress Sarah McLachlan after experiencing woes with concert promoters booking female artists and battling general sexism in the music business. Taking its name from the Jewish biblical origin story that Lilith was Adam’s first wife who refused to bow down to his every whim, the Lilith Fair became a huge success, highlighting a rotating lineup of talent at every stop.

Joining us for this discussion is Sarah Seltzer, longtime executive editor at Lilith Magazine and now the author of her first novel, The Singer Sisters, on Flatiron Books (the Little Brown Book Group in the UK).

About The Singer Sisters:

It's 1996, and alt-rocker Emma Cantor is on tour, with her sights trained on a record deal. Emma's got no lack of inspiration for her confessional songs, chief among them her mother Judie, a 1960s folk legend who is bitterly disappointed by Emma's choice to skip college.

Emma is baffled by Judie's coldness. Judie herself was only eighteen when she ran away to New York to pursue music, ahead of forming the influential folk duo the Singer Sisters with her sister Sylvia.

But Judie has a long-kept secret about why she abandoned her music career at the peak of her success, which is about to unravel.

This is an epic family saga that follows mother Judie and daughter Emma as they navigate the ups and downs of music stardom - asking what women artists must sacrifice for success.

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Episode 54: Get sick, go to the doctor, incur debt, repeat