Music industry firebrand Bob Lefsetz has found a new groove lately, using his popular newsletter as a megaphone for the voices of women in the industry who have gone unheard. Publishing letter after letter from women telling personal stories of the slights and abuses they’ve suffered while trying to make it in the business, Lefsetz’s platform (the LefsetzLetter) has become a surprising rallying place for the Time’s Up and #MeToo surge. To Lefsetz’s credit, despite legal threats from men whose names appeared in some of the accounts — threats which Lefsetz also promptly published — he continued to publish the letters from women. The letters seem never ending — and lend even more power to the phrase Time’s Up, as if it needed any. (One of his posts is titled: No One Is Listening To These Women)
Now Lefsetz is calling for the end of the reign of Neil Portnow as head of The Recording Academy, keeper of the Grammy Awards. Forgoing the opportunity to criticize Portnow’s performance directly, Lefsetz writes that it’s simply time for a woman to be put in charge after Portnow’s years at the top. “The men are gonna say there’s no female qualified,” Lefsetz writes. He takes a different view: “I’m just saying the net should be cast wide and there are many women who can STEP UP and fill Portnow’s shoes.”
