SAN DIEGO — Do the San Diego Music Awards have a problem finding worthy women artists to honor?

Women won in nearly one-third of the 27 categories that were awarded in May at the 2026 edition of this 35-year-old nonprofit event. That was a marked improvement over the previous three years, when there were only a handful of women winners.

The lack of more could reflect that voters favor male nominees, who typically outnumber women nominees by a significant margin in many of the awards categories. Or, perhaps, that voters are generally less familiar with the women nominees at this annual event, which this year raised a record $86,465.20 to support its Guitars for Schools music education program.

Since its inception 35 years ago, the annual awards show — which is presented under the auspices of the nonprofit San Diego Music Foundation— has raised more than $1 million to provide free guitars and lessons to students in 131 schools across San Diego County.

But the bigger issue has nothing to do with how invaluable this event is for music education and celebrating local artists — or with nominating and voting patterns that seem skewed in favor of male musicians. It has everything to do with the recipients of the event’s annual Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award, a category that has been unmistakably skewed in favor of male musicians.

Only one woman has received this lifetime honor since the awards show introduced the category in 1994: blues and jazz piano and vocal great Jeannie Cheatham, who turned 99 on Aug. 14. She was jointly presented the award in 2006, alongside her now-deceased husband, Jimmy Cheatham, with whom she co-led the internationally acclaimed and now-dormant Sweet Baby Blues Band.

The issue isn’t a lack of extremely gifted female musicians here who are worthy of lifetime recognition. There are plenty. Rather, it’s that — apart from Cheatham — there have been no other women recipients of this award, which is named after the late leader of the San Diego roots-rock band the Beat Farmers.

“I was not aware there has only been one woman and I’d love to see more recognized,” said Claudia Russell, who recently concluded her 25-year tenure at radio station KSDS Jazz 88.3 FM.

Russell is one of six women currently serving on the San Diego Music Awards Academy, a volunteer board whose 12 other members are men. Russell will be one of the lifetime achievement honorees on Oct. 16 at the annual San Diego Music Hall of Fame Awards, which debuted as an independent event in 2018.

It has honored two women artists in each of the past three years. That is five more than the San Diego Music Awards have given lifetime achievement awards to in 3-½ decades.

“We definitely have some extraordinarily gifted women musicians here worthy of the San Diego Music Awards Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award,” Russell said. “I think the decisions about who gets it are mostly made by Kevin Hellman.”

Hellman is the founder of the San Diego Music Awards and its driving force. The former publisher of the weekly publication San Diego CityBeat, he is a veteran events producer and a tireless local music advocate.

“There are a lot of worthy candidates for the lifetime achievement award and we only honor one person a year,” Hellman said. “There’s no equation we have to follow every year … We have an inner circle of six people who I discuss things with. Ultimately, I make the final decision.”

Asked if he was concerned only one woman has ever received the lifetime honor, Hellman said: “It’s not about a man or woman. It’s about just trying to choose the best. There are two women I have in mind for our next (lifetime) award, but I can’t say that will happen. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why it’s been almost all men that have received the award. Part of it is about the date of the event and the availability of the (potential) honoree.”

There’s no question many of the past lifetime achievement honorees have been deserving. The list includes everyone from jazz greats (Daniel Jackson, Mike Wofford) and seminal punk-rock bands (The Zeros, The Penetrators) to singer-songwriters (Nick Reynolds, Jack Tempchin), radio mainstays (Mike Halloran, Al Guerra) and concert promoters (Joe Flammini, Malcolm Falk).

But the absence of women honorees is glaring. A top contender would surely be Jewel, who honed her craft singing in San Diego coffeehouses before writing a bestselling book of poetry and making albums that have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

“Jewel is somebody we have talked to the last two years,” Hellman said. “But she wasn’t available last year. She was in Amsterdam the day of our awards show and we couldn’t change our date. She’s on our short list.”

Is there any sense of urgency for more notable women artists to receive the lifetime achievement award?

“Our job is to honor the people we think deserve it, man, woman, Black, White,” Hellman replied. “We’ve talked about deserving women; there are also very deserving men. And we only do one lifetime award a year, so we can’t do them all at the same time. We try to honor the right person at the right time.”

When the Union-Tribune cited other female San Diego artists, besides Jewel, who are eminently worthy of the award — from top jazz flutist and concert promoter Holly Hofmann and singer-songwriter, radio host and local music champion Cathryn Beeks to the late singer Candye Kane and boogie-woogie piano queen Sue Palmer — Hellman enthusiastically agreed.

But agreeing women should be honored is not the same as actually honoring them. Here’s hoping the 2027 San Diego Music Awards, which will be held May 3 at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, mark the start of a new era.

In the meantime, here — in alphabetical order — are some of our suggestions of artists who should be honored. What are yours?

Jennifer Batten

Like 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award-winner and fellow guitarist Mike Keneally, Jennifer Batten was born in New York and grew up mostly in San Diego. Like bass great and 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Nathan East, she cut her teeth playing with bands in San Diego clubs before moving north to further her career.

Batten went on to make history, at least three times. In 1979, she became the first woman to graduate from Los Angeles’ Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT), where she won two awards. She then became the first woman to teach at GIT, a bastion for top six-string artists.

in 1987, Batten began a 10-year stint as the lead guitarist in Michael Jackson’s band for three consecutive world tours. Her subsequent 1998-2001 tenure with English guitar legend Jeff Beck made her the first female instrumentalist to play alongside Beck in his then-30-year history of leading bands.

Batten has made multiple solo albums and instructional videos. She is the founder of GuitarCloudSymposium.com, an online educational program. Her next area performance is Sept. 20 at El Foro in Tijuana, followed by a two-month tour of Europe.

“Basically, when young guitarists ask me for advice, I just say: ‘Keep your nose to the grindstone, work on your music, and the career will take care of itself’,” Batten said in a 2016 Union-Tribune interview.“Because I don’t know any magical way to make things happen, other than engrossing yourself in what you’re passionate about.”

Claire Chase

In 2012, Claire Chase became the first flutist to earn a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” fellowship, an honor previously bestowed to choreographer Twyla Tharp, Broadway musical writer Lin Manuel-Miranda, author Colson Whitehead and Chase’s fellow native San Diego musician, Chris Thile.

In 2017, she was awarded Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Prize for Classical Music (which had never been won by a flutist). Her credits also include two honorary doctorates, nine solo albums of world premiere recordings and her commissioning and performing of hundreds of new flute works.

Chase, who now teaches music at Harvard and Juilliard, was the 2025 music director of the prestigious Ojai Music Festival. Her new album, “The Holy Liftoff,” was released in July, 25 years after she founded the groundbreaking International Contemporary Ensemble. Her impact on her instrument and its creative possibilities has been so profound that a 2023 New York Times article about her bore the headline: “Claire Chase Is Changing How People Think of the Flute.”

“I’m a very happy workaholic,” Chase said in a 2025 Union-Tribune interview. “I really, really love what I do, and I cherish the time that I get to do it with people.”

Rosie Flores

A 2025 San Diego Music Hall of Fame inductee and 2024 NEA National Heritage Fellowship honoree, rockabilly, Western swing and country music standout Rosie Flores was a Peabody Award-winner in 2007 and a 1986 Academy of Country Music nominee in the Top Country Female Vocalist category.

Equally skilled as a singer, guitarist and songwriter, she co-founded San Diego’s first all-girl rock band, Penelope’s Children, in 1966. In the 1970s, Flores led one of the area’s most popular bands, Rosie & The Screamers. Her self-titled debut album was released in 1987 by Warner Bros./Reprise Records. She has made a dozen more solo albums since then, and has been featured on recordings by Joe Ely, Wanda Jackson, Alejandro Escovedo, Marshall Crenshaw, Dave Alvin, Juice Newton and many more.

Flores’ latest album, “Impossible Frontiers,” came out last fall. Her next performance here will be Sept. 28 at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay.

“The first big gig I did in San Diego, I got to open for Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Turtles,” Flores said in a 2025 Union-Tribune interview. “Creedence loaned us their amps because ours weren’t big enough. There have been so many wonderful shows in my life.”

Diamanda Galás

No one else sings like Diamanda Galás, the San Diego-born vocal wizard of awes whose fearless, take-no-prisoners work blends elements of bel canto opera, avant-garde, blues, gospel, German cabaret, traditional Greek music and more into a stunning synthesis.

The depth, power, nuance and sheer velocity of her voice inspires chills and thrills. The grim subject matter she often sings about — disease, genocide, maimed and disfigured war victims — is both harrowing and cathartic. Her admirers include Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, John Zorn, Vinko Globokar, Henry Rollins and Deborah Harry, as well as Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, who teamed with Galás on their audacious 1994 album, “The Sporting Life.”

A pioneer of solo vocal concerts, she is also a strikingly original pianist. While her original compositions are gripping, Galás has proven just as mesmerizing putting her stamp on songs by everyone from Frank Sinatra and B.B. King to Johnny Paycheck and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

Galás’ newest album, “De-formation: Second Piano Variations,” came out last fall. She will perform three concerts in Italy in September, followed by more in Poland in October.

“I have to work on dark subject matter. It’s not that I choose to — I’m inhabited by dark subject matter. It’s part of my flesh,” Galás said in a 2022 Union-Tribune interview. “This is the kind of work where you better know what you’re doing.”

San Diego Music Awards Country Dick Montana Lifetime Achievement Award winners

2026– Steve Poltz

2025– Nathan East

2024– Stevie Salas

2023– Mike Kenneally

2022– Jesse Davis

2021– Jerry Raney

2020– Richard Livoni

2019– Joe Flammini

2018– The Paladins

2017– Wayne Riker

2015– Peter Sprague

2014– Tomcat Courtney

2013– Daniel Jackson

2012– Mike Wofford

2011– The Penetrators

2010– Iron Butterfly

2009– The Zeros

2008– Mundell Lowe

2007– Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio

2006– Jimmie & Jeannie Cheatham

2005– The Beat Farmers

2004– Charles McPherson and Scottsville Squirrel Barkers

2003– Joe Marillo

2002– Jack Tempchin and Al Guerra

2001– Jack Costanzo

2000– Lou Curtissand Barney Kessel

1999– Frankie Laine

1998– Joey Harris and Mike Halloran

1997– Tim Mays and Harlon Shifmann

1996– Jim McInnes

1995– Dave Hodges

1994– Malcolm Falk

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