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The news has been slathered with two great women who have recently passed on. Elizabeth Taylor whose beautiful eyes and sassy acting made her a name world wide, and Geraldine Ferraro, who was Americas first woman who had enough courage to run for vice president, and this got me thinking…

 Women have always sort of had to take the back seat next to men in politics, work, and even in music. Well that was until Australian born Helen Reddy came along with her hit I am Woman. I can’t say men adored her. In fact, in the 70s, when women were trying to let men know that they too were humans and had rights, men accused her of being angry and bitter. Men were so frightened of women walking in their own power some even called the woman’s movement a “small band of bra-less bubbleheads.” Way to go guys…

 Well don’t mess with Helen Reddy, a vaudeville performer when she was four. She managed to beat the male stereotype of woman and beat the odds and become a woman’s musical icon in the 70′s. I Am Woman, took to the chart and stayed on the charts and made her not only a Grammy winning artist, but a figure for women all over the world, even to this day.

Often referred to as the Housewife of Rock and Roll, Reddy put out songs such as  Peaceful, Delta Dawn, Angie Baby, Keep On Singin’, and Ruby Red Dress. Her successes were so big that in the early 70s, Reddy had her own show called the Helen Reddy Show. She then became one of the hosts for The Midnight Special.

As a kid of about twelve or thirteen, I recall seeing Reddy everywhere. She was on talk shows, TV shows, and movies. She once came to Tucson where I had the opportunity to see her at the age of fourteen. Of course, there were not a lot of people my age, she definitely appealed to the housewife crowd, but I personally liked her and appreciated her desire to move women forward.

 I am Woman was about women’s personal empowerment. While many of the hits on the charts were referring to women as being in love, or loving her man, or losing her man or wanting her man, Reddy wrote a song about female identity and it made no reference to men rather the lyrics were about strength. It referenced women being strong, with her powerful course of;
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman

When I think of Elizabeth Taylor or Geraldine Ferraro I do see the strength in these women. Yes many of the readers here are younger and might not have had an opportunity to see Elizabeth Taylor when she was beautiful, bold and strong. She took no guff from men. Perhaps that is why she was married 8 times. She played the role of Cleopatra and pulled it off without a hitch. She was indeed strong and invincible as a woman.

Geraldine Ferraro was elected for the U.S congressional seat in Queens and served three terms in the House of Representatives. Not bad for a woman in those days. In fact she organized the efforts to achieve passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and she was able to watch job opportunities for displaced homemakers flourish and enabled homemakers to open IRAs. With that, she was chosen as Walter Mondale’s vice presidential running mate in 1984 on the Democratic Party. No other woman before her had even tried to do this.

So today my hat is off to Elizabeth Taylor and Geraldine Ferraro for all their wonderful contributions and showing how strong women can truly be. In addition, my hat is off to Helen Reddy for creating an anthem for women that to this day continues to echo out.

tv-intros.com

I have been out of town for the past week in New Mexico speaking at a conference. I do like to travel. It’s fun and I enjoy the rest stops and all the trinkets and silly things that people always tend to buy. I love the open road on the highway and finally I take pleasure in coming home. So last night after a long trip on the road, it was great to be home. I was tired and actually quite beat. I sat in my recliner, turned on the TV, and there it was, in front of my eyes, in living color something I have not seen in years and years, and it got me thinking…

Hee Haw was a show my mother and father watched from the very first day it began in 1969 to the very last day it aired in 1993. It was the country version of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in, only filled with a bit of twang and music. Watching Hee Haw was like a family gathering. My father never missed it. He was a real disciple of Buck Owens and Roy Clark who hosted this show for twenty years.

I myself, who was not a country music fan, caught myself begrudgingly watching as I loved variety shows as a kid. I have to admit, there were times when I laughed at these country bumpkins from this TV fictional rural area known as “Kornfield Kounty”. Yes indeed there were some fairly funny skits. I think my favorite was the Gossip Girls. They sang a song that went like this;

“Now, we’re not ones to go ’round spreadin’ rumors
Why, really we’re just not the gossipy kind
No, you’ll never hear one of us repeating gossip
So you’d better be sure and listen close the first time!”

 The girls would then start to gossip. For me it was funny because it described the very thing that surrounded me. Gossip is just what you did in those days, and I think I learned what gossip was at a very young age, so of course this skit made me laugh.

Variety shows in those days showcased regular skits. I enjoyed many of the skits of Hee Haw which included, The Moonshiners, Empty Arms Hotel, Colonel Daddy’s Daughter, The Cornfield, The Haystack, The Culhanes, Doc Campbell, Justus O’Peace, Misty’s Bedtime Stories and actually the list goes on for quite some time. There was a plethora of skits and guest stars.

Hee Haw attracted hundreds of celebrity guests from virtually every segment of the entertainment industry and not just country music. You never knew who would end up on the show, which made it even more fun to watch. In all reality, some of the regulars were a real hoot to watch. Minnie Pearl, Archie Campbell, George Lindsey (Goober) Alvin “Junior” Samples, David “Stringbean” Akeman, Barbi Benton, John Henry Faulk, Gordie Tapp, Grandpa Jones, Jeannine Riley, Grady Nutt all contributed humor to this one time number one show.

The show had a skit called Hee Haw Salutes where they would salute a selected town. So today, after seeing Hee Haw for the first time in probably 20 years, I salute Hee Haw with fond memories and a kind heart.

I have met a wonderful friend when I interviewed Stan Blitz author of American Bandstand the Untold Story. Stan, much like me is a music connoisseur. Not only do we love music of the past, we understand and realize that much of the very roots of today’s rock music came from the 30s, and 40s. Stan recently told me he was doing a radio show of the music of the 40s and it got me thinking…

 Oh how we forget such an important part of our past. Of course when I think of music of the 40s the first thing that comes to my mind is the sounds of jazz and the echo of big bands. This clearly sounded much better than the sounds of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan. The 40s was a very dramatic time and the music was also dramatic.

 People such as Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, were band leaders of some of America’s biggest bands and had people dancing and swinging on the dance floors. Soon singers who sang with these big bands became solo artists. Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney, even Doris Day became the star attractions of the big band era.

 As the big band era was blasting dance floors, Be-Bop and Rhythm and Blues and Jazz was sweeping the country. Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Billy Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald filled the airwaves and The Andrew Sisters, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and the Mills Brothers were introducing us to what we now call pop music.

 The music of the 40s was upbeat—and why not? TV dinners, Tupperware and aluminum foil was making life easier for women and they could enjoy songs like Rum and Coca-Cola by The Andrew Sisters, In the Mood by Glenn Miller, Don’t Fence Me where the Andrews Sisters teamed up with Bing Crosby, Sentimental Journey with Les Brown and Doris Day, and Some Enchanted Evening by Perry Como.

 The 40s music scene might be best known for jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald who’s first hit was A-Tisket, A-Tasket, Sarah Vaughan who recorded her first song Lover Man with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday who not only sang but co-wrote God Bless the Child, Don’t Explain, and Lady Sings the Blues.

 Let’s not forget to mention country music. By 1939 the Grand Ole Opry had become the most popular music show on the radio and the 40s heard from Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Gene Autry, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Tex Ritter.

 Just a little trivia I found fascinating was that almost 1/4 of the music that people listened to in 1940 was Glenn Miller. Well that was until Artie Shaw  hired a singer named Frank Sinatra  but  he was making only 75 bucks a week so he ditched that band and found his fame with The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra where in one year, they recorded 40 songs. He soon became a crooning success.

 The bottom line is I think we tend to ignore how much the 40s music shaped music history.  We say the 50s was the beginning of rock and roll, but in my mind, some of these fine singers, were the core so  much of the music we listen to today.