With the election over many women are saying that they voted the way they did so they could keep their rights. Many women I have talked to said they did not want to go backwards. As a woman, I clearly did not want to regress back to the 50s and I as a woman was fully aware that music and women went hand in hand and it got me thinking…

Women had a huge say in the 50s and 60s when it came to music. Yes, we live in a nation where some people would like to see us barefoot, pregnant and unable to make decisions about our body parts or choices. The Donna Reed era is over though and more women are just saying no to staying at home and taking care of their husbands. Many of these women are fully aware how much they influenced music. How honored we should be that women not only crawled up the charts, they rocked the charts in a male dominated business.  Let’s face it, can you imagine Ricky Nelson singing Aretha Franklins’ Respect? NOT! Women actually helped change and shift the music of my culture of the 60s.

Where would music be without women? Patti Page, Connie Francis, Shirley Bassey, Etta James, The Bobbettes, Della Reese, Doris Day, Peggy Lee, Mary Ford, Sarah Vaughan, Wanda Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday were just some of the women of the 50s that made wonderful music seem effortless. Their voices were natural and clear and their vocal delivery was precise. These were the women that broke ground for women to create the music they did in the 60s.

They paved the way for females to enter the arena of songwriting like Carol King and Joni Mitchell. These women songwriters would rock the world with great songs. Carol King wrote I Feel the Earth Move, It’s Too Late, I Feel the Earth Move,  So Far Away, The Loco-Motion, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, and hundreds more. Joni Mitchell wrote songs like Woodstock, Carrey, Both Sides Now, Help Me, and Big Yellow Taxi. I could not mention singer songwriters without mentioning Janis Ian who wrote and recorded Society’s Child and At Seventeen.

These brave singers of the 50s proved that a woman could make it in a man’s world. They showed that number one hits belonged to women as well as men. Girl groups like Diana Ross and the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas topped the charts with hit after hit. Women that captured audiences with grace and style were wonderful singers like Dionne Warwick, Barbra Streisand, Dusty Springfield and Marianne Faithfull to name a very few.

Women not only showed us that their music was what emotions sounded like; they showed us that they could move our soul with Motown artists like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight. Momma Cass, Tina Turner, Grace Slick,  showed us a woman could rock and Janis Joplin not only showed us a woman could rock, she showed us a woman could rock just as good as a man.

How grateful I am that women still top the charts and have made the music world not a man’s business but a business for talented people no matter what sex or sexuality they are, what religion or color they are or what they personally believe in.  How amazed I am that women do not have to take steps backwards but we get to move forward and for many women, they will move forward through their music and songwriting. Therefore, my hat is off to the women who showed us that women and music do indeed go hand in hand and will continue to move forward.

Public Domain

I have to admit it, I am sick of all the politics. Everywhere I drive, I see signs, on the TV and how bad all the candidates are. We rarely see what they stand for, just why we should not vote for that person and nose rubbing and finger pointing.  I go on facebook and there are people that put up 15-20 political posts littering my facebook and trying to peddle their personal agenda, and it got me thinking…

In the past, there were such great slogans that it stuck with us. There was no internet for rude people to shove politics down your throat. Television didn’t cram it and there was some version of respect with the parties. It really used to be one nation and not a divided nation. I think part of what made the presidential elections so interesting was the slogans they had.

A slogan is a short phrase that represents what someone stands for. How could we forget in 1952 “I like Ike?” I personally liked “Keep cool with Coolidge.” The more I researched the more great slogans I have found throughout our history that seem unforgettable. These slogans are so good, and make so much sense, that there was no need to shove politics in your face. The slogan said it all.

An old poster of an owl I found on the internet said “A wise old bird says, Hoo Hoo Hoover” is simply perfect. Hoover also had” Hoo but Hoover.” Priceless and to the point. It stays in our heads, we don’t need tons of people spoon feeding it to us.  How can you forget this? Posters, buttons, stickers, they are all made up and people can wear them or not, back then they were given a choice and having a choice was great.

“Happy Days Are Here Again” was a 1932 slogan by Franklin D. Roosevelt. How could you not stop that phrase turning repeatedly in your head? It was almost as good as “I’m just wild about Harry” which was the 1948 slogan of Harry Truman. When greatness is born, so is a slogan and JKF felt he knew that and kept it simple in 1960 with a simple slogan, “A Time for Greatness.” He did not stop there and grabbed another simple phrase that said a great deal and that was “We Can Do Better.” Following JFK was LBJ and his slogan was simple but to the point, “All the way with LBJ.” Of course speaking of simple and to the point, I liked the 1900 slogan of William McKinley that said “Let Well Enough Alone.”

Sometimes slogans did not make sense and a little out there. Nixon proved that with his slogan “Vote for me and I’ll make your dreams come true.” Sounded more like a greeting card than a slogan, however, I had to laugh when I found the Nixon slogan “Don’t Switch Dicks in the Middle of a Screw, Vote Nixon in 72″

Indeed, there was humor in some of these great slogans. We still have slogans, but they are not the same as they were. There was innocence to them back then, Today, we simply have to “deal” with these political ads and slogans and hope the streets and TV will be less littered in a few more days and we can have our landscape back.