Tuesday Open Thread | Ladies of Country Music Week | Loretta Lynn

I thought we’d share a little country music this week, focusing on the ladies.

Today’s selection: Loretta Lynn.

loretta lynn-1

 

 

Loretta Lynn (née Webb; born April 14, 1932) is a previously chart-topping, multiple-gold-album selling American country-music singer-songwriter whose work has spanned more than 40 years. She has received numerous awards and other accolades for her pioneering, groundbreaking role in modern country music and her documentation of and contributions to American culture. She has also authored at least six books, most of them autobiographies. Lynn was born to coal-miner Melvin “Ted” Webb, and his wife Clara née Ramey, in Butcher Hollow, near Paintsville, Kentucky, USA, the second of their eight children.

loretta lynn-5

Trailblazing path to stardom[edit]

At age 15 Loretta married, and soon became pregnant. She moved to Washington state with her husband, Oliver Vanetta Lynn, Jr. (1926–1996). Their marriage was tumultuous; he had affairs, but she stayed with him. Their life together helped inspire the music she wrote.

In 1953, on their sixth anniversary, when Loretta was 20, Oliver bought her a 17-dollar Harmony guitar. She taught herself to play. When she was 24, on their wedding anniversary, Oliver encouraged her to become a singer. She worked to improve her guitar playing, and started singing at the Delta Grange Hall in Washington state with the Pen Brothers’ band The Westerners. Lynn eventually cut her first record (Honky Tonk Girl) in February 1960. She became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s, and in 1967 charted her first of 16 number-one hits (out of 70 charted songs as a solo artist and a duet partner)[1] that include “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”, “You Ain’t Woman Enough”, “Fist City”, and “Coal Miner’s Daughter”.[2]

Lynn focused on blue-collar women’s issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses, and pushed boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control (“The Pill”), repeated childbirth (“One’s on the Way”), double standards for men and women (“Rated “X””), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War (“Dear Uncle Sam”). Country music radio stations often refused to play her music, banning nine of her songs; but Lynn pushed on to become “The First Lady of Country Music”. In 1980, her best-selling 1976 autobiography Coal Miner’s Daughter was made into an Academy Award-winning film, Coal Miner’s Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. Her most recent album, Van Lear Rose, released in 2004, was produced by fellow musician Jack White; it topped the country album charts. Lynn and White were nominated for five Grammys and won two. They earned critical success for their work.[citation needed]

Lynn has been performing for 53 years. She has received numerous awards in country and American music, including being inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1988, and the Song Writers Hall Of Fame in 2008. She was honored in 2010 at the Country Music Awards for her stellar career. Her most recent honor is the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama (awarded also to Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Bob Dylan). Lynn has been a member of The Grand Ole Opry for 51 years since joining on September 25, 1962. Her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was on October 15, 1960. In a press conference she said, “I’ve played in a million places, but the Grand Ole Opry is different”. Lynn has recorded 60 albums and has sold over 48 million albums worldwide in her career.

loretta lynn-2

1960–1966: Early country success[edit]

Lynn began singing in local clubs in mid 1959 with help, insistence, and support from her husband; she later formed her own band, The Trailblazers, which included her brother Jay Lee Webb. Lynn won a televised talent contest in Tacoma, Washington, hosted by Buck Owens, for which the prize was a wristwatch that broke 24 hours later. (Lynn later laughed about it with Owens.) Lynn’s Performance was seen by Canadian Norm Burley of Zero Records, who co-founded the record company after hearing Loretta sing. He was blown away and wanted Loretta to be heard from deejay’s all over the world.[12] Zero Records president Canadian Don Grashey arranged a recording session in Hollywood, where four of Lynn’s own compositions were recorded: I’m A Honky Tonk Girl, Whispering Sea, Heartache Meet Mister Blues, and New Rainbow. Her first release featured Whispering Sea and I’m A Honky Tonk Girl. She signed her first contract on February 2, 1960, with Zero Records; the material was recorded at United Western Recorders in Hollywood, engineered by Don Blake and produced by Grashey.,[13][14] Musicians backing on the songs were “the great” steel guitar player Speedy West,[15] Harold Hensely on fiddle, Roy Lanham on guitar, Al Williams on bass, and Muddy Berry on drums.[16] Lynn commented on the different sound of her first record: “Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville sound… It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat”.[17]

The Lynns then toured the country to promote the release to country stations,[12] while Grashey and Del Roy took the music to KFOX in Long Beach, California.[14] When the Lynns reached Nashville, the song was a hit, climbing to No. 14 on Billboard’s C & W Chart, and Lynn began cutting demo records for the Wilburn Brothers’ Publishing Company.[12] Through the Wilburns, Lynn was able to secure a contract with Decca Records.[12] From the onset of her career fans took notice and rallied behind her all the way, with the first Loretta Lynn Fan Club formed in November 1960. By the end of the year Billboard magazine listed Loretta Lynn as the No. 4 Most Promising Country Female Artist.[citation needed]

Lynn’s relationship with the Wilburn Brothers and her appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, beginning in 1960,[7] helped Lynn become the number one female recording artist in country music. Lynn’s contract with the Wilburn Brothers gave them the publishing rights to her material. She was still fighting to regain these rights 30 years after ending her business relationship with them, but was ultimately denied the publishing rights. Lynn stopped writing music in the 1970s because of these contracts. Although Kitty Wells had become the first major female country vocalist during the 1950s, by the time Lynn recorded her first record, only three other women – Patsy Cline, Skeeter Davis, and Jean Shepard – had become top stars. By the end of 1962, (Loretta joined The Grand Ole Opry on September 25, 1962) it was clear that Lynn was on her way to becoming the fourth. Lynn has credited Cline as her mentor and best friend during those early years.[citation needed] In 2010, when interviewed for Jimmy Mcdonough’s Biography of Tammy Wynette Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen, Loretta mentioned having Best friends in Patsy and Tammy during different times: “Best friends are like husband’s you only need one at a time”.

Lynn released her first Decca single, “Success,” in 1962, and it went straight to #6, beginning a string of Top 10 singles that would run through the rest of the decade and throughout the next. She was a hard honky-tonk singer for the first half of the ’60s and rarely strayed from the genre.[1] Between this time, Lynn soon began to regularly hit the Top 10 after 1964 with “Before I’m Over You”, which peaked at No. 4, followed by “Wine, Women, and Song”, which peaked at No. 3. In late 1964, she recorded a duet album with Ernest Tubb. Their lead single, “Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be” peaked within the Top 15. Together, the pair recorded two more albums, “Singin’ Again” (1967) and If we Put Our Heads Together (1969). In 1965, her solo career continued with three major hits that year, “Happy Birthday”, “Blue Kentucky Girl” (later recorded and made a Top 10 hit in the 70s by Emmylou Harris), and “The Home You’re Tearing Down”. Lynn’s label issued two albums that year, Songs from My Heart and Blue Kentucky Girl. While most of these songs were Top 10 Country hits, none of them reached #1.[citation needed]

Lynn’s first self-penned song to crack the Top Ten, 1966’s “Dear Uncle Sam”, was among the very first recordings to recount the human costs of the Vietnam War.[18] In the latter half of the decade, although she still worked within the confines of honky tonk, her sound became more personal, varied, and ambitious, particularly lyrically. Beginning with 1966’s Number 1 hit in Cash Box, “You Ain’t Woman Enough”, Lynn began writing songs with a feminist viewpoint, which was unheard of in country music. This song made Loretta Lynn the first country female recording artist to pen a No. 1 hit.[19]

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1967–1980: Breakthrough success[edit]

In 1967, Lynn reached No. 1 with “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”.[20] Her album, Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin, went to number one and became one of the first albums by a female country artist to reach sales of 500,000 copies.[21]

Lynn’s next album, Fist City, was released in 1968. The title track became Lynn’s second No. 1 hit, as a single in earlier that year, and the other single from the album, “What Kind of a Girl (Do You Think I Am)”, peaked within the Top 10. In 1968, her next studio album, Your Squaw Is on the Warpath, spawned two Top 5 Country hits: the title track and “You’ve Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out on Me)”. In 1969, her next single, “Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone)”, was Lynn’s third chart-topper, followed by a subsequent Top 10, “To Make a Man (Feel Like a Man)”. Lynn was reportedly once inspired to write a song about a real woman she suspected was flirting with her husband. The song, “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, was an instant hit and became one of Lynn’s all-time most popular. Her career continued to be successful into the 1970s, especially following the success of her hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart in 1970, and the album has sold over 5 million copies world wide. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” tells the story of Lynn’s life growing up in rural Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. The song later served as the impetus for the best-selling autobiography (1976) and the Oscar-winning biopic starring Academy Award Winner For Best Leading Actress Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones (1980), both of which share the song’s title.[22] The song became her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 83. She had a series of singles that would chart low on the Hot 100 between 1970 and 1975.[citation needed]

In 1973, Rated X peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart and was considered one of Lynn’s most controversial hits. The next year, her next single, “Love Is the Foundation”, also became a No. 1 country hit from her album of the same name. The second and last single from that album, “Hey Loretta”, became a Top 5 hit. Lynn continued to reach the Top 10 until the end of the decade, including with 1975’s “The Pill”, considered to be the first song to discuss birth control, other than the 1967 French-language song in French, Pilule d’Or, sung by Luc Dominique, the former “Singing Nun”. As a songwriter, Lynn believed no topic was off limits, as long as it spoke to other women, and many of her songs were autobiographical.[8] In 1976, she released her autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter, with the help of writer George Vecsey. It became a #1 bestseller, making Lynn the first country music artist to make the New York Times bestseller list. This opened a flood gate of country artists who followed with books.[citation needed] By the early 1980s Loretta Lynn became the first American female recording artist to chart over fifty top ten hits.

Professional partnership with Conway Twitty[edit]

In 1971, Lynn began a professional partnership with Conway Twitty. As a duo, Lynn and Twitty had five consecutive Number 1 hits between 1971 and 1975: their first release “After the Fire Is Gone” (1971),won them a Grammy award, “Lead Me On” (1971), “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” (1973), “As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone” (1974), and “Feelins'” (1974). The hit-streak kick-started what became one of the most successful duos of country history. For four consecutive years (1972–1975), Lynn and Twitty were named the “Vocal Duo of the Year” by the Country Music Association. The Academy of Country Music named them the “Best Vocal Duet” in 1971, 1974, 1975 and 1976. The American Music awards selected them as the “Favorite Country Duo” in 1975, 1976 & 1977. The fan-voted Music City News readers voted them the No. 1 duet in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980 and 1981. In addition to their five Number 1 singles, they had seven other Top 10 hits between 1976 and 1981.[1] Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty are the most successful and most awarded male/female duet teams in country music history. Conway and Loretta, their duo name, released an album in 1977 titled “Dynamic Duo” and were considered that by their many fans.

As a solo artist, Lynn continued to be very successful into 1971, achieving her fifth No. 1 solo hit, “One’s on the Way”, written by poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. The songs that didn’t reach the top spot peaked within the Top 10 during this time, “I Wanna Be Free”, “You’re Lookin’ At Country” and 1972’s “Here I Am Again”, all released on separate albums. The next year, she became the first country star on the cover of Newsweek.[23] In 1972 Loretta was the first woman nominated and the first woman to win the prestigious Entertainer Of The Year award at The

loretta lynn-4

Tribute album for Patsy Cline[edit]

In 1977, Lynn recorded I Remember Patsy, an album dedicated to friend and country pop singer Patsy Cline, who died in a plane crash in 1963. The album covered some of Cline’s biggest hits. The two singles Lynn released from the album, “She’s Got You” and “Why Can’t He Be You”, became major hits. “She’s Got You”, which formerly went to #1 by Cline in 1962, went to #1 again that year by Lynn. “Why Can’t He Be You” peaked at #7 shortly afterward. Lynn enjoyed enormous success on country radio until the early 1980s, when a more pop-flavored type of country music began to dominate the market. She stayed within the country Top 10 up until the mid-1980s; however, most of her music by the late ’70s had a slick pop sound to it. Lynn had her last #1 hit in early 1978 with her solo single, “Out of My Head and Back In My Bed”. In 1979, she had two Top 5 hits, “I Can’t Feel You Anymore” and “I’ve Got a Picture Of Us on My Mind”, each from separate albums. Lynn would sit for an hour or more on a stage giving autographs to her fans after a performance. Once in Salisbury, Maryland, the town’s newspaper editor interviewed her while she was signing autographs. Editor Mel Toadvine asked her why she took so much time to sign autographs while more than 100 people stood in line all the way to the front of the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. “These people are my fans”, she told Toadvine. “I’ll stay here until the very last one wants my autograph. Without these people, I am nobody; I love these people.” In 1979, she became the spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble’s Crisco Oil, and did TV commercials and print ads for them for a decade, ending in 1989. Because of her dominant hold on the 1970s, Lynn was named the “Artist of the Decade” by the Academy of Country Music. She is the first and only woman to win this honor.[citation needed]

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88 Responses to Tuesday Open Thread | Ladies of Country Music Week | Loretta Lynn

  1. rikyrah says:

    Caroline Kennedy’s son John looks so much like her brother, it’s eery.

    https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/400379303365324800/photo/1

  2. rikyrah says:

    This is why elections matter.

    WE in Chicago, STILL can’t get Rahm to settle the Burge cases, set up a fund for the victims and for him to call for new trials for all the victims.

    ………………

    Ken Burns: Bill De Blasio Has Agreed To Settle 10-Year-Old Central Park Five Case

    During a visit to HuffPost Live Tuesday to discuss his new initiative “Learn the Address,” documentary filmmaker Ken Burns gave an update on the ten-year-old Central Park Five civil suit and told host Josh Zepps that New York City’s new mayor will finally settle the case.

    Burns’ 2012 documentary “The Central Park Five” tells the story of five juveniles convicted in 1990 of raping a jogger in Central Park. In 2002, the convictions of the five defendants were vacated when another man confessed to the crime. The following year, the Central Park Five filed a civil suit against the City of New York for their wrongful convictions that, after a decade, has yet to be resolved.

    “Bill de Blasio, the mayor-elect, has agreed to settle this case, and though this is justice delayed way too long, and that is justice denied, [they] will not only be exonerated … but they will have justice, they will see some closure, they will be able to be made whole,” Burns said.

    Burns joined HuffPost Live last year before the film’s release with one of the exonerated members of the Central Park Five. Burns said then of New York City’s refusal to settle the 10-year-old case, “the city has put molasses into the system,” and that 10 years later “this is still an open wound that we continue to pick the scab on.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/12/bill-de-blasio-central-park-five_n_4262203.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

  3. rikyrah says:

    About James Carville:

    Sepia

    Joe Madison called out James Carville for his comment about how PBO should take a toke on a crack pipe. He said Carville never said Bush II, Clinton, Bush I or Reagan should smoke crack. And considering the devastation the crack epidemic caused in the Black community, why would he associate smoking crack with PBO. Then, Madison’s wife, Sherry, said that she was ticked off with Carville. She said Carville was the Karl Rove of the Democratic Party that ran Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and PBO beat him despite the odds, and this is a defeated Carville speaking. She said that Hillary is going to need Black voters, and this crack pipe comment may have lost her a some Black votes.

  4. rikyrah says:

    Yes…where are the preachers?

    ……………….

    The Obamacare ‘scandal’ you haven’t heard about
    By John Blake, CNN

    …McDonald’s congregation cheered, but his is a voice crying in the
    wilderness. He’s willing to condemn state leaders whose refusal to
    accept Obamacare has left nearly 5 million poor Americans without health coverage. But few of the most famous pastors in the Bible Belt will join him.

    Joel Osteen? Bishop T.D. Jakes, and other prominent pastors throughout the South?

    Like McDonald, they preach in states where crosses and church steeples dot the skyline yet the poor can’t get the health insurance they would receive if they lived elsewhere. All declined to comment.

    …Most of the people who fall into the coverage gap live in the Bible
    Belt, a 14-state region in the South stretching from North Carolina to
    Texas and Florida. The Bible Belt is the most overtly Christian region
    in the country, filled with megachurches and pastors who are treated
    like celebrities. All but two Bible Belt states have refused to accept
    the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.

    http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/08/the-obamacare-question-pastors-shun/

  5. rikyrah says:

    Where are our cooning graphics, please?

    ……………..

    Why I hate being a black man

    We espouse ‘black is beautiful’, but the true image of blackness is ugly. If we confront our self-hatred, maybe we’ll have real pride

    Orville Lloyd Douglas

    theguardian.com, Saturday 9 November 2013 09.00 EST

    I can honestly say I hate being a black male. Although black people like to wax poetic about loving their label I hate “being black”. I just don’t fit into a neat category of the stereotypical views people have of black men. In popular culture black men are recognized in three areas: sports, crime, and entertainment. I hate rap music, I hate most sports, and I like listening to rock music such as PJ Harvey, Morrissey, and Tracy Chapman.I have nothing in common with the archetypes about the black male.

    There is so much negativity and criminal suspicion associated with being a black male in Toronto. Yet, I don’t have a criminal record, and I certainly don’t associate with criminals. In fact, I abhor violence, and
    I resent being compared to young black males (or young people of any race) who are lazy, not disciplined, or delinquent. Usually, when black male youth are discussed in Toronto, it is about something going wrong.

    Honestly, who would want to be black? Who would want people to be terrified of you and not want to sit next to you on public transportation?

    Who would want to have this dark skin, broad nose, large thick lips, and wake up in the morning being despised by the rest of the world?

    A lot of the time I feel like my skin color is like my personal prison,
    something that I have no control over, for I am judged just because of
    the way I look.

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/09/i-hate-being-a-black-man

  6. rikyrah says:

    Yes, She Really is a Liar

    by BooMan
    Tue Nov 12th, 2013 at 02:36:06 PM EST

    Let me help Rick Moran out a little bit, because he seems confused about what Lori Gottlieb claimed and how I concluded that she is a liar. Let’s go very slow. Here is Ms. Gottlieb’s opening:

    THE Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call told me that there was a silver lining in the cancellation of my individual P.P.O. policy and the $5,400 annual increase that I would have to pay for the Affordable Care Act-compliant option…

    What can we learn from this?

    She talked to a representative of Anthem Blue Cross who (she claims) provided her the information she relied upon for her column. She was told that her old plan was cancelled because it was not compliant with the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for minimal coverage. She was told that she would have to pay $5,400 more annually for a compliant policy than she had been paying for a non-compliant policy.

    Mr. Moran raises some questions about my analysis:

    What if she doesn’t want the Bronze Plan? What if her insurance company was being accurate when she asked how much a similar plan as the one that was cancelled would cost on the exchanges (Silver or Gold)? What reason would the insurance company have in lying to her when, if she chose, she could go to the website and find out herself?
    We don’t know.

    Here’s my response:

    1. She told us how much it would cost her to buy a compliant plan, not an equivalent plan. They are no equivalent plans because her old shitty policy was so horrible that it is now illegal to offer people such crap. If she wants something better than a bronze plan, that’s wonderful, but no one is forcing her to pay more than necessary. And she has no business comparing the cost of a Silver of Gold plan to the cost of a plan that was so bad that it is now banned. In other words, the bronze plan is better than what she was getting in terms of costs and basic protections, although she may have legitimate beefs about doctors who are now out-of-network. Regardless, as we shall see, even with a Gold plan, she’d still be a liar.

    2. Using the assumption that Ms. Gottlieb has two children, I discovered she could buy the L.A. Care Covered Bronze 60 plan for $426/mo or $5,112/yr. I understand now that she only has one child. Here are the quotes I am getting today from the California exchange for a 46 year old woman with one dependent child living in Los Angeles County with an income of $80,000:

    Bronze: L.A. Care Covered Bronze 60: $328/mo, $3,936/yr
    Silver: Health Net Silver 70: $408/mo, $4,896/yr
    Gold: Health Net Gold 80: $461/mo, $5,532/yr
    Silver: Health Net Platinum 90: $520/mo, $6,240/yr

    Obviously, if your Gold policy only costs $5,532/yr, it cannot possibly be $5,400 more expensive than your old plan. It appears that she is quoting the price for a gold plan but reporting it as the size of the increase in the price.

    3. Maybe some representative of Anthem Blue Cross actually told her that she’d have to spend over $5,000 more for a policy. Maybe they were trying to rip her off. Let’s have the police investigate that. But it’s more likely that Ms. Gottlieb is just a big fat liar.

    http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/11/12/14366/223

  7. rikyrah says:

    @sarahkendzior
    Your institutions are bankrupt. If Cohen’s rant had been a blog, would have been dismissed as out-of-touch lunatic. WaPo gives it sanction.

    @sarahkendzior
    How do we form “convention”? A conventional paper publishes columnist saying that gagging at interracial couples is a conventional response.

    @sarahkendzior
    WaPo column is an example of how extremist ideas become viewed as normal, and compassion as radical.

  8. rikyrah says:

    Race Forward

    Race Forward: The Center for Racial Justice Innovation was formerly known as the Applied Research Center (ARC). The goal of our rebrand is to:
    Lead with race in the same way that our organization does.
    Highlight the centrality of addressing “Race” and the importance of paving the way “Forward” to racial justice.
    Convey the urgency of moving forward using the word “Race.”

    Race Forward advances racial justice through research, media, and practice. Founded in 1981, Race Forward brings systematic analysis and an innovative approach to complex

    http://www.raceforward.org/?arc=1

  9. rikyrah says:

    Richard Cohen’s Extensive History Of Racism, Sexism And Homophobia
    By Zack Beauchamp on November 12, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    …Cohen’s race problem dates back to 1986, when he defended store
    owners banning black boys from their places of business. For fear of
    crime, you see. The black community launched a massive wave of protests, the Post’s executive editor apologized, and even Cohen later admitted his critics were “mostly right.”

    Fast forward to 2013, when Cohen used the same argument to defend George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was “understandably” suspicious of Trayvon Martin, because he was black, young and “wearing a uniform we all recognize.” Cohen concluded these musings with an argument for racial profiling based on a laughably basic statistical fallacy.

    But lest you think Richard Cohen is blind to racism, never fear. He’s all over racism against white people — or, as it’s more commonly known, affirmative action. Because “for most Americans, race has become supremely irrelevant” (tell that to defender of profiling Richard Cohen), “it was not racists who were punished [by affirmative action] but all whites.”

    http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/11/12/2927381/richard-cohen-worst/

  10. Yahtc says:

    Guess I will have to put this music aside with winter coming on:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3bKG0p6Tv9Q
    The Ventures Live – “Wipeout”

  11. *****************

    I love Neil Young!

    Girl blowing kiss

  12. TyrenM says:

    Good morning 3Chics,
    Interesting doing this after Brad/Carrie on CMA’s. OK. That said, You give good (unknown to me) information. I liked me some Tanya Tucker back in the day. My sis is a Shania fan. Have a good day.

  13. WTFF?

    • Yahtc says:

      As Mike Riggs says….Richard Cohen should be “canned”

    • rikyrah says:

      Some Comments:

      rigoletta

      The de Blasio’s have people shaken.

      A white man. An Italian at that, marrying and loving a black woman. And not some sandwich-for-nothing making idiot, a strong intelligent woman. And the 2 of them having 2 wonderful kids.

      It’s just like PBO and his family, they are the manifestation of every fear because they show everything they think and believe about black folks and ultimately white folks is a damn lie.

      • rikyrah says:

        MsKitty

        An Italian at that, marrying and loving a black woman.

        And it’s the “I’ll drink her bathwater all day, every day” type of love. Chirlane, with her ebony skin and locs, is his queen, not some sidepiece that has to go through the back door. Surprisingly (or not) a lot of insulated folks can’t wrap their head around that concept.

  14. Yahtc says:

    http://www.historicfilms.com/tapes/16933

    1 hour of Black film clips

  15. Yahtc says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hiUL2G2BepY

    Uploaded on Aug 12, 2010 by MusicandDancing4Ever
    Some young black lindy hop dancers from the 1940’s

  16. Yahtc says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watchv=UmnsWcxdhEQ

    “the spirit of the savoy!”

    “Uploaded on Dec 2, 2011
    Visit http://kilkennyswing.com/blog/ for more great content!”

  17. Yahtc says:

    “Broadway comes to Charlotte, courtesy of an almost native son”

    http://clclt.com/theclog/archives/2013/11/11/broadway-comes-to-charlotte-courtesy-of-an-almost-native-son

    Excerpt:

    If you had any doubts about the durability of the Motown songbook, stop worrying. Hours of auditions for the Broadway hit Motown the Musical and its upcoming national tour meant “Dancing in the Street” got a workout. And even after dozens of renditions – in various keys and at different tempos by singers not named Martha and the Vandellas – it still sounded pretty good.

  18. Yahtc says:

    Alice Walker film captivates audience at BronzeLens Film Festival

    by Kunbi Tinuoye
    November 11, 2013

    http://thegrio.com/2013/11/11/alice-walker-film-captivates-audience-at-bronzelens-film-festival/#s:alice-walker-16×9

  19. Yahtc says:

    From an November 11, 2013 article on California settlers posted by Daniel Medina:

    Robert Owens

    At age forty-seven, Robert Owens, a slave on a Texas cotton plantation, bought his freedom. Using the savings he had accrued as a hired hand, Owens left behind his wife and three children and moved to Los Angeles in the early 1850s. Although California adopted an antislavery constitution in 1849, Anglo-Americans in Los Angeles still harbored Southern sympathies. Owens landed in a town ripe with racial prejudice. According to Quintard Taylor’s “In Search of the Racial Frontier,” Los Angeles had “the only significant African-American population in Southern California,” growing from a U.S. census designated population of 12 in 1850 to 66 by 1860. The ex-slave decided to settle far above the hostile township and built a cabin in the upper reaches of a foothill canyon just north of present-day Altadena.

    In time, Owens earned enough money from doing odd jobs in the San Gabriel Valley to buy his family’s freedom and bring them via an ox-drawn wagon from Texas to their new home. Even in the face of rampant racial discrimination, Owens managed to broaden his fortune when he won a government contract to supply wood, and building and livery materials, to military installations in Los Angeles. Owens and his own hired hands logged the woodlands around his cabin, which became known as Black Mountain, or Negro Canyon. Today, the canyon he lived and worked in is called El Prieto, “the dark one.”

    With his robust profits, Owens expanded his business endeavors into cattle dealing and real estate, purchasing downtown property along Los Angeles and San Pedro Streets. By his death on August 18, 1865, at age 59 of typhoid fever, Owens had become the wealthiest African-American in Los Angeles. Through the end of the century, his descendants would be influential members in Los Angeles’ African-American community, including his grandson Robert Curry Owens, one of two sons born from the marriage between Charles Owens and Ellen Mason, daughter of African-American entrepreneur Biddy Mason.

    The “Brown Boys”

    Twenty-two years after the death of Robert Owens, two aging brothers from Akron, Ohio constructed a snug wooden shack on a mesa above El Prieto Canyon. Jason and Owen Brown were the sons of John Brown, leader of the failed antislavery insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in 1859. The elder Brown was hung for the raid, but Owen eluded arrest and joined his brother Jason and sister Ruth in Pasadena in 1885. The brothers were warmly welcomed in town, and were affectionately referred to as the “Brown Boys.” Unsatisfied with the vicissitudes of burgeoning Pasadena, the brothers repaired to their mountain homestead in 1887 and savored their modest lifestyle for the ensuing three years.

    Owen Brown gravestone in its original location | Photo: Altadena Blog
    The bearded siblings tramped through the corrugations of the San Gabriels, tended their garden, and welcomed any visitors willing to trudge up to their perched residence. In 1887, they christened a nearby peak Brown Mountain, honoring their heroic father; the name survives today. About a year later, Owen contracted pneumonia from exposure to a winter storm and died in January, 1889, at age 64. His funeral in Pasadena attracted over 2,000 people, and he was laid to rest on a summit near their homestead, called Little Round Top. Before returning to Ohio, brother Jason worked on the construction of the Mount Lowe Railway. He would die five years after his brother passed.

    In 1898, a granite monument to mark the gravesite of Owen Brown was erected on Little Round Top. The gravestone, a local landmark visited by many Angelenos over the next century, went missing in 2002, shortly after the property was purchased by a new landowner. In 2012, the monument was found not far from the gravesite, and is expected to be restored.

    http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/san-gabriel-river/mountain-men-pioneers-and-outlaws-of-the-san-gabriels.html

  20. rikyrah says:

    Many Black New Yorkers Are Seeing de Blasio’s Victory as Their Own

    By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

    Published: November 10, 2013

    A black janitor in Brooklyn almost shouted out the name when asked about his vote in the mayoral race. Bill de Blasio, he said, “knows my struggle.”

    In the Bronx, some African-American voters defaulted to a shorthand: “the man with the black wife.” Nobody thought it necessary to explain whom they meant.

    And in a Brooklyn housing project, a lifelong resident said he was tired of mayors who, in his mind, had pitted blacks against whites. Mr. de Blasio, he declared, “is black and white.”

    Of all the records shattered by Mr. de Blasio’s landslide victory, perhaps the most remarkable is that virtually every vote cast by black New Yorkers — 96 percent — went his way. He captured a bigger portion of the black vote than David N. Dinkins in 1989 when he was elected New York City’s first black mayor with 91 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls.

    After the divisive tenor of the Giuliani years, and the deep grievances engendered by the stop-and-frisk police tactics of the Bloomberg era, black New Yorkers are now claiming Mr. de Blasio’s victory as their own. In postelection interviews, dozens of black New Yorkers said that Mr. de Blasio’s personal touch, his biracial family and his pledge to help the working-class and poor had affected them deeply. His victory, they said, was a chance to gain a voice in City Hall after two decades of leadership they viewed as inattentive, distant and, at times, even callous.

    “There was a sense of not being included, not being cared about,” said Charlene Curry, as she walked along Marcy Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, last week. She said she had never met Mr. de Blasio, but felt as if he were a neighbor. The mayor-elect, she said, has “a more humane approach, a more inclusive approach.” She added, “That reaches home.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/nyregion/many-black-new-yorkers-are-seeing-de-blasios-victory-as-their-own.html?hp&_r=1&

  21. Yahtc says:

    “Florida school board votes to remove name of Confederate general”

    (Reuters) – A north Florida school board has voted unanimously to change the name of a local high school honoring a Confederate general who made a fortune as a slave trader and was linked to the Ku Klux Klan.

    “It’s time to move forward with the renaming of Nathan B. Forrest High … it’s time to really put it to bed,” said School Board member Constance Hall, who asked the Board to finally begin the process of changing the name on Friday.

    Hall and the board’s other African American member were joined in the 7-0 vote by four whites and a Hispanic member in voting to change the name.

    Four Jacksonville schools are named after Confederate heroes, including Robert E. Lee High School, as well as the city’s downtown square.

    The school’s name was chosen in 1959 at the suggestion of the Daughters of the Confederacy as the group readied for the 100th anniversary of Florida joining the Confederacy, at the start of the Civil War that pitted the pro-slavery southern states against President Abraham Lincoln and the Union army.

    Changing the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School has come up several times. In 2008, the vote to keep the name broke along racial lines with two black members voting to change the name and five white board members voting against.

    This time, a Jacksonville parent, Omotayo Richmond, took up the cause on social media with a change.org petition signed by more than 176,000 people, generating widespread media coverage and support from civil rights groups.

    “Now is the time to right a historical wrong. African-American Jacksonville students shouldn’t have to attend a high school named for someone who slaughtered and terrorized their ancestors for one more school year,” Richmond wrote in his petition appeal.

    Forrest made a fortune as a slave trader in Tennessee before joining the Confederacy. Troops under his command massacred more than 400 Union soldiers who surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. A Congressional inquiry in 1871 looked into Forrest’s association with the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan.

    The school’s future name now lies in the hands of the Duval County Superintendent of Schools, Nikolai Vitti, due to report to the school board in December or January with a recommendation on changing the name, as well as present possible alternatives.

    Forrest’s defenders call the effort to change the name part of a wider move to erase all remnants of the Confederacy. They say slavery was legal in Forrest’s day and he was pardoned for his part in the war, and that at the end of his life his views on blacks changed and he supported black suffrage and freedom.

    “Where will this ever end?” Bodie Catlin, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, asked the School Board, raising his hands in the air for emphasis.

    “If you all go along with this, believe me, they are going to go after every Confederate general name in Jacksonville,” he told the School Board. “It’s not going to stop there. There are people who want to change the name of Jacksonville,” he added, noting that Andrew Jackson owned slaves and led the slaughter of Seminole Indians.

    Other schools named for Confederate heroes in Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama have taken steps toward renaming. In February, the Memphis City Council renamed three downtown parks to remove the Confederate association, including Nathan B. Forrest Park where the general is buried.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/09/us-usa-florida-school-idUSBRE9A80F020131109

    • TyrenM says:

      Hey Yahtc,
      I went to a Robert E. Lee School in Columbia MO. My mother refused to allow the WM principal to paddle me. FF to Phoenix, AZ. Black woman teacher – I was introduced to the paddle (the ones with holes in it.) This might be one reason I never joined a frat.

      • Yahtc says:

        Tyren,
        I certainly can see why you never joined a fraternity….they did have those paddles, didn’t they? :)

        (Before my dad was a high school principal, he had been a high school vice principal for 2 or 3 years. In that school district it was the VP who was in charge of discipline. At that time the school district still had the practice of paddling.)

  22. Yahtc says:

    “Daytime TV is embracing black entertainers; prime time, less so”
    As hosts of daytime game and talk shows, African Americans have been pulling in big ratings. But at night, it seems networks are still hesitant to air shows starring minorities.

    http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-black-daytime-television-20131109,0,602176.story#axzz2kRFxUMNQ

  23. rikyrah says:

    Medicaid matters
    11/11/13 11:45 AM
    By Steve Benen

    E.J. Dionne Jr. raises an argument in his column this morning that’s been getting short shrift by too much of the political world lately: Medicaid expansion matters, and far too many state Republican policymakers are blocking it for no reason.

    “President Obama apologized last week after all the criticisms of what’s happening in the individual insurance market,” Dionne explained. “But where is the outrage over governors and legislators flatly cutting off so many lower-income Americans from access to Medicaid? The Urban Institute estimates that 6 million to 7 million people will be deprived of coverage in states that are refusing to accept the expansion.”

    The recent disruption in the health care marketplace certainly matters, and the Obama administration has a lot of work to do to put things right. But if we’re going to talk about policymakers who need to apologize and show some semblance of regret, can we at least start to have a conversation about those keeping millions of struggling Americans from having access to coverage, largely out of partisan spite?

    …………………………….

    Maybe it’s because Washington is “wired” for Republicans and it’s the right’s complaints that have been driving the recent conversation. Perhaps it’s the result of Medicaid beneficiaries lacking the kind of political capital that keeps their plight on the political world’s front-burner. Maybe it’s a matter of timeliness, with implementation disruption seeming “new” in ways Medicaid is not. Perhaps it’s a combination of things.

    Regardless, by my standards, this is a genuine scandal. The administration’s missteps are real, but they’re not deliberate. “Red” states rejecting Medicaid expansion because of some misguided contempt for “Obamacare” are leaving struggling families behind on purpose. The callousness is outrageous.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/medicaid-matters

  24. rikyrah says:

    Refreshing Scott Walker’s memory
    11/11/13 04:30 PM
    By Steve Benen

    Political figures are so often guarded in public, we rarely get to hear candid moments when officials don’t realize they’re being heard. It makes moments like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) 2011 phone call with “David Koch” all the more interesting.

    As you may recall, in February 2011, Walker wouldn’t talk to Democratic state senators, but he made time for someone claiming to be one of the Koch brothers. It was, however, Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy who called in the midst of a major Wisconsin political crisis, engaged a ruse. When Murphy, pretending to be David Koch, suggested a scheme involving “planting some troublemakers” among the pro-union protestors, the governor conceded that he and his team “thought about that.”

    A day after the recording of the prank was released, Walker reiterated to local reporters that his office considered and rejected the idea of sending allies into the progressive protests to cause trouble for the pro-union forces. “As you’ve heard on the tape, we dismissed that and said that wasn’t a good idea,” the governor said at the time.

    Amanda Terkel reports today, however, that Walker’s book puts an entirely new spin on the events

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/refreshing-scott-walkers-memory

  25. rikyrah says:

    ‘This isn’t racist, but…’
    11/12/13 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Conservatives need a new point of comparison.

    In Iowa, Sarah Palin compared the federal debt she says shackles Americans to slavery. […]

    “Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China,” she said at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition’s fall fundraiser at the State Fairgrounds Saturday night. “When that money comes due – and this isn’t racist, but it’ll be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to beholden to the foreign master.”

    It’s hard to know where to start with rhetoric as nonsensical as this. Do we note that the deficit is already shrinking at its fastest pace since World War II? Or maybe highlight the fact that the U.S. was poised to pay off the national debt until Republicans put two wars, two tax cuts, and a Wall Street bailout on the national charge card?

    Do we mention that no sentence can end well if it starts, “This isn’t racist, but…”? Or perhaps the inconvenient detail that China only holds about 8% of the national debt?

    Is it worth remembering that focusing on debt reduction in a weak economy is ridiculous? Or how about the fact that the same policymakers who claim to be obsessed with debt reduction refuse to consider compromises that would actually reduce the debt?

    We could ask any of those questions, of course, but let’s instead make a more straightforward observation: comparing a government’s national debt to slavery is ridiculous and needlessly offensive. Slavery is a unique crime against humanity and a stain on history, not a rhetorical device to be used by lazy ideologues complaining about issues they don’t fully understand.

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/isnt-racist

  26. rikyrah says:

    Jamil Smith ✔ @JamilSmith
    Follow
    Just witnessed “12 Years a Slave.” Don’t anyone ever compare anything to slavery. It is a singular horror, our nation’s bloody fingerprint.

    8:24 PM – 11 Nov 2013 from New York, NY, United States

    Ms. Brooks™ @TheREAL_MBrooks
    Follow
    You do know that when you say stuff is “like slavery,” it shows you know nothing about slavery and you should sue your educators, right?

    8:07 PM – 11 Nov 2013

  27. rikyrah says:

    What the Media Won’t Tell You: Millions are Hurting as Red States Reject Medicaid Expansion

    By: Dennis S more from Dennis S

    Saturday, November, 9th, 2013, 3:55 pm

    While Congressional and national attention has been glued to the HealthCare.gov rollout controversy, the inhumane red state shafting of the voiceless percentage of our society who can’t stuff hundreds of millions into campaign coffers or buy endless TV propaganda, goes on unabated and largely ignored. Legislatures of Neanderthal states, the ones that have, for all practical purposes, seceded from the Union, have denied needy citizens access to a Medicaid expansion program that will be free to the states through 2014 and 2015 and never exceed a 10% state contribution. And the federal money for that expansion is already set aside. Medicaid expansion specifically targets the poor, disabled and uninsured.

    In researching several sites, I’ve compiled a list of the states that appear to have rejected any federally funded Medicaid expansion whatsoever. None will surprise you. Alabama always leads the way in these heartless endeavors; not only alphabetically, but in serving as exemplar for any health-related program Blue Cross and Blue Shield and their running partner the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tell these pathetic elected officials to vote for or against. ALEC also handles all critical non-health care related legislation. This description would apply to virtually all of the other states on this list.

    Alphabetically is a handy way to proceed. Next is Alaska. Alaska; even without Palin. Arkansas and Florida are predictably included. Yes, there are more right-wing nuts in the Florida legislature than there are in this year’s crop of oranges. Georgia is on board. ‘Nuff said. There’s Idaho and Indiana, a state that gave the moderate and loyal Republican public servant Richard Lugar the primary boot in favor of Teapublican Richard Mourdock who proceeded to declare during a debate that pregnancies resulting from rape are “something that God intended to happen.” Thanks “DICK.” Democrat Joe Donnelly and the American people were the benefactors of your awesomely thoughtless and ill-considered statement.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/09/healthcare-gov-commands-attention-millions-hurting-states-reject-medicaid-expansion.html

  28. rikyrah says:

    NBC Gives Sarah Palin a Disgraceful Platform to Lie About Obamacare

    By: Jason Easley more from Jason Easley

    Monday, November, 11th, 2013, 11:51 am

    The corporate media helped to spread more lies about the ACA, when NBC gave Sarah Palin an unchallenged platform for her Obamacare lies on Today.

    Palin was supposedly on the Today show to promote her book, but the interview really was a forum for her to lie about the ACA. Palin was asked President Obama’s apology for the website, and said, “What apology? He kind of acknowledged a bit that there’s a broken website. The broken website is the least of America’s worries. This broken website I think is symbolic of a broken administration. Take over one-sixth of our economy and the socialized medicine that’s being crammed down our throat, that’s what’s broken.”

    She falsely claimed that most Americans will be losing their health insurance, “”Where do you get this five percent? It’s not five percent. It’s most Americans will not be able to keep the healthcare policy and programs that they had desired. The new programs that are being forced down our throat are unaffordable. Some of them are still being told, ‘Well if you like that insurance policy and that coverage, you still will be able to keep it, it’s just going to cost you a little bit more.’ That’s the point. If it’s going to cost you more, then it’s not the same policy.”

    Sarah Palin was lying on all counts. The ACA is not socialized medicine. It is a change that allows people to participate in the free market so that they can have access to affordable healthcare. The 5% number is a fact. Sarah Palin came up with a very unique and untrue definition of losing your health insurance. She claimed that if your policy changes in any way, you’ve lost your health insurance.

    http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/11/nbc-sarah-palin-disgraceful-platform-lie-obamacare.html

  29. rikyrah says:

    Republicans Reeling as Support For Raising The Minimum Wage Surges to 76%
    By: Jason Easley more from Jason Easley
    Monday, November, 11th, 2013, 5:55 pm

    Congressional Republicans have vowed to block any bill raising the minimum wage, but a new Gallup poll shows that 76% of Americans and 58% of Republicans supporting increasing the minimum wage.

    The Gallup poll found that support for raising the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour has jumped from 71% in March to 76% today. Sixty nine percent of those polled support a minimum wage that increases as inflation goes up. 91% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 58% of Republicans support increasing the minimum wage. Democrats (92%) and Independents (71%) strongly support linking the minimum wage to inflation. Fifty six percent of Republicans oppose making the minimum wage inflation proof.

    While the American people want a higher minimum wage, Republicans in Congress support getting rid of all minimum wage laws. In an interview with CBS, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said, “I support people making more than $9. I want people to make as much as they can. I don’t think a minimum wage law works. We all support — I certainly do — having more taxpayers, meaning more people who are employed. And I want people to make a lot more than $9 — $9 is not enough. The problem is you can’t do that by mandating it in the minimum wage laws. Minimum wage laws have never worked in terms of having the middle class attain more prosperity.”

    http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/11/republicans-reeling-support-raising-minimum-wage-surges-76.html

  30. rikyrah says:

    Roger Simon ✔ @politicoroger
    Follow
    In 2004, CBS had independent review panel headed by Dick Thornburgh investigate its mistakes. Why no panel this time?

    2:17 PM – 11 Nov 2013

  31. rikyrah says:

    Imani ABL @AngryBlackLady

    Sarah Palin was comparing debt to chattel slavery. if you’re a progressive saying she has a point, raise your hand & slap yourself with it.

  32. rikyrah says:

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

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