6 Comments

Thanks for this piece, I did not know about Blanche Calloway though of course I knew about Cab. I have several of his albums. Thanks for spreading the stories and music of these essential women artists. Looking forward to the next one!

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“I ain’t playing Santa Claus to any man...” ❤️

Awesome spotlight! Thanks!

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It's interesting that the "rules" for what was acceptable in lyrics became much more conservative in the 40's and 50's, before things broke open in the 60's.

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in all the art forms. The Hays code for film. I remember though, purchasing a CD 20-30 years ago called Risque Rhythms and it had a song called “Big Long Slidin’ Thing” by Dinah Washington on it. That was 1954 and arranged by Quincy Jones.

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The hilarious thing is how often the censors completely missed the double entendres. There was a real fear that birthrates would fall if women got less interested in traditional roles, so censorship and the repression of women's autonomy were closely intertwined.

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Very interesting! The pendulum swings back and forth:

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