a b c "Johnny Johnson And The Bandwagon Discography". Discogs.com. 2010-06-07 . Retrieved 2015-10-27. Unfortunately, Roc-A-Jets lead guitarist Jan Morrison died in 2007, so I couldn’t get her story, and there were times when I was limited by what I could write about artists because they were long gone, and so little was written about them at the time. But through other researchers, I could get some info, and the sagas of 1930s singer-songwriter Bruz Fletcher – like a much more daring Noel Coward and Cole Porter – and 1940s/1950s cabaret singer Frances Faye are other favourites of mine, again for their brassiness and verve, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable, and suffering to various degrees (Fletcher especially). This decade is bookended by Liberace, who began performing behind the curtain at Spivy’s Roof, whose eponymous proprietress sang naughty songs through the ’40s (and beyond). Adored by women, by the end of the decade Lee would be doing classical-pop mashups that took him nearly to the White House. [11] Aston claims Liberace performed for President Truman at the White House in 1950, but this is refuted by a Time magazine article (“Did Liberace Do DC?”, 29 May 2013). It may be that Lee’s… Continue reading Midcentury Moderns

Poignantly Aston tempers that liberatory moment—in 1967 laws in the UK decriminalized contraception, abortion, and sodomy—with this: Johnson was born as John A. Mathis on July 20, 1942 in Belle Glade, Florida, the son of Lillie Kate Mathis who later married Lucine Johnson. As a child, he moved to Rochester, New York, and later sang in several local groups, [1] including the Bandwagons [ sic]. Other early members of the group included Terry Lewis (born in Baltimore, Ohio), Jerry Ferguson, and Wade Davis. [2] This title was by The Creation. Aston discusses the lyric that places Bert “with his trousers hanging down” at Hampstead Heath (to London what Griffith Park once was to Los Angeles). “Rumour has it Uncle’s a tillie,” an obscure term that Aston pegs as “an old-fashioned reference to homosexual,” admittedly “without supportive evidence.” A possible alternate meaning comes from Bruce Rodgers’s The Queens’ Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon (San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1972, 125–126). The entry for Lilly [Law], which Rodgers defines as “( camp) the police, crime-fighters paid to protect us from each other (muggers, rapists, etc) and not from ourselves,” includes the synonym Tilly [Tight-twat] “( camp, mid-late ’60s, because he runs a tight ship and keeps a tight asshole[…]).” Camp coincidence: I first came across Rodgers’s title in the library of my alma mater Immaculate Heart College. One satisfying aspect of the book was the reclaiming of many forgotten artists. I chose to focus on the pioneers, in their era and across the genres, who were first to declare themselves, either by force of personality or deed, despite the legal and moral restrictions of the day. While Walt Whitman provided proof in his writing of a stateside “homosexual community” (U.S. capital penalties against sodomy having been relaxed beginning in 1786), as Aston writes, only a small sliver of folk tradition in Britain gives clues to AC-DC fluidity and more. But the listed titles are telling: “The Handsome Cabin Boy,” “The Dark Slender Boy,” “The Strapping Lad,” as well as the sole “lesbian saga” unearthed by Aston, “Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.”Eskew Reeder (1935 -1986), usually known as Esquerita, often wore heavy makeup, sunglasses, and two wigs, piling his pompadour high on his head. It is speculated that Reeder was an influence on Little Richard. The two were friends and may have had a sexual relationship.” The slogan inspired at least two singles titled “I’d Rather Fight Than Switch” by The Tomboys (!) and A. C. Reed. I remember the late (gay) music critic Craig Lee’s consternation in his L.A. Weekly interviews with Little Richard and Pete Shelley (not together) when they both evaded the obvious. Since the posting of this review I found that my memory was faulty—not about Shelley (see “Pete Shelley,” L.A. Weekly, 11–17 Jun 1982, 23)—but rather, that Craig’s piece on Penniman was a book review that includes a recollection of his meeting Little Richard in 1971 at 17. Craig wrote, “But even though Richard has denounced his former music as ‘demonic,’ even though his conflict with homosexuality has him taking the old ‘It’s unnatural’ line, I can’t help but admire the man […]” (see “4/4 Play,” L.A. Weekly, 26 Oct – 01 Nov, 1984, 59). Group member William Bradley became a community worker and minister active in the International Missionary Outreach Society of New York. He published a memoir, Look Where He Brought Me From: From Darkness to Light, in 2011. [2] Discography [ edit ] Albums [ edit ] LEONARD COHEN - an apprection of the Canadian poet, novelist and enigmatic songwriter, who just died, for The Vinyl Factory

Aston, along with his cited historians, then skips ahead to the twelfth century CE, remarking that the revolution of that century’s polyphony itself “may have been written in a homosexual sub-culture,” at least at Notre Dame. Later in the chapter he quotes University of Virginia English professor Bruce Holsinger who posits “a constant link between polyphony and sodomy in the puritan tradition” after discussing how at least one music journalist perceives Schubert essentially to have outed himself through his Trout Quintet. That’s some substantial gaydar. MIRACLE LEGION: My lachrymose memories of the New Haven., Connecticut band, inspired by the band's forthcoming tour - their first shows in 20 years- for The Guardian (Cult Heroes section)In 1990, Edwin Starr released a cover of the song as a 12-inch single, included in his album Where Is the Sound. [10]