Barry Walters history of GLBTQ music post-Stonewall is a deep dive into a queer music diaspora and the artists who drove it, however coded and those who burst out of the closet with mightiest realness. Walters’ was on the scene for all of it, reporting for the Village Voice, The Advocate, Rolling Stone, and Spin. He hung out in the legendary DJ booths in the trendiest gay clubs coast to coast. Walters also wrote and produced the Clio Award winning documentary ‘The Brave and Bold Sylvester.
His opening chapter covers the allure of pan-sexual musical demimonde of the 60s in New York City and London. The game-changing impact of David Bowie and Lou Reed popping in and out of the closet as queer characters, and even Mick Jagger getting away with vamping gender fluidity on the Sullivan show.
By the mid-70s Donna Summer’s gay club anthem ‘Love to Love You Baby’ a pivotal sexbomb smash . Summer eventually alienating her mass GLBTQ audiences in and out of the clubs over religious based negative remarks about the gay community. Summer eventually apologized and cleaned up her judgement act enough to reclaim her fan base and continued her universal appeal.
In mainstream radio any rock fans, Walters notes, were so clueless they didn’t know the Kinks’ 70s megahit ‘Lola’ was about a transgender character, singer-songwriter Ray Davies sets the scene in the London’s redlight district Soho where things might not be what they seem and so is drop-dead gorgeous Lola.
Walters deconstructs the messaging and profiles the artists attracting GLBTQ audience, however coded, and those who came out in their lyrics that spoke directly to GLBTQ audiences. The short list includes Laura Nyro, Joan Baez, Mellisa Ethridge, Bronski Beat, Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, Blondie, the B52s, k.d.Lang, Annie Lennox, Michael Stipe and mega stars Dusty, Diana, Bette, Whitney, Barbra, Dolly, Cher, who all in their own way acknowledged their queer audiences. His lengthiest chapter is on Madonna’s career, her affinities to gay community and early AIDS activism.
Walters also keeps focus on the lesser known groups that had just as much to do with the era an OUT Loud expressionism that of gay, lesbian and trans singers and groups whose era vaporized the music industry closet. also make this collection a chronicle as his interaction as an aspiring openly gay writer. A central theme is was the transactional gay identities by artists, straight and otherwise. whether they were self-identifying, experimenting or appropriating the Queer zeitgeist. There are one or two sins of omission, but this without a doubt a compressive study of a era defining musical revolution.
Walters unravels the entrenched homophobia of record companies, agents and publicists. The tightrope of artists who didn’t want to acknowledge their gay audiences for fear that they would be perceived as gay. Luther Vandross dodging questions about his sexuality at the risk of alienating straight audiences. Vandross’ private struggles with coming out his persona as a straight soul crooner, came with lots of industry baggage and personal. Rumors about Michael Jackson and his behavior abound young men resulted in his fortress of his own destructive fantasy world.
In contrast, Grace Jones, like Bowie took on many performance personas and embraced gender fluidity with wit, swagger and a soaring voice. From ‘Nightclubbing’ to ‘Slave To the Rhythm’ Jones could even hit those baritone-tenor harmonies of Nessun Dorma at La Scala and the funkiest contralto ala Piaf on La vie en rose. Her culturally transcendent ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ to the shameless ‘Pull Up To My Bumper….Baby! Friends of Dorothy were not only not in Kansas anymore, or over the fuckin rainbow, we were the rainbow.
