Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out

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As for the Olivia Records genre - since I really think it is a genre of its own - it's something I personally struggled with when coming out (with one or two exceptions like Alix Dobkin). I liked disco, I liked post-punk/new wave, etc, while women a few years older than me were listening to Cris Williamson et al wailing on about "sisters" every second word. ALGIERS - my 'Rising' feature on the Atlanta quartet Aligers is in the new MOJO (March edition), the one with Joy Division on the cover, Preceding Williamson, Alix Dobkin’s Lavender Jane Loves Women was another landmark record that sold really well. Lesbians had more of a need to politicise their sexuality because it was, to coin a phrase, “a man’s, man’s, man’s world.”

a b Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19thed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p.287. ISBN 1-904994-10-5. James Hillman, A Blue Fire: Selected Writings by James Hillman (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 120. One example is the saga of Camp Records in the mid-1960s, which released two albums and a handful of singles, catering to the burgeoning ‘gay party’ market, for example ‘Stanley, The Manly Transvestite’ and ‘Rough Trade’. Still, to this day, no one has a clue as to who was behind Camp. Breakin' Down The Walls Of Heartache: Johnny Johnson & The Bandwagon", Ace Records. Retrieved August 23, 2023

Blogs

Aston’s first book was Pulp (1995), about the Britpop band by that name that reveled in fop (and, just as Rough Trade’s Scritti Politti had done with its single sleeves, one of which is pictured here, [2] It’s worth pointing out that in 1974, four years before Scritti Politti’s first single, John Lauritsen and David Thorstad published The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864–1935) under the… Continue reading “Babies”). In the current issue of MOJO, 'The Ungrateful Dead', my feature on the reunited - for the third time! - Bauhaus, What gives? Who's willing to say? With the 40th anniversary tour of Horses in full swing, I have interviewed Patti Smith, John Cale about producing Horses, and written a guide to all Smtih's albums for for MOJO's October 2015 issue. Unrelated to Horses, a 'How to Buy' guide to Cocteau Twins and interviews with rising Northern Irish singer-songwriter SOAK and Alice Cooper about his Hollywood Vampires project also have my name on it this month 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). Conley was signed by Redding to his Jotis label in about 1965 without ever meeting the younger singer. The two finally met in 1967 when they plagiarized a performer they both loved, Sam Cooke, turning his “Yeah Man,” which listed the names of dance crazes, to “Sweet Soul Music,” which did the same for soul stars. See Jonathan Gould, Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life (New York: Crown Archetype, 2017), 293, 377.

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).

On The Go

It’s a cliché to say so, but we really have come a long way. In parts of Africa, and the Middle East, though, that journey is only now beginning. In other words, declarations against the vicious repression of the statute books, with outside help from the West, and outlets via the internet, can mean that even artists in Uganda are starting to sing out. And pre-WWI too. There were female impersonators in the 1850s, the odd (non-drag) daring music hall star at the turn of the century, such as British singer Fred Barnes. And who knew the extent of the so-called ‘Pansy Craze’ in the early 1930s?