← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Mighty Real Edition Part 1
01:03:19
From Little Richard to Chappell Roan, queer artists have always been vanguards of pop, even when they have not been out.
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- [00:01]
Chris Melanfi
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- [00:29]
Unknown Sponsor Voice
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- [00:59]
Chris Melanfi
Hey there Hit Parade listeners. What you're about to hear is Part one of this episode. Part two will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear this episode all at once? The day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to slate.com hitparadeplus you'll get to hear every Hit Parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus Hit Parade the Bridge, our bonus episodes with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again to join, that's slate.com hitparadeplus thanks and now please enjoy part one of this hit Parade episode.
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Unknown Sponsor Voice
Come.
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Unknown Guest Voice
Out.
- [02:07]
Chris Melanfi
Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate Magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanie, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's why Is this Song number one series on today's show. 45 years ago in November of 1980, Motown queen Diana Ross was peaking on the charts with the second single from her hit packed best selling Diana album, produced by sheiks Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards. Ross had already topped Billboard's Hot 100 with the album's lead single, Upside Down. For the follow up, she went with a song that Nile Rogers had written specifically to honor Diana's legions of drag impersonators and her larger gay following. In a move that was very bold for 1980, Rogers and his partner Edwards titled the song I'm Coming Out.
- [03:14]
Unknown Guest Voice
I have to shout that I am coming out I'm coming out I want the world to know I got to.
- [03:23]
Chris Melanfi
Let it show I'm coming Now the same week I'm Coming out peaked at number five on the Hot 100. Sitting right next to it at number four was a former number one by British rock band Queen, sung by flamboyant frontman Freddie Mercury and inspired by the disco funk sound of sheiks Rogers and Edwards. Queen's chart topping smash was Another One Bites the D, the Dust and Another.
- [03:56]
Unknown Guest Voice
One Gone and Another One Gone, Another One Bites the Dust.
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Chris Melanfi
Now no one remarked on it at the time, but this chart convergence was rather ironic and a bit heartbreaking. Here was Freddie Mercury, a closeted gay man singing what was in essence a disco funk song. A very famous performer who felt he could not be fully out to Queen's rock loving public, sitting on the charts right next to a song that was literally about coming out. This in a nutshell is the history of LGBTQ identity on the charts. Self expression side by side with self denial, pride, prudence, celebration plus hesitation. Which is really too bad because queer performers are at the root of so much of the pop music we enjoy. They were there at the dawn of rock and rol. They were there at the height of glam rock and singer songwriter pop, of course, disco.
- [05:53]
Unknown Guest Voice
I got to be a.
- [05:54]
Chris Melanfi
Macho synth pop and new wave and even alternative rock. In the 21st century century, LGBTQ artists have greater freedom than ever to be who they are, even as there is still so much further to go and the new millennium saw the first fully out gay performer with a number one album. The answer might surprise you. I'll explain. Today on Hit Parade we will cross intersectional identity with hit making data to discuss the many queer performers who have topped the charts both in and out over the decades. And our story arguably pivots on one of the most unique performers in pop history, a proto trans icon who at a pivotal moment in both pop's evolution and queer liberation, lived his truth while scaling the pop, R and B and dance charts. You might say he was mighty real. And that's where your hit Parade marches today. The week ending August 19, 1978, when you make me feel mighty real by Sylvester reached number one on Billboard's disco chart. It would later crack the pop top 40 at number 36. The gender non conforming club singer embodied a new archetype for LGBTQ identity on the charts. How did Sylvester establish a pivot point for queer acceptance in popular music? Who were his predecessors in rock, pop and soul and his spiritual children? And just how long did it take for other artists to be out and proud while topping the charts for Pride month, we're serving realness as we explore the rainbow of LGBTQ superstars across chart history. Stick around not big on trends, but big on clothes that feel good and last. Check out Quince. Their lightweight layers and high quality staples will easily become everyday essentials. Recently I bought my latest pair of jeans from Quince. They were amazingly affordable and yet very high quality, the kind of denim you'd normally expect to pay twice the price for. My Quince jeans upped my wardrobe game and instantly became my favorites. I've been recording Hit Parade episodes in them regularly. Quint's has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. The best part? Everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quints.com hitparade for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com hitparade to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com hitparade this episode is brought to you by Discover. If there's one thing to learn from the entertainment industry, it's just how easy it is to earn a reputation, even if it doesn't reflect who celebrities really are. For example, everybody thinks that Discover is a card that isn't widely accepted, but in reality, it's accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Yeah, 99%. So maybe now you'll think twice before judging a book by its cover. Unless it's a celebrity cookbook. In that case, judge away. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com credit card in preparation for for this episode, I recently rewatched the 2023 documentary Little I Am Everything, and I highly recommend it for all music fans. For starters, the film, directed by Lisa Cortez, gives this pioneering artist, who rightly called himself the Architect of rock and Roll, his due. It presents the man born Richard Penniman in Macon, Georgia, as the big Bang of rock and roll music.
- [12:12]
Unknown Guest Voice
He created the template for the rock and roll icon.
- [12:18]
Chris Melanfi
Sorry, y' all, it wasn't Elvis.
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Unknown Guest Voice
I'm the architect. I'm the one that started it all.
- [12:35]
Chris Melanfi
As the film articulates, Little Richard invented the way rock presented itself musically and stylistically. He influenced performers ranging from Paul McCartney, who imitated his raucous vocals, to Mick Jagger, who learned his Peacocking onstage style by watching Little Richard perform to David Bowie, who told his producer Nile Rogers that he wanted to model his pompadoured 80s Persona after little Richard. What is also so clarifying about the documentary is that it forthrightly presents Little Richard as a gay and even a gender non conforming musical pioneer.
- [13:55]
Unknown Guest Voice
I wore my mother's curtains, the sheets put on some makeup on my face.
- [13:59]
Chris Melanfi
They called him a sissy, a punk.
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Unknown Guest Voice
My dad didn't like my actions and my ways Because I was gay he put me out.
- [14:06]
Chris Melanfi
What would it do to the American mythology of rock music to say that its pioneers were black queer people? We are reminded that when Little Richard wrote his breakthrough single, Tutti frutti, a top 20 hit on multiple Billboard singles charts in 1956, he wasn't singing about ice cream. Tutti Frutti's original, gleefully ribbled lyrics were about the joys of good booty and about what was then considered deviant sexual practice.
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Unknown Guest Voice
Wap ba blub blah bamboo if it don't fit, don't force it you can grease the and make it easy if you wanted to guide Tutti Frutti good.
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Chris Melanfi
Booty Only after its lyrics were toned down did Tutti Frutti become a hit. However, for all that apparent queer pride on Richard's part, the documentary also makes clear that he was sadly a frequent dweller of the proverbial closet. Little Richard renounced his homosexuality multiple times throughout his life.
- [15:31]
Unknown Guest Voice
I'm not gay now, but, you know, I was gay all my life. I believe I was one of the first gay people to come out. But God let me know that he made Adam be with Eve, not Steve.
- [15:39]
He was certainly queer in all of the senses of what that term means, but he rarely spoke about it openly. And that was where the complication came.
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No, I don't want to hide I love, I love.
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He was very, very good at liberating other people through his example. He was not good at liberating himself.
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Chris Melanfi
I share all this background on Little Richard right off the top to establish a couple of key themes for this episode of Hit Parade. First of all, that rock, rhythm and blues, and indeed most of the pop music we consume, is not only a culturally black art form, but a proudly queer art form. We owe LGBTQ Americans for how our popular music sounds signifies shimmies and shakes. And second, let's establish that pinpointing anyone's sexual identity, even someone as famous and seemingly out as Little Richard, is not an exact science. Most of the time, we at Hit Parade concern ourselves with the charts which are numerical and, however imperfect, quite specific, whereas a person's gender and sexual identity are on a spectrum. And so, in celebrating LGBTQ artistry, we will do our best to cross reference the very specific pop charts with the sometimes murky ways artists represent themselves.
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Unknown Guest Voice
You got a fast car, we go cruise and entertain ourselves still ain't got.
- [17:43]
Chris Melanfi
A job now work in the market as a checkout. Some LGBTQ hitmakers remain intensely private, like Tracy Chapman, who has never publicly discussed her sexual orientation or her relationships. Or certain artists have come out and then, after achieving a certain level of fame, have taken their identity private again, like Queen's Freddie Mercury. We'll talk about him in greater depth later in our show. Some stars have even passed away, never affirming their orientation, such as celebrated soul vocalist Luther Vandross, who died years before friends like Patti LaBelle affirmed he was gay. Happily in the 21st century, LGBTQ artists have felt freer to be themselves and at earlier career stages. Current hitmaker Chapel Roan, in addition to her many openly gay themed hit songs, has even called the pseudonym Chapel Roan her quote unquote drag Persona. None of this is limiting her on the charts. Roan just cracked the top five this year with her Queer Celebrating Pink Pony Club. When it comes to queer chart history, visibility matters and performers have only grown more visible. So let's walk through a selected hit making history by lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning performers. Even beyond the chart toppers, the history is rich a spectrum of legends, and we can take it back even before Little Richard, back to the pre history of rock and roll.
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Unknown Guest Voice
If your sweetheart sends a letter John.
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Chris Melanfi
Alvin Ray, better known as Johnny Ray, was the ultimate pre rock teen idol of the early 50s. Johnny Ray's 1951 hit Cry spent more than a dozen weeks at number one on Billboard's singles charts in early 1952. And though his arrangements hewed closer to jazz and blues and his vocals toward traditional pop, Ray is widely considered a precursor to rock and roll. In the years just before both Little Richard and Elvis Presley, Johnny Ray was 50s teenagers favorite singer. Some of Ray's romantic hits would include include female pronouns, for example my parents favorite Johnny Ray song, the 1952 number four hit Walkin My baby back home.
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Unknown Guest Voice
The owls go by and they give me the eye Walking my baby back home we stop for a while she gives me a smile and cuddles her cheek to my chest.
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Chris Melanfi
But Johnny Ray is now widely understood by his biographers to have been bisexual, only married once and fairly Briefly, he was arrested more than once for propositioning would be male lovers, including undercover police. You can't help but picture an underlying ache when listening to several of Johnny Ray's hits, like the lyrical number two hit the Little White Cloud, who cried.
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Unknown Guest Voice
I went walking down by the river feeling very sad inside when all at once.
- [22:43]
Chris Melanfi
By the way, if you're Gen X or younger and Johnny Ray's name sounds familiar, it's because he was later invoked in the lyrics of two number one hits from the 80s. He's name checked in the first first verse of the 1983 chart topper Come On Eileen by Dexie's Midnight Runners, and in the word salad that is Billy Joel's 1989 number one, we didn't start the Fire, Johnny Ray makes a brief cameo in the song's opening parade of bold face names. So Johnny Ray's place in pop history is secure, even though he could not be fully himself during his lifetime. For an interesting comparison, let's consider another legendary 50s crooner who was also closeted but lived long enough to come out on his terms, Johnny Mathis. Mathis was not only a pop star, he was a chart titan who helped establish the hits compilation as a viable album format a year after 1957's Chances Are hit number one. That song, plus all of Mathis early singles, like his exquisite It's Not For Me to say, It's Not For Me For Me to say you'll Always Care, were compiled into the L.P. johnny's Greatest Hits. By the way, the very idea of a Greatest Hits LP was more or less invented by that album. Johnny's Greatest Hits not only topped the album chart in 1958, the first such compilation to do so, it went on to spend 490 weeks, about 10 years on the Billboard album chart, a longevity record that held until it was later beaten by Pink Floyd's Dark side of the Moon. Johnny Mathis was the romantic soundtrack for a generation, and he kept scoring hits into the 70s. He even went to number one in a duet with Denise Williams in 1978.
- [25:54]
Unknown Guest Voice
Too much, too little, too late to lie again with you Too much, too little, too late to try again with you.
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Chris Melanfi
Privately, however, Mathis was living as a gay man. He first alluded to his gay quote way of Life in a 1982 interview in a comment he thought was off the record. 35 years later, Mathis finally officially confirmed his status. In his 80s, he told CBS News, People magazine and the Washington Post, I had blown this thing out of proportion about being gay and time marches on and now it doesn't matter. The king of romance sang those greatest hits for everybody. So obviously for 50s LGBTQ stars, coming out felt impossible. This state of affairs mostly persisted into the nominally more progressive 1960s. Leslie Gore, whom we discussed in our Quincy Jones episode of Hit Parade, was not out as a lesbian when she scored her string of teen pop hits, including her 1963 Quincy produced number one smash It's My Party, It's My Party.
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Unknown Guest Voice
And I cry if I want to cry, cry if I want to. You would cry too if it.
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Chris Melanfi
However, Gore was serving realness to women of all orientations when she delivered her 1964 number two smash you don't Own Me, a landmark single in both feminist and civil rights liberation.
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Unknown Guest Voice
I don't tell you what to do, so just let me be myself that's all I ask of you.
- [28:17]
Chris Melanfi
Leslie Gore finally came out in the mid-2000s among the 60s British Invasion bands the Kinks, whose lead guitarist Dave Davies was bisexual, satirized dandyism in several of their hits, eagerly pursuing all the latest fads and trends. And at the end of the 60s, Dave's brother and Kinks leader Ray Davies wrote one of the earliest and most earnest songs about trans Love Lola, an incredibly catchy 1970 number nine hit celebrating a straight man's object of infatuation who, quote, walked like a woman but talked like a man, unquote. Blues rock front woman Janis Joplin, in her her brief lifetime lived as a bisexual free love advocate, including a long running off and on relationship with Haight Ashbury counterculture figure Peggy Caserta. Joplin's hits from her 1968 big brother and the Holding Company single Down on me through her 1971 solo smash, Me and Bobby McGee embodied personal and sexual freedom when she sang them. And Billy Preston, who got his break in the early 60s as a backing musician in Little Richard's band, famously he backed the Beatles during the 1969 sessions that generated their Let It Be LP. Preston was the only artist ever co credited on a Beatles number one hit for his keyboard solo on Get Back, Get Back Joe. Billy Preston struggled with his homosexuality all his life, fearful it would imperil both his career and his ties to the black church. Nonetheless, he scored multiple hits as a solo artist in the early 70s, including the flamboyantly funky number ones Will It Go Round in Circles and Nothing From Nothing. Perhaps the most significant queer 60s hitmaker in terms of her public status was Dusty Springfield, a hitmaker on both sides of the Atlantic Springfield was one of the first British Invasion hitmakers to scale the US charts in the wake of the Beatles 196064 breakthrough. By the late 60s, as she was scoring top 10 hits like her soul classic Son of a Preacher man or her torch ballad hit you don't have to say you love Me, Dusty was being hounded by the music press over why she was never seen in the company of a significant other. Privately, Springfield was in a long term domestic partnership with American folk pop singer Norma Tanega. Finally, in 1970, Dusty Springfield decided to address the rumors head on. She told the Evening Standard, I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way, and I don't see why I shouldn't. With this bold comment, LGBTQ historians credit Springfield as the first British musician to come out as gay. But Dusty Springfield did not have an easy time after her revelation. She spent the next decade plus fighting substance abuse, singing backup for other artists and struggling to revive her career. Nonetheless, she did score her biggest American hit in 1988 in a duet with Neil Tennant on the Pet Shop Boys what have I done to deserve this? Which went all the way to number two on the Hot 100.
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Unknown Guest Voice
This what have I, what have I, what have I done to deserve this? What have I, what have I, what.
- [34:04]
Chris Melanfi
Have I so notwithstanding her struggles that made Dusty Springfield one of the few LGBTQ artists of the late 20th century to achieve a a major hit after coming out More in a moment, this episode is brought to you by Defender Naturally capable and expedition ready, the Defender 110 is a vehicle built for the modern explorer. The Defender is a vehicle that looks tough because it is tough of with an exterior design for optimum durability, the Defender has the endurance to take you further and tackle the extremes with confidence. Its 3D surround cameras with Clearsight ground view let you see underneath the vehicle and anticipate obstacles and rough terrain, while its Clearsight rear view provides an unobstructed view behind the car even when the back wheel window is blocked. Purpose built and courage driven, the Defender is the vehicle you need for your next great adventure. The Defender family also features the two door Defender 90, the Defender 110 and the Defender 130, which seats up to 8. Design your Defender 110 at landroverusa.com Visit landroverusa.com to learn more about the Defender 110. Explore the Defender 110 at land roverusa.com this episode is brought to you by Discover if there's one thing to learn from the entertainment industry, it's just how easy it is to earn a reputation, even if it doesn't reflect who celebrities really are. For example, everybody thinks that Discover is a card that isn't widely accepted, but in reality, it's accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Yeah, 99%. So maybe now you'll think twice before judging a book by its cover. Unless it's a celebrity cookbook. In that case, judge away. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com credit card.
- [36:41]
Unknown Sponsor Voice
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- [37:15]
Chris Melanfi
Two 70s movements made popular music more fluid than ever in both gender presentation and sexual identity. Glam rock and disco. However, queer artists were more integral to disco when it came to glam. Truth be told, most glam rockers, no matter how androgynous or gender bending, were straight from T. Rex's Mark Bolan to the the members of Roxy Music. Although it's complicated, we'll cover David Bowie later. There was, however, one legitimate LGBTQ glam rock pioneer, even though he wasn't much of a chart star, Joe.
- [38:32]
Unknown Guest Voice
Take Me Out.
- [38:35]
Chris Melanfi
Ja' Briath was marketed as the first gay rock star. Indeed, the man born Bruce Wayne Campbell was the first openly gay rock musician signed to a major label, and Elektra Records pulled out all the stops to hype Jabriath's 1973 debut, including a giant billboard of a near naked Jabriath in Times Square. In interviews, Jhabraiath even threw shade at glam rock stars like David Bowie and Mark Bolan for only pretending to be sexually ambiguous. Quote, I'm a true fairy, jabriath said. I'm no pretender, unquote. But to say the least, the world was not ready. Jabriath suffered an instant homophobic backlash, and his two albums, 1973's Jobrath and 1974's Creatures of the street, both failed to chart. Jhabraiath would die only a decade later, one of the earliest casualties of AIDS Nonetheless, he inspired later generations of performers, including Morrissey, and his florid style echoed in the work of other contemporaneous glam acts like the New York Dolls and Queen. Disco was a much more fertile arena for 70s LGBTQ creativity. Indeed, the whole disco scene and subculture were fundamentally pioneered by gay DJs, tastemakers and club patrons. As we discussed in our remix episode of Hit Parade, the art form of the seamless DJ12 mix was essentially invented in a gay Fire island nightclub by proto remixer Tom Moulton.
- [41:12]
Unknown Guest Voice
You know the world would feel a.
- [41:13]
Chris Melanfi
Little bit better, and disco artists of any orientation knew they were catering to a club audience rooted in the gay community to earn the title Queen of Disco, which at different times was bestowed upon both Gloria Gaynor and Donna Summer. These women recorded dance anthems that spoke to the gay audience like I Feel Love or I Will Survive. Of course, these LGBTQ anthems would then cross over to the larger straight audience, which is what made the Village People so amusing and Iron.
- [42:27]
Unknown Guest Voice
Man.
- [42:32]
Chris Melanfi
When Macho man cracked the top 40 in the summer of 1978, peaking at number 25, it seemed like the Village People were a fluke or another disco era novelty, a group formed by a pair of French producers, Jacques Morale and Henry Belolo, to specifically target gay audiences and simultaneously satirize gay stereotypes. Famously, the Village People Sextet dressed as a biker, cowboy, cop, Native American construction worker and soldier. And while only a couple of group members were gay, one of them, American Indian singer Felipe Rose, was recruited at a New York City gay club. The project was at first received as a witty gay culture in joke and then.
- [43:34]
Unknown Guest Voice
It'S fun to stay at the YMCA it's fun to stay at home YMCA they have everything from your mental.
- [43:47]
Chris Melanfi
The Village People's third album, Cruisin, generated a positively massive crossover pop hit, YMCA that climbed all the way to number two on the Hot 100. In February 1979, the Cruisin LP reached the top three on the album chart and went platinum. It is now triple platinum. Platinum. For a brief window at the end of the 70s, the village people were one of the biggest pop groups in the country. It is debatable how much middle America embraced the gay meta story at the root of the Village People phenomenon, or got the joke. To this day, Village People singer Victor Willis, who played the cop role in the group and co wrote several of their hits, fervently denies that YMCA ever was a gay anthem. The fact that the song is now a wedding and bar mitzvah dance staple and one of President Donald Trump's favorite rally songs indicates that it long ago became a totem of the straight world divorced from its original queer identity. I would argue that the more pathbreaking, pivotal disco hitmaker who crossed over from the LGBTQ world was a solo artist. An iconoclastic cross dressing singer, by the way, that was the term of art in those days who tried everything from gospel to folk, R B to rock before settling on disco. He eventually became a dance music icon, but on his very first released recordings, this soloist sounded like this this cover of Neil Young's Southern man is being vocalized by the man born Sylvester James Jr. In Watts, California in 1947. He eventually went just by a mononym, his first name, Sylvester. Sylvester had star quality from a very young age, even as he fought his mother and stepfather who did not approve of his sexual identity or his femme presentation. Raised singing gospel in the Pentecostal Church, Sylvester relocated in his early 20s to San Francisco where he became the star attraction of the Cockettes, a multiracial drag ensemble. A series of performances in New York City won Sylvester the opportunity to record a demo album back in San Francisco. Among the songs Sylvester demoed was Superstar, the Delaney and Bonnie song made famous by the Carpenters. After he broke from the Cockettes and with the demo not leading anywhere, Sylvester and his manager assembled a group of backing players, all straight white men whom they called the Hot Band. Here's Sylvester with the Hot Band covering Prokil Harems A Whiter Shade of Pale. Through it all, Sylvester did not hide either his homosexuality or his voice, though he insisted on male pronouns. Had he lived into the 21st century, music historians suspect he might have used she herself or they them. Sylvester was always quintessentially himself, sparkly and dressed to the nines, even when fronting the Hot Band. After two albums, the Hot Band broke away from Sylvester, whose diva behavior alienated the group. It took three years and several more lineup changes in Sylvester's accompanyists before he finally pivoted toward dance music. By the way, a fun side note, the backing singers Sylvester eventually agreed to work with were a pair of big voiced plus size vocal dynamos named Martha Wash and Isora Rhodes. They renamed themselves Two Tons of Fun and later the Weather Girls, who, speaking of gay anthems, would eventually record the camp classic It's Reigning Men. But I digress. After Sylvester signed to Fantasy Records to issue his solo debut, his first chart hit came in 1977 when his funky horn inflected R B single Down down down reached number 18 on Billboard's Disco chart. Though he still sang in falsetto, Sylvester presented himself on the COVID of his self titled debut album in male attire in an effort to cross over with a mainstream audience. Nonetheless, Sylvester became a regular performer at gay clubs and gay events, including the birthday party of iconic San Francisco gay politician Harvey Milk. By the time of his second LP, 1978's acclaimed Step 2, Sylvester made his gender presentation purposefully inscrutable. He was trying on glittery female attire on stage, alternating it with butch signifiers like leather pants, Pitchfork later wrote. Quote Sylvester defied categorization at every opportunity and shrugged off questions intended to pin him down. Quote look dear, being gay means absolutely nothing except to straight people. Unquote. The Step two album proved to be Sylvester's breakthrough. He got bigger on the charts with all audiences when he he got queerer. The LP spawned two huge hits, Dance Parentheses Disco Heat not only topped the disco chart, it climbed to number four on the R&B chart and even number 19 on the pop chart by November of 70. But it was the singles flip side in clubs and on the disco chart, it was considered the A side that established Sylvester's legend. A high energy dance classic and a queer landmark. Sylvester and songwriter James Werrick called it you Make Me Feel Parentheses Mighty Real. The secret weapon behind Mighty Real was Sylvester's friend Patrick Cowley, a producer who, inspired by Donna Summers Eurodisco classic I Feel Love, remixed the single into a synthesized frenzy. But Sylvester also brought his A game to the vocal, capturing the lyrics liberated euphoria. You Make Me Feel Mighty real reached number 20 on the R and B chart and returned Sylvester to the pop top 40, peaking at number 36 in February 1979. By then the step two LP had reached number 28 on the pop album chart and went gold. Sylvester moved quickly to record a follow up album, 1979's Stars, on which he worked even more closely with Patrick Cowley. They went deeper into electronic dance music, but for Starr's first single, Sylvester went with a cover of a hit that was already a torch song classic. I who have Nothing was originally a hit for R B veteran Ben E. King. His version reached number 29 in 1963. Seven years later, Tom Jones recorded an even more theatrical version that hit number 14.
- [55:00]
Unknown Guest Voice
I I who have no one.
- [55:06]
Chris Melanfi
Adore you.
- [55:09]
Unknown Guest Voice
And want you so I'm just a no.
- [55:14]
Chris Melanfi
1 in Sylvester's hands, I who have Nothing became a dance floor drama and another club smash. It also just barely became Sylvester's third straight top 40 pop hit when it peaked at number 40 in May of 79. Interestingly, as Sylvester's hits cycled through the radio show, American Top 40 host Casey Kasem did not have much to say about them or Sylvester himself. But when I who have Nothing was in its last week on the charts, Casey counted it down with some interesting color commentary.
- [56:17]
H
This is Casey in Hollywood, and this song is by the man who posed for his high school yearbook photo dressed as a woman. Ever since his early teens, Sylvester, who's used only one name for as long as he can remember, has been an adoring fan of women blues singers. From the early 30s, he started collecting the records of Ethel Merman, Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith. And he came to love these women so much that he learned to mimic their singing styles. And by the time Sylvester was in high school school, he'd taken to dressing like his favorite singers for parties and talent and beauty contests too, which he often won. And that's how he dressed for his graduation picture, as a woman. Well, using his own voice, he's been creating some new disco standards. Here's his latest. At number 40, I who have Nothing, Sylvester.
- [57:10]
Chris Melanfi
This is what mainstream acceptance sounded like in 1979. That week would be the last Sylvester ever spent in the pop top 40. As the 70s turned to the 80s, he became a denizen of the dance charts. Sylvester continued working with the innovative Patrick Cowley, eventually signing to Cowley's Megatone label and making tracks that kept scoring on the disco chart. Among their Collaborations were the 1982 hits do youo Wanna Funk, a number four club hit, and Don't Stop, which hit number three on the club chart. Not long after Sylvester scored these 1982 hits, Patrick Cowley would die at age 32, another early casualty of AIDS. As for Sylvester himself, he too would succumb to the disease six years later, passing from AIDS related complications. In December 1988, his funeral in San Francisco's Castro District, which Sylvester had planned himself down to, the kimono outfit he wore in his coffin, was packed with mourners. Sylvester remains revered in the gay community and among dance music aficionados. His most famous single, you Make Me Feel Mighty Real, has been reinterpreted multiple times, including by Scottish singer and gay rights advocate Jimmy Somerville, who took his version to number five in the UK in 1990, and acclaimed American house music vocalist Byron Stingley of Ten City, who took his cover to number one on the Dance Club Play Chart in 1998. More important, Sylvester was a pivotal figure in the mainstream streaming of LGBTQ and gender non conforming artists on the charts. After Sylvester, drag performers and queer singers of various stripes enjoyed greater pop acceptance, even as homophobia and the AIDS crisis kept many of them from coming out publicly. In the second part of our show, we'll cover performers from the 70s, 80s and beyond who navigated both both the closet and the charts. When we come back, I'll walk through my study of LGBTQ performers who top the charts both in and out of the closet, celebrating hitmakers who found found the courage to be loud and proud. Non Slate plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfy. That's me. My producer is is Kevin Bendis, our supervising producer is Joel Meyer, and Slate's editor in chief is Hilary Fraud. Check out Slate's roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanfi.
- [62:28]
Unknown Guest Voice
Something deep inside of me Someone else I've got Singing in the rain.