Last September and October I did a two-part QMH show on
Transgender Music, and for the October part, I interviewed teenaged singer/songwriter/activist
Ryan Casatta, and I much admire all three of those aspects of his talents. He
just uploaded a new video, this time without him singing, but it packs a
powerful wallop against transphobia…this time about judgement within the FTM
community.
What prompted the timing of this blog entry was seeing a
video of Declan Bennett join Ani DiFranco for an impromptu performance on
1/10/12, in London, of her song “Overlap.” This was a dream of his to
perform with his musical hero.
I became aware of UK singer/songwriter in 2009 and
immediately became a fanatic for his music. I even bought a second copy of his
2007 CD “An Innocent Evening of Drinking,” to just keep in the car; I’ve very
rarely done that. And I of course bought his first CD, from 2005, “The Painter’s
Ball,” when, on that release, he was going by the pseudonym Sumladfromcov, but
with his talent he was much more than Some Lad from Coventry, England. Also, he had some earlier success in 1999 and 2000 as a member of the boyband Point Break, scoring five top 30 hits in that time period.
His music career has run alongside his theatre career, as
he appeared with acclaim in the London cast of the Boy George musical “Taboo.”
He’s been in a U.S. touring company cast of “Rent” and in 2010 he appeared on
the Grammy Awards with Green Day in the cast of “American Idiot.” In fact it
was Green Day member Billy Jo Armstrong who saw Declan perform songs for a new
album and stepped in to finance the album demo. That album became the wonderful
2011 release, “Record:BREAKUP.”
“record:BREAKUP” easily made it to my Best of the Year radio
show, and the video from it, “Freer,” deservedly won “Most Moving Video” last
November in the RightOut TV Video Awards. It’s a Very powerful video.
On my January QMH show, Jazz Music Special, one of the
featured interviews was with vocalist Mark Winkler. You can find his interview
on my site, but I wanted to give special attention to one of his songs and the
video to go with it. It’s called “Sissies” and is a tribute in particular to
Truman Capote.
You can find the song on Mark’s 2009 CD “Till I Get It Right,”
and I also show his latest CD, “Sweet Spot.” Please check out Mark Winkler’s Website.
And as long as I’m mentioning Truman Capote, you can hear him read “Thanksgiving Visitor” on This Page of my website.
As I produce a show called Queer Music Heritage, you might expect that I love to honor the work of artists & musicians who did great work, but just did not, in my opinion, get the credit or exposure they deserved. One such band was called Yer Girlfriend. They were a Kentucky band active from 1989 through 1995, releasing three wonderful albums. Laura Shine and Carol Kraemer did most of the lead vocals and writing.
What of course grabbed my attention right away was that the lyrics were very, very gay…or in this case, lesbian. Even some of their titles gave that away: “Dyketime,” “She’s Not Somebody’s Wife,” “Lez-B-Bop,” and “L-Word.” And this was ten years before the TV show “L-Word.” So with the magic of Windows Movie Maker I put together a medley, with pictures, of nine songs from the band Yer Girlfriend.
The Tornados were the first UK act to hit #1 in the United States, in 1962 with their smash hit “Telstar.” But I care about them for one of their 45 rpm records released late in their career, in 1966. The story starts with Joe Meek. He was a legendary UK record producer from the early 60's. His innovative style and distinctive production techniques brought him much fame at the time, starting with his smash hit "Telstar." He had an unusual approach to recording, but it worked well. In just a few years he worked on 245 singles, of which 45 were top fifty hits in the UK.
The dark side of Joe Meek's life is also famous, for his depression, and repressed homosexuality, which remember, was still illegal in the UK until 1967. All this on top of financial and career troubles let to his committing murder and then suicide in February of 1967, at age 37. But a year before he released that Tornados record I’m telling you about. Presumably, that group wasn't gay, but on the last 45 he produced for them, in 1966, he perhaps gained some satisfaction by exposing a reality long suppressed. On the flip side of their record, named "Is That a Ship I Hear," he placed what sounded like a throwaway song, called "Do You Come Here Often?" It's an innocuous sounding instrumental and most people, had they even bothered to turn the record over, would have stopped listening well before the point of interest I'm telling you about. At about 2:25 mark into the song, he inserted this bit of conversation apparently intended to sound like it came from a London gay club, with two obviously bitchy queens.
“Do you come here often?”
“Only when the pirate ships go off air.”
“Me too.” (giggles)
“Well, I see pajama styled shirts are in, then.”
“Well, pajamas are OUT, as far as I'm concerned anyway.”
“Who cares?”
“Well, I know of a few people who do.”
“Yes, you would.”
“WOW! These two, coming now. What do you think?”
“Mmmmmm. Mine's all right, but I don't like the look of yours.”
(A sniffy pause)
“Well, I must be off.”
“Yes, you're not looking so good.”
“Cheerio. I'll see you down the 'Dilly.”
“Not if I see you first, you won't.”
What Was he thinking? Still, this was a milestone, inserting a bit of then-gay life onto vinyl, and on a major label yet.
A couple explanations, the “pirate ships” were radio stations that operated off the coast of England. They began in the early 60’s to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. And “see you down the ‘Dilly” likely referred to the Piccadilly area of London, the center of much gay life there.
I am very pleased to write about the latest CD by Levi Kreis. It’s called “Live @ Joe’s Pub,” and that’s a NYC venue. He’s now in L.A. working on his next studio album, but this live one sure whets the appetite for more.
It’s full of songs from his recording career, and I’ve been following him from the beginning. Accordingly, my own collection of his work includes some material not mentioned on his website. Yeah, I know, this will drive some of his fans crazy, but hey, being a faithful follower has its rewards. And many of those fans will scratch their heads at the first CD in the grouping below, “Rough Around the Edges: Live at Genghis Cohen.”
I love to tell about first meeting Levi. I was in L.A. in the summer of 2002, visiting my co-producers for the radio show Audiofile. We went to see a production, at the Zephyr Theatre, of the Del Shores play “Southern Baptist Sissies.” Levi was not in the cast but during the show he came out and sang the song “Stain Glass Windows,” which was terrific, as was the play itself. On the way out of the theatre Levi was doing a meet-and-greet, selling his CD, and of course I bought a copy and we chatted a bit. “Rough Around the Edges: Live at Genghis Cohen” was a very homemade CD, and I loved that it contained some very unabashedly gay songs, like “Queer Boy.” It was very self-distributed and I doubt it was even ever mentioned on his website.
In 2005 he released “One of the Ones,” and I was blown away and now a serious fan. I think he’s been the only artist that I’ve interviewed three times…his interviews are Just That Good, as is his music. You can find them on my Queer Music Heritage shows for January 2006, March 2007, and June2009. “The Gospel According to Levi” from 2007 was another jump in his material, very personal and not to be ignored. And also that year he released some of his older material, in the digital CDs “Bygones” and “Live at Genghis Cohen.” And the studio album “Where I Belong” came out in 2009. As I said, I was now a fanatic collector, hence the grouping of releases shown below.
A CD just called “Bonus CD” was pressed in 2007. This was material recorded for Atlantic in 2005, and that album never happened. But as I’d built up a connection with Levi by then (and it doesn’t hurt to do radio), he sent me the CD, with the “not for airplay” condition. Next is the compilation “Peace from the Porch, Volume 2,” from 2006. This was a benefit CD produced by my friend Christy Claxton. Volume 1 raised money for the American Cancer Society, and Volume 2 funds would go to causes combating domestic abuse and violence. I got to hear an early pressing and realized that many victims are also men and I knew just the track that should be included. I contacted both Christy and Levi and introduced them through the internet, and a wonderful, but obscure track by Levi called “Man Outta Me” was received in time to make it on the CD. It’s the only place it can be heard.
The Sony Corporation in 2007 had a short-lived campaign to promote the music of GLBT artists, and released “Music With a Twist: Revolutions.” It an excellent CD, and introduced to me a song I am crazy about, “Jesse,” by Ivri Lider. But Sony barely marketed the project and no more efforts resulted by them. It contains Levi’s track “I Should Go.” In 2009 Levi guested on two tracks on an album by his friend Darci Monet, and also on a track (“Masquerade”) on an EP with Canadian artist Matthew David. Oh yes, in 2008 he and Debbie Holiday released a single called “Yes We Can,” in support of President Obama’s election campaign. Levi was then devoting his efforts in the off-Broadway production, in Chicago, of “Million Dollar Quartet,” in which he plays Jerry Lee Lewis. The show made it to Broadway and in 2011 Levi took home a Tony Award for Featured Actor.
And with a bit of vanity, below is a shot of myself with Levi Kreis and Eric Himan, when they did a joint gig in Houston, in March of 2006. And below it, well, I not only collect Levi’s music but when I see an internet pic of him I like, I grab it, hope he doesn’t mind.
I can pretty much pin it down to a date, September 15, 1979. And here’s how it happened. I moved to Norfolk, Virginia, in September of 1978, and came out of the closet immediately, as I joined the UUGC, as we called the Unitarian Universalist Gay Community. Now, it wasn’t really a “church group,” but the UU Church very generously let us use a meeting room and an office in their building. I quickly got involved with this group, and they did Everything that needed done, gay-wise, in Norfolk, from the gay hotline, pot luck dinners, the newspaper, held conferences, and whatever gay organizing that came up. Back in those days it was okay to call it the “gay community,” it was long before the politically correct days of Gay & Lesbian (or Lesbian & Gay), and the B&T weren’t even on the radar.
In September 1979 we were scheduling a concert, to benefit the hotline, and brought down from Philadelphia very-gay singer/songwriter Tom Wilson (he later went by Tom Wilson Weinberg), and our unofficial organizational leader, Jayr Ellis, thought a great idea would be to get local gay business people “involved,” so persuaded a furniture store owner to house Tom, and his partner John, while they were in Norfolk for the concert. At the very last minute the furniture guy backed out, and Jayr asked if I could put them up. Sure, I had ample room in my condo, so I picked them up at the airport.
That evening was their concert, at the UU hall, and I loved it. Tom sang mostly from his first album, “Gay Name Game,” and the material was Very gay. Here’s where the headline of this article comes in. GLBT people today may not understand, but remember this was 1979. Until Tom’s concert I had NEVER HEARD MUSIC THAT SPOKE TO ME. I mean, this was early in our history’s music and I had only been out of the closet for a year. You could not hear lyrically gay music on the radio (as if you can do that now). So, this was music for which I did not have to switch the pronouns in my head to make them seem real. This was our music.
The first photo I took at that UUGC concert, and Tom’s partner (since 1973), John Whyte, even joined in the singing on one number, a favorite spoken-word piece called “1:00 a.m.” Below that are his two solo albums, “Gay Name Game,” and “All-American Boy,” (1982), along with “Don’t Mess With Mary,” which he wrote for the 1994 Stonewall 25th Anniversary, and “Get Used To It,” (1993), one of Tom’s musicals. Another much-performed one he wrote was “Ten-Percent Revue,” and he’s still writing musicals, with one in working stages currently, about Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok. Tom and I have stayed friends over the years. In the bottom photo we are at a house concert in NYC, July 2004.
