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Script for March 2000, QMH: Welcome to Lesbian & Gay Voices on KPFT and this segment is called Queer Music Heritage. I'm JD Doyle and I'm here on the 4th Monday of each month to bring you a half-hour devoted to our culture's music. I plan to cover a lot of territory in terms of years and musical genres, and I try to give a little information about the music and artists as I go. I'm starting off this month's show with some dyke songs, and I think I can get away with that term cause it's in the titles of both songs. First is Lynn Thomas singing "Dykes" from 1992 from her CD "Courage," and it will be followed by Teresa Chandler and Karen Ripley doing "D-y-k-e" from their 1993 release, "I Survived A Femme." Also, pay attention to the extra bonus I've inserted between the two songs. Lynn Thomas
- Dykes That was Lynn Thomas singing "Dykes" and Teresa Chandler & Karen Ripley singing "D-y-k-e". In between them were a couple lines of poetry from perhaps our culture's most famous lesbian, Gertrude Stein. I have an old album of her reading poetry and thought it would be interesting for those who have never heard her voice. Okay, I have a special feature on tonight's show, but before I get to it I want to play a bit of silliness I got off the internet, from the site MP3.com…here's Hugh Blumenfeld singing all 20 seconds of his song, "Tinkie Winky" Hugh Blumefeld
- Tinky Winky And now for this show's spotlight artist. I want to feature one of our culture's drag queens, who may not be that well known. Rae Bourbon was a drag queen in the 50s and 60s and had quite an extensive catalog. He had 11 albums, which is quite a large number of releases for a drag artist. For example, Charles Pierce, who is much better known, only had two. Bourbon also had a wide catalog of 78s and 45s dating back to the 30s. On some of his early 78s he spelled his name R-a-y, and then he switched it to R-a-e, and I'll explain that after I read something from his obituary. I've got a couple lines from the obituary that ran for him in Variety magazine. Bourbon died July 19th, 1971. In addition to the facts of the obituary, you might notice the language of the way Variety magazine described Bourbon, and I quote: Rae Bourbon,
78, cafe entertainer, died of a heart attack in the Bourbon, who did
femme impersonations in vaudeville as well So says the obituary, but that was all hype, he didn't have an operation, it was rumors perpetuated by him and he milked it. On one of his later albums he even reproduced the newspaper articles that talked about him having a sex change…that album was even titled "Let Me Tell You About My Operation".
Rae Bourbon
- I Must Have A Greek For those who want more information on Rae Bourbon I have to recommend a wonderful website devoted to him, found at www.coolcatdaddy.com. It has many photos of Bourbon and his albums and some excellent commentary on the drag culture of that time. After Rae Bourbon, I played something equally silly, "Let's All Be Fairies" by the Durium Dance Band, a release from England from 1933. Regular listeners of this segment will soon find out that I'm liable to play just about any gay-related music, from the 20's up to the present. I'll take a quick break now to remind you that this is Queer Music Heritage, a part of Lesbian & Gay Voices on KPFT, Houston. Next I want to honor two early openly gay artists. Tom Wilson in the 70s was an activist and musician in Philadelphia. He released two albums on his own and also has written two musicals: "The Ten Percent Revue" and "Get Used To It", which have been produced around the country. He's still an active writer today, and now goes by Tom Wilson-Weinberg. His most famous song is probably "lesbian seagull," from his "Gay Name Game" album from 1979. That song however got a lot more exposure when it was featured in the movie "Beavis & Butthead Do America", as sung by Englebert Humperdink. Instead of "lesbian seagull" I want to play another song from Tom Wilson's album. It's about Anita Bryant and is called "second runner-up." Tom Wilson-
Second Runner-Up I followed Tom Wilson with Steven Grossman, singing "Out" from his album "Caravan Tonight." He has the distinction of being the first openly gay artist signed to a major label, in this case Mercury, and the lyrics were even on the album jacket. That album was from 1974. Grossman died in 1991. I'm closing tonight's show with a little bit of a song by an artist you'd probably never expect to hear on a program devoted to gay and lesbian music: Perry Como, but I'm playing him with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it's a song of his from 1953 entitled "Keep It Gay." Perry Como - Keep It Gay Script
for April 2000, QMH: Welcome to Lesbian & Gay Voices on KPFT and this segment is called Queer Music Heritage. I'm JD Doyle and I'm here on the 4th Monday of each month to bring you a half-hour devoted to our culture's music. I plan to cover a lot of territory in terms of years and musical genres, and I try to give a little information about the music and artists as I go. All of tonight's show is dedicated to gay & lesbian country & western music. And you might think that there's not much in this category, but I could actually do quite a number of shows in this genre without repeating myself, and the field is growing. But I want to start with an old song, by Cowboy Jack Derrick from 1946. It's called "Truck Drivin' Man", and I think it's a pretty incredible song to be recorded in 1946 and I wish I knew the story behind it, as I doubt Derrick was gay. But I don't think we'll ever know. I'm following "Truck Drivin' Man" with "Back In The Closet Again" by Patrick Haggerty. That's from the album "Lavender Country" from 1973, and while it may not be noteworthy for it's good singing, it is noted for being the first gay country album. It's recently been re-released on CD. Cowboy Jack
Derrick - Truck Drivin' Man Well, Patrick Haggerty sang about being back in the closet in the 70s, so I feel I need to balance things a little with a song about being out of the closet. It's "Hang Your Clothes In The Closet" by Doug Stevens & the Outband, from his 1995 CD "When Love Is Right." I don't think I could sleep at night if I did a show dedicated to gay country music and didn't play Doug Stevens. His song is followed by one of my favorite gay country songs, "All I Can Handle" by Sid Spencer. It's also from 1995, from his "Out 'N About Again" CD. Sadly, Spencer died of AIDS in 1996, but we are fortunate he left behind a catalog of 4 CDs. Doug Stevens
/ Outband - Hang Your Clothes In The Closet That was Doug Stevens & the Outband, followed by Sid Spencer. I'll take a quick break now to remind you that this is Queer Music Heritage, a part of Lesbian & Gay Voices on KPFT, Houston. I don't want to leave out lesbian country music. There's k.d. lang, of course, but she has recorded almost nothing that is openly gay lyrically, so I'm not going to play her. Instead here are a couple songs that are very Out lyrically. First is Melinda singing "Lez-Be Friends" from her 1994 album "Dyke Dramas", and it will be followed by a very pretty waltz called "The Girl In The Red Velvet Dress," by the Rude Girls, from their album "Rude Awakening" from 1987. Melinda - Lez-Be
Friends Such a pretty song, "The Girl In The Red Velvet Dress" by the Rude Girls. I'm going to close this month's show with another of my favorite gay country songs, "Two Cowboy Waltz," by Mark Weigle. It's from a CD that I highly recommend called "The Truth Is" from 1998, and Mark has a new CD called "All That Matters" that is just as good. If you like folk-country music, both CDs belong in your collection. This is JD Doyle for Lesbian & Gay Voices on KPFT 90.1 Houston and I'll be back next month with another installment of Queer Music Heritage, and, as promised here's Mark Weigle with "Two Cowboy Waltz" Mark Weigle - Two Cowboy Waltz
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