Somebody to Love: The Life, Death and Legacy of Freddie Mercury
November 22nd 2016
ISBN1681881888 (ISBN13: 9781681881881)
For the first time, the final years of one of the world's most captivating rock showman are laid bare. Including interviews from Freddie Mercury's closest friends in the last years of his life, along with personal photographs, Somebody to Love is an authoritative biography of the great man. Here are previously unknown and startling facts about the singer and his life, moving detail on his lifelong search for love and personal fulfilment, and of course his tragic contraction of a then killer disease in the mid-1980s.
Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury
January 1, 1997
ISBN1451663951 (ISBN13: 9781451663952)
Mercury was the first major rock star to die from AIDS. Now, twenty years after his death, those closest to him are finally opening up about this pivotal figure in rock n’ roll. With unprecedented access to Mercury’s tribe, rock journalist Lesley- Ann Jones has crafted the definitive account of Mercury’s legendary life. Jones details Queen’s slow but steady rise to fame, and Mercury’s descent into dangerous, pleasure-seeking excesses. Jones doesn’t shy away from Mercury’s often colorful lifestyle—this was, after all, a man who once declared, “Darling, I’m doing everything with everyone.”
Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey
August 1st 1983
ISBN
Briefly portrays the life of the influential blues singer, Ma Rainey, discusses the development of her music, and analyzes the theme of love in her music.
Music
Liberace: An American Boy
June 15th 2000
ISBN0226686671 (ISBN13: 9780226686677)
More people watched his nationally syndicated television show between 1953 and 1955 than followed I Love Lucy. Even a decade after his death, the attendance records he set at Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl, and Radio City Music Hall still stand. Arguably the most popular entertainer of the twentieth century, this very public figure nonetheless kept more than a few secrets. Darden Asbury Pyron, author of the acclaimed and bestselling Southern Daughter: The Life of Margaret Mitchell, leads us through the life of America's foremost showman with his fresh, provocative, and definitive portrait of Liberace, an American boy.
George Michael: The Biography
November 8th 2007
ISBN0749951419 (ISBN13: 9780749951412)
George Michael is an enigma. Despite being one of the most open and vocal pop superstars on the planet, George Michael is also fiercely protective of his privacy. From the formation of Wham! In 1981 he immediately found fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams. This all-access biography uncovers the secret life of the pop star, following his skyrocket to fame and fortune through his solo career and up to the present day. His music formed the soundtrack to the 1980s and he achieved all of this despite growing up in a dysfunctional family where his father openly proclaimed that George had no talent. Wham! split in 1986 but Michael went on to greater things as a solo artist.
The Music that Inspired the Gay Rights Movement
September 12th 2012
ASINB0099ZYP2Q
"The Music that Inspired the Gay Rights Movement" takes readers on a journey from Dorothy of Oz to Ke$ha and makes many stops in between. Learn how musicians like Cole Porter, Tom Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Adam Lambert and many more became pivotal in the quiet movement that many still haven't noticed.
k.d. Lang: All You Get is Me
May 1st 1994
ISBN0006382401 (ISBN13: 9780006382409)
All You Get is Me uncovers k.d.'s deepest emotions, from a commitment to animal rights that threatened to ruin her career, to her coming to terms with a sexuality that made her an unwitting poster girl for the lesbian and gay community. Full f rare photographs, this is the definitive biography of k.d. lang.
Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women's Music Festivals
March 1st 1999
ISBN1555834779 (ISBN13: 9781555834777)
Women's music festivals have long been an integral part of lesbian culture, the shaping of millions of women's lives, and the emergence of women as a musical force to be reckoned with. Now Dr. Bonnie J. Morris takes readers on an breathtaking insider's journey through 25 years of this cultural phenomenon. From Michigan to Mississippi, Eden Built by Eves is a splendidly full archive of festival herstory: conflicts, scandals, new music, rain, sun work, family, joy. What does festival culture mean to the audiences, artists, and activists who loyally return each year?
Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig
October 30th 2005
ISBN0520215877 (ISBN13: 9780520215870)
In this fresh and innovative study, Judith A. Peraino investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with a close examination of the mythology surrounding the sirens— whose music seduced Ulysses into a state of mind in which he would gladly sacrifice everything for the illicit pleasures promised in their song—Peraino goes on to consider the musical creatures, musical gods and demigods, musical humans, and music-addled listeners who have been associated with behavior that breaches social conventions.
Queer Noises: Male and Female Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Music
March 2nd 1995
ISBN0816627193 (ISBN13: 9780816627196)
From American Idol To British Rock Royalty - The Amazing Story Of Adam Lambert
March 2nd 2015
ASINB00U7CCI74
Adam Lambert is a true Hollywood success story. Despite coming second in season eight of American Idol, losing out to Kris Allen, Lambert has become one of the most successful and admired American pop artists of the 21st century. With just two solo albums under his belt, he has sold over two million albums and four million singles worldwide. He has won numerous awards and been nominated for some of the most coveted prizes in the music industry, including the Grammys. He was the first openly gay artist to get a major label record deal, which he achieved with RCA, and the first openly gay pop star to achieve a Number 1 album in the US with his second release, Trespassing, in 2012.
Hiding My Candy
August 1st 1997
ISBN0671520954 (ISBN13: 9780671520953)
After leaping off the pages with he unforgettable debut in John Berendt's bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the unabashed personality known as The Lady Chablis now brings her irresistible charisma to the remarkable odyssey of fabulousness that USA Today calls "sassy" and "provocative...." Born Benjamin Edward Knox in Quincy, Florida, "The Doll" always knew she was different. At a Tallahassee club, in her teens, she found the drag mother who would set her on the path to stardom. Before long, The Lady Chablis had a headline drag act replete with trademark saucy wit, down-home wisdom, and, of course, breasts. The rest is "Miss Thang" history....
The Girls: Out & Proud Lesbian Music Crossword Puzzles
December 6th 2014
ISBN1312655720 (ISBN13: 9781312655720)
Music reviewer, podcaster and historian Aaron Joy presents his series of rock music crossword puzzle books. 14 new puzzles in each book looking at the bands, albums & general trivia, including musicians famous & forgotten, fringe & mainstream.
50 Queer Music Icons Who Changed the World: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Legends
May 15th 2018
ISBN1784881503 (ISBN13: 9781784881504)
Featuring beautifully illustrated portraits and profiles, 50 Queer Musicians Who Changed the World is a tribute to queer ground breakers who changed the face of music and popular culture. LGBTQ musicians have been pushing for change since the 1920s, with singers such as Bessie Smith crooning about same-sex liaisons almost 100 years ago – long before Frankie Goes to Hollywood were telling everyone to 'Relax'. This book is a celebration of artists who became icons, and broke new ground through song.
Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton
May 1st 1998
ISBN0395957893 (ISBN13: 9780395957899)
The jazz pianist Billy Tipton was born in Oklahoma City as Dorothy Tipton, but almost nobody knew the truth until the day he died, in Spokane in 1989. Over a fifty-year performing career, Billy Tipton fooled nearly everyone, including Duke Ellington and Norma Teagarden, five successive wives with whom Billy lived as a man, and three children who he "fathered." As Billy Tipton herself said, "Some people might think I'm a freak or a hermaphrodite. I'm not. I'm a normal person. This has been my choice." This jazz-era biography evokes the rich popular-music history of the Great Depression and reads like a detective story.
The Queer Composition of America's Sound: Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity
October 18th 2004
ISBN0520241851 (ISBN13: 9780520241855)
In this vibrant and pioneering book, Nadine Hubbs shows how a gifted group of Manhattan-based gay composers were pivotal in creating a distinctive "American sound" and in the process served as architects of modern American identity. Focusing on a talented circle that included Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, and Ned Rorem, The Queer Composition of America's Sound homes in on the role of these artists' self-identification—especially with tonal music, French culture, and homosexuality—in the creation of a musical idiom that even today signifies "America" in commercials, movies, radio and television, and the concert hall.
Queer tracks : subversive strategies in rock and pop music
December 2012
ISBN1409437027 (ISBN13: 9781409437024)
Queer Tracks describes motifs in popular music that deviate from heterosexual orientation, the binary gender system and fixed identities. This exciting cutting-edge work deals with the key concepts of current gender politics and queer theory in rock and pop music, including irony, parody, camp, mask/masquerade, mimesis/mimicry, cyborg, transsexuality, and dildo. Based on a constructivist concept of gender, Leibetseder asks: 'Which queer-feminist strategies are used in rock and pop music?' 'How do they function?' 'Where do they occur?' Leibetseder's methodological process is to discover subversive strategies in queer theory, which are also used in rock and pop music, without assuming that these tactics were first invented in theory.
Sing Out: Gays and Lesbians in the Music
March 25th 1998
ISBN1569801169 (ISBN13: 9781569801161)
With a Foreword by symphony orchestra conductor Leonard Bernstein and insight into such varied figures as Beethoven, Billie Holiday, Boy George and Bette Midler and Bruce Springsteen.
The Vinyl Closet: Gays in the Music World
October 1st 1991
ISBN0962349798 (ISBN13: 9780962349799)
From the introduction, written by Leonard Bernstein right before his death, to the epilogue, Hadleigh provides the reader with another fascinating Hollywood type teaser of who has/is/may have done what in the music industry. Filled with tabloid quotes, out of context statements and interviews with the anonymous star and/or executive, people from Piaf to Merman to lang (sic) are painted as stars benefiting from their gay and lesbian followings while hating them as in Merman’s ease, embracing them as did Piaf, or possibly joining in as is suggested in lang’s case.
Tegan and Sara Motivational Coloring Book
August 15th 2019
ISBN168657665X (ISBN13: 9781686576652)
Tegan and Sara Motivational Adult Coloring Book. Beautiful Illustrations. We've included 40+ unique images for you to express your creativity and make masterpieces. Which colors will you choose for this book?
Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir
October 11th 2010
ISBN0385525915 (ISBN13: 9780385525916)
Born and raised in Judsonia, Arkansas—a place where indoor plumbing was a luxury, squirrel was a meal, and sex ed was taught during senior year in high school (long after many girls had gotten pregnant and dropped out) Beth Ditto stood out. Beth was a fat, pro-choice, sexually confused choir nerd with a great voice, an eighties perm, and a Kool Aid dye job. Her single mother worked overtime, which meant Beth and her five siblings were often left to fend for themselves. Beth spent much of her childhood as a transient, shuttling between relatives, caring for a sickly, volatile aunt she nonetheless loved, looking after sisters, brothers, and cousins, and trying to steer clear of her mother’s bad boyfriends.
Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer
May 4th 2010
ISBN0307378861 (ISBN13: 9780307378866)
Chely Wright, singer, songwriter, country music star, writes in this moving, telling memoir about her life and her career; about growing up in America’s heartland, the youngest of three children; about barely remembering a time when she didn’t know she was different She writes about her parents, putting down roots in their twenties in the farming town of Wellsville, Kansas, Old Glory flying atop the poles on the town’s manicured lawns, and being raised to believe that hard work, honesty, and determination would take her far.
Seduced and Abandoned: Essays on Gay Men and Popular Music
March 1st 1996
ISBN0304333476 (ISBN13: 9780304333479)
Seduced and Abandoned examines the different ways that gay men use pop music, both as producers and consumers, and how, in turn, pop uses gay men. Richard Smith asks what role culture plays in shaping identity, and why pop continues to thrill gay men even though it so often lets them down. These 40 essays and interviews look at how performers, from The Kinks' Ray Davies to Gene's Martin Rossiter, have used pop as a platform to explore and articulate, conform to or contest notions of sexuality and gender.
Elton: The Biography
October 28th 2007
ISBN1556527136 (ISBN13: 9781556527135)
One of music’s true global superstars and most admired figures, Elton John has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide to date, and continues to appear regularly in the singles charts, thanks largely to a series of high-profile collaborations with new faces. But he is loved as much for his outrageous personality and witty outspokenness as for his music: recent memorable outbursts have included a public comment that “people who charge £75 and lip-sync should be shot” and calling some pushy photographers “rude, vile pigs.” He has even admitted that, in one of his more comedic cocaine-fueled moments, he phoned one of his management team “to tell him to do something about the wind outside my hotel room.” Such shamelessness and sheer silliness rivals anything uttered by punk rockers, yet it is so typically Elton: honest and wittily intemperate.
Gay Music Guide: Album Reviews and Artist Profiles
May 1st 1994
ISBN0963987194 (ISBN13: 9780963987198)
My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming Onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement
October 1st 2009
ISBN1593501072 (ISBN13: 9781593501075)
Women’s music legend Alix Dobkin for the first time chronicles her rise to fame as the first artist to record an openly lesbian album in 1973. Her story, however, opens much earlier in postwar New York City, where, growing up in a Communist family, she watches Jackie Robinson steal home, rubs elbows with radical Left celebrities like Paul Robeson, and comes of age under the watchful eye of the FBI. Dobkin herself joins the party at the height of the McCarthy witch hunts and offers readers a firsthand glimpse of daily life as a young person living under government surveillance.
Stonewall to Obama
January 11th 2014
ASINB00HQ373UE
This is a story of sound, rhythm, style and the power of music to transform a culture. It’s about rock and roll, pop, disco, rap, funk, soul and R&B. It starts with the sounds heard on June 28, 1969 that ignited a revolution and lead to arrests, demonstrations, loss of life, political unrest, anger, fear and a plague. But, most importantly, this is a story of celebration! It’s the story of the gay anthem and how it empowered a group of second class citizens to find its voice and claim its rightful place in society.
Rock on the Wild Side: Gay Male Images in Popular Music of the Rock Era
March 1st 1994
ISBN0943595460 (ISBN13: 9780943595467)
Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music
December 15th 2015
ISBN158046534X (ISBN13: 9781580465342)
Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York. His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others, assault us with his obsessions. Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as reflected in legendary scandals like his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, and the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University.
Out of Sync: A Memoir
October 23rd 2007
ISBN1416947884 (ISBN13: 9781416947882)
Lance Bass tells all about his life, his music, and his sexuality in this candid, compelling memoir. At sixteen, Lance Bass received a phone call from Justin Timberlake that would change his life forever. Soon after, he left his small-town home in Clinton, Mississippi, to join an emerging musical group called *NSYNC. Two years later *NSYNC was inspiring Beatles-esque mania around the world, becoming the face of the new MTV generation, and earning the all-time record for most album sales in a single day (more than one million) and in a single week for No Strings Attached.
Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity
May 23rd 2002
ISBN025202740X (ISBN13: 9780252027406)
Queer Episodes in Music and Modern Identity approaches modern sexuality by way of music. Through the hidden or lost stories of composers, scholars, patrons, performers, audiences, repertoires, venues, and specific works, this intriguing volume explores points of intersection between music and queerness in Europe and the United States in the years 1870 to 1950--a period when dramatic changes in musical expression and in the expression of individual sexual identity played similar roles in washing away the certainties of the past. Pursuing the shadowy, obscured tracks of queerness, contributors unravel connections among dissident identities and concrete aspects of musical style, gestures, and personae.
Hearing the Political in Popular Music: Queer and Feminist Interventions
May 17th 2019
ISBN1138055891 (ISBN13: 9781138055896)
Me
November 2nd 2010
ISBN0451234154 (ISBN13: 9780451234155)
International superstar, Ricky Martin, who has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide, opens up for the first time about memories of his early childhood, experiences in the famed boy band Menudo, struggles with his identity during the Livin' la Vida Loca phenomenon, reflections on coming to terms with his sexuality, relationships that allowed him to embrace love, and life-changing decisions like devoting himself to helping children around the world and becoming a father. Me is an intimate memoir about the very liberating and spiritual journey of one of the most iconic pop-stars of our time.
Macho Man: The Disco Era and Gay America's Coming Out
December 30th 2008
ISBN0275999629 (ISBN13: 9780275999629)
The Vietnam War was over and America seemed in the midst of a nationwide party. The self-proclaimed Me generation was flocking to discotheques, recreational drug use was high, and sexual taboos were being shattered nationwide. Then The Village People appeared on the music scene. Never before had gay sexuality been as up-front and in the face of America. The Village People struck a cultural nerve and fueled a craze that had them playing to sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden. Even today, few adults could not at least hum the tunes to Y.M.C.A. and Macho Man. Because of the unique role they played in the United States of the late 1970s, The Village People are able to provide a powerful lens through which to view the emergence and development of gay culture in America.
George: A Memory of George Michael
November 16th 2017
ASINB06Y57BNQX
George is the story of two extraordinary lives – the private man and the public legend. Georgios Panayiotou was just eighteen when he decided to adopt the stage name of George Michael. Sometimes his two worlds would collide with shattering consequences. Bestselling biographer Sean Smith has gone back to the neighborhoods of North London to trace the astonishing journey of a sensitive but determined boy who grew up to be one of the biggest British pop stars of all time. Along the way, he talks to those close to George, revealing the real man – funny, articulate, intelligent and generous spirited – who hid behind the powerful image he created.
Exile in Guyville: How a Punk Rock Redneck Faggot Texan Moved to West Hollywood and Refused to Be Shiny and Happy
April 1st 2006
ISBN1555839320 (ISBN13: 9781555839321)
Here’s the diary of a man who in mid-life found himself uprooted and dumped into West Hollywood, an unfamiliar place not exactly known for stability. White explores his neighborhood ? “queens: 6 percent; cranky 70-year-old Russians who give you the evil eye when you walk past: 2 percent; blonde girls with big, round, hard fakeys who think Jennifer Anniston just got lucky: 10 percent; miscellaneous cool kids, hustlers, and actual crazy people: 5 percent.” White gets gigs as a freelance writer, goes to the grocery store where his Russian neighbors ask him questions because they think he’s from the old country; and encounters Sara Gilbert at the Laundromat, Leonard Maltin at the movies, and Ben Affleck driving a Rolls-Royce so ridiculously conspicuous he might as well be driving Chitty-Chitty, Bang-Bang.
Pet Shop Boys Versus America
November 4th 1993
ISBN1886894310 (ISBN13: 9781886894310)
The worldwide success of the Pet Shop Boys has been only faintly echoed in the USA. In the spring of 1991 they decided to grapple with the beast, taking a theatrical tour that would exaggerate their differences. By turns enraptured by and disdainful of America and its obsession with celebrity they brushed shoulders with the famous (Axl Rose, Liza Minelli and Joni Mitchell) travelled, played and uttered their detached commentary on what was happening. Throughout they were shadowed by the author Chris Heath and photographer Pennie Smith.
Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-Making
March 4th 2002
ISBN0819564982 (ISBN13: 9780819564986)
"Impossible Dance is a highly accessible, original and engaging account of the complex and often heavily theorized debates around the body, identity and community. Focusing on gay, lesbian and queer club culture in the 1990s New York City, this is the first book to bring together vital issues such as dance culture, queer community, sex culture, HIV identity and politics. Based on four years of field work, the book takes readers on a journey from the streets of New York City into the dance clubs and onto the dance floor. Detailed interviews with club-goers capture their perspectives on how they stage their self-fashioning through dancing. Fiona Buckland argues that such dancing embodies and rehearses a powerful political imagination, laying claim to the space and to one's body as queer."--Publishers Weekly
The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater
November 24th 2004
ISBN1573441988 (ISBN13: 9781573441988)
Aficionados of music, dance, opera, and musical theater will relish this new volume by the scholars of GLBTQ featuring over 200 articles showcasing composers, singers, musicians, dancers, and choreographers across eras and styles. Read about Hildegard of Bingen, whose Symphonia expressed both spiritual and physical desire for the Virgin Mary, and George Frideric Handel, who not only created roles for castrati but was behind the Venetian opera's preoccupation with gender ambiguity.
Freddie Mercury: His Life in His Own Words
January 1st 2006
ISBN184772650X (ISBN13: 9781847726506)
Despite being in the limelight for over 20 years and selling nearly 200 million records, Freddie Mercury was a very private person - avoiding interviews as he was painfully shy and uncomfortable in the company of anyone who might intrude upon his famous 'royal family' of close friends. This book takes us on the journey of Queen - three academics and a frustrated art student, tired of having no money, taking on the music industry on their own terms. Spurred on by an almost uncontrollable, ambitious and forthright Mercury, Queen succeeded, becoming the biggest band of the generations to come. The story, told in his own words shows how on many occasions, the band almost split, but was always kept together by their shared love of breaching musical boundaries.
The Boys: Out & Proud Gay Music Crossword Puzzles
January 3rd 2015
ISBN1312655712 (ISBN13: 9781312655713)
Music writer and historian Aaron Joy presents his series of rock music crossword puzzle books. A great starting point for growing a music collection, enjoying a particular musical genre or band or winning the next game of rock music trivia.
Sounding Out: Pauline Oliveros and Lesbian Musicality
November 19th 2007
ISBN0415973767 (ISBN13: 9780415973762)
Sounding Out: Pauline Oliveros and Lesbian Musicality examines the musical career of the avant-garde composer, accordionist, whose radical innovations of the 1960s, 70s and 80s have redefined the aesthetic and formal parameters of American experimental music. While other scholars have studied Oliveros as a disciple of John Cage and a contemporary of composers Terry Riley, Lou Harrison, Gordon Mumma, and Robert Ashley, Sounding Out resituates Pauline Oliveros in a gynecentric network of feminist activists, writers, artists and musicians.
Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout
January 13th 2015
ISBN0316387959 (ISBN13: 9780316387958)
The provocative transgender advocate and lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me! provides a searing account of her search for identity and her true self. It began in a bedroom in Naples, Florida, when a misbehaving punk teenager named Tom Gabel, armed with nothing but an acoustic guitar and a headful of anarchist politics, landed on a riff. Gabel formed Against Me! and rocketed the band from its scrappy beginnings-banging on a drum kit made of pickle buckets-to a major-label powerhouse that critics have called this generation's The Clash. Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! has been one of punk's most influential modern bands, but also one of its most divisive. With every notch the four-piece climbed in their career, they gained new fans while infuriating their old ones.
Straight
June 6th 2005
ISBN0099464934 (ISBN13: 9780099464938)
From his days as a club face alongside Philip Sallon, Marilyn and Steve Strange, through the years of global pop superstardom with Culture Club, his rebirth as a world-class DJ, as a leading light of musical theatre with the award- winning Taboo, a cutting edge photographer and a confrontational and acclaimed fashion designer, one of the many things you can say about George is: he's never stood still. It's been one hell of a trip. A decade and a half ago, George was coming to terms with the fall-out from serious drug addiction, the failure of his relationship with Jon Moss and the collapse of Culture Club. For lesser men this would have been the end but for George it became the start of a period of remarkable reinvention.
Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace
June 22nd 1988
ISBN1877961116 (ISBN13: 9781877961113)
Scott Thorson, a poor boy from a succession of foster homes, met Liberace when he was just 16 years old. Liberace, aged 57, took Scott under his wing as 'the son he'd never had'. By the time Scott was 17, he was also Liberace's lover. Liberace lived life by his credo 'too much of a good thing is wonderful' and Scott shared in it: the fur coats, the Rolls- Royces, the jewelry, the celebrity friends, the 26 lap dogs. A more opulent lifestyle is hard to imagine but it came at a price: Liberace sent Scott to his plastic surgeon to have his face remodeled in Liberace's own image.
Queer Voices: Vocality, the Uncanny, and Popular Music
May 15th 2011
ISBN0230105904 (ISBN13: 9780230105904)
Queer Voices sets out both to queer the musicological and to make queer audible, arguing that the voice, particularly the singing voice, opens up a richly queer space. Using case studies from different repertoires, the book demonstrates how queer emerges particularly audibly when the voice is heard to engage with various technologies: the external technologies of music performances and recordings, technologies of power, or the internal technologies of vocal production itself.
Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music
March 22nd 2014
ISBN0520280652 (ISBN13: 9780520280656)
In her provocative new book Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music, Nadine Hubbs looks at how class and gender identity play out in one of America’s most culturally and politically charged forms of popular music. Skillfully weaving historical inquiry with an examination of classed cultural repertoires and close listening to country songs, Hubbs confronts the shifting and deeply entangled workings of taste, sexuality, and class politics.
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Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology
January 27th 1994
ISBN0415907535 (ISBN13: 9780415907538)
The first collection of gay and lesbian work in musicology. Contributors cover a wide range of subjects from analysis of the work of gay composers to queer readings of Schubert's 'Unfinished Symphony.'
Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music: Black Gay Men Who Rap
April 6th 2019
ISBN9811335125 (ISBN13: 9789811335129)
Playing It Queer: Popular Music, Identity and Queer World-Making
June 26th 2012
ISBN3034305532 (ISBN13: 9783034305532)
Popular music has always been a dynamic mediator of gender and sexuality, and a productive site of rebellion, oddity and queerness. The transformative capacity of music-making, performance and consumption helps us to make sense of identity and allows us to glimpse otherworldliness, arousing the political imagination. With an activist voice that is impassioned yet adherent to scholarly rigour, "Playing it Queer" provides an original and compelling ethnographic account of the relationship between popular music, queer self-fashioning and (sub)cultural world-making. This book begins with a comprehensive survey and critical evaluation of relevant literatures on queer identity and political debates as well as popular music, identity and (sub)cultural style.
Like Punk Never Happened: Culture Club and the New Pop
December 31st 1985
ISBN0571137393 (ISBN13: 9780571137398)
'A controversial and honest account of My Life On The Road With Rock Group, a potted history of pop from '79-'85, and a serious analysis of the whole mess... Dave Rimmer has one great weapon at his disposal. He was there.' David Quantick, NME 'As sharp a study of British pop as we'll get ... Rimmer's point is that if the new pop stars' success makes it seem 'like punk never happened', they emerged, in fact, as a direct result of punk attitudes... Rimmer tells this story in his raciest Smash Hits manner, with wit, insider info and scandal.' Simon Frith, City Limits
I Was Born This Way: A Gay Preacher's Journey through Gospel Music, Disco Stardom, and a Ministry in Christ
June 1st 2010
ISBN1416592822 (ISBN13: 9781416592822)
In I Was Born This Way, Carl Bean, former Motown recording artist, noted AIDS activist, and founder of the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Los Angeles, shares his extraordinary personal journey from Baltimore foster homes to the stage of the Apollo Theater and beyond. CARL BEAN has been crossing boundaries all his life and helping others do the same. He’s never been stopped by his race or orientation, never fit or stayed in the boxes people have wanted to put him in. He left his foster home in Baltimore at seventeen and took the bus to New York City, where he quickly found the rich culture of the Harlem churches.
Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathis Queered Pop Music
October 14th 2019
ISBN0252084632 (ISBN13: 9780252084638)
The all-embracing, "whaddya got?" nature of rebellion in Fifties America included pop music's unlikely challenge to entrenched notions of masculinity. Within that upheaval, four prominent artists dared to behave in ways that let the public assume—but not see—their queerness. That these artists cultivated ambiguous sexual personas often reflected an understandable fear, but also a struggle to fulfill personal and professional expectations. Vincent L. Stephens confronts notions of the closet—both coming out and staying in—by analyzing the careers of Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Johnnie Ray, and Little Richard. Appealing to audiences hungry for novelty and exoticism, the four pop icons used performance and queering techniques that ran the gamut.
Freddie Mercury
April 19th 2000
ISBN0711986746 (ISBN13: 9780711986749)
Peter Freestone was Freddie Mercury's personal assistant for the last 12 years of his life. He lived with Mercury in London, Munich, and New York, and was with him when he died. This is the most intimate account of Mercury's life ever written.
Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division
March 1st 2009
ISBN1573443433 (ISBN13: 9781573443432)
"We're the buttfuckers of rock-and-roll, We want to sock it to your hole!" With these words written in a notebook, Jon Ginoli sets off on a journey of self-discovery and musical passion to become the founding member of Pansy Division, the first out and proud queercore punk rock band to hit the semi-big time. Set against the changing decades of music, we follow the band from their inception in San Francisco, to their search for a music label and a permanent drummer to their current status as indie rock icons. We see the highs--touring with Green Day--and the lows--homophobic fans--of striving for acceptance and success in the world of rock. Replete with the requisite tales of sex, drugs, groupies, band fights and label battles, this rollicking memoir is also an impassioned account of staying true to the artistic vision of queer rock'n'roll.
Queer Voices: Exploring the Roles of Music in LGBTQ Lives
June 2018
ISBN139789463750110
As a PhD student at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, I investigate the role of music in the lives of Flemish LGBTQ individuals. Just to give you some background information: Flanders is the Northern part of Belgium, Europe, and is a Flemish-speaking community. In general, living as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer or gender-nonconforming individual in Belgium is great: Belgium gets high scores from ILGA Europe’s rainbow europe reports on equality and non-discrimination, asylum and family rights. There is still some work to be done concerning legal gender recognition and bodily integrity.
Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness
March 16th 2016
ISBN1137454202 (ISBN13: 9781137454201)
Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness uses musicology and queer theory to uncover meaning and message in canonical American cinema. This study considers how queer readings are reinforced or nuanced through analysis of musical score. Taking a broad approach to queerness that questions heteronormative and homonormative patriarchal structures, binary relationships, gender assumptions and anxieties, this book challenges existing interpretations of what is progressive and what is retrogressive in cinema.
Freddie Mercury: The Biography
January 1, 1997
ISBN0749956089 (ISBN13: 9780749956080)
This fascinating biography of Freddie Mercury has received outstanding acclaim from Queen and rock fans worldwide -- now revised and updated to coincide with the release of the film about his life, Bohemian Rhapsody. Born Farrokh Bulsara on the island of Zanzibar, Freddie Mercury rose to worldwide stardom as the lead singer of Britain's biggest music act of all time. In this bestselling biography, Laura Jackson reveals the reality behind Queen's flamboyant frontman and lead singer, as she looks behind his unique brand of showmanship to discover who Freddie Mercury really was. Featuring exclusive interviews with some of those closest to Freddie right up until his tragic death, original Queen members and many others.
Hot Licks: Lesbian Musicians of Note
September 28th 1996
ISBN0921881428 (ISBN13: 9780921881421)
Lesbian musicians reveal their passions, politics and musical influences as well as career highlights.
Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday
January 20th 1998
ISBN0679771263 (ISBN13: 9780679771265)
From one of this country's most important intellectuals comes a brilliant analysis of the blues tradition that examines the careers of three crucial black women blues singers through a feminist lens. Angela Davis provides the historical, social, and political contexts with which to reinterpret the performances and lyrics of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday as powerful articulations of an alternative consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American culture.
The Truth Is . . .: My Life in Love and Music
June 11th 2002
ISBN0375760261 (ISBN13: 9780375760266)
Since she first burst onto the international music scene, Melissa Etheridge has released seven albums that have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, garnering not only public adoration for her uncompromising honesty but numerous critical awards, including two Grammys and the prestigious ASCAP Songwriter of the Year award. The Truth Is . . . is a highly charged autobiography—a bold and unflinching account of an extraordinary life that Melissa describes as only she can: from her Kansas roots, through her early love of music, to her brilliant rise to superstardom in a male- dominated rock world. Melissa openly discusses the massive impact of her publicly coming out, a revelation that only increased her popularity, making her a highly visible spokesperson for the gay and lesbian community. The Truth Is . . . shares Melissa Etheridge’s fascinating story with unprecedented candor and insight.
David Bowie Changes: His Life in Pictures 1947 – 2016
January 1st 2013
ISBN1780978537 (ISBN13: 9781780978536)
David Bowie made a huge impact on popular music and culture, and his recent death stunned and saddened fans everywhere. Featuring new photos and additional text, this updated edition of David Bowie Changes showcases the best images of the chameleon-like performer, from his humble beginnings as Davy Jones to global domination as a musical legend, fashion icon, and constantly evolving superstar.
David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music
November 21st 2017
ISBN1468315595 (ISBN13: 9781468315592)
LGBT musicians have shaped the development of music over the last century, with a sexually progressive soundtrack in the background of the gay community’s struggle for acceptance. With the advent of recording technology, LGBT messages were for the first time brought to the forefront of popular music. David Bowie Made Me Gay is the first book to cover the breadth of history of recorded music by and for the LGBT community and how those records influenced the evolution of the music we listen to today.
The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the Seventies in San Francisco
January 24th 2006
ISBN0312425694 (ISBN13: 9780312425692)
Imagine a pied piper singing in falsetto, wearing sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to a liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome--to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco-sensation Sylvester was the piper. Yale- trained sociologist Joshua Gamson uses Sylvester's life to lead us through the story of the 1970s, when a generation took off its shame. Celebrity, sociology, and music history mingle in this endlessly entertaining story of a singer who embodied the freedom, spirit, and flamboyance of a golden moment in American culture.
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