More on transgendered entertainment @ History is made at night

Following up on my last post on drag balls in US and UK history (“An 18th century drag ball in London” @ History is made at night), here’s another repost from  the always excellent History is made at night –

Mona’s San Francisco: 1940s lesbian club

Source: San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project ‘She Even Chewed Tobacco: A pictorial narrative of passing women in America’ in ‘Hidden from history: reclaiming the gay and lesbian past’ by Martin B. Duberman, Martha Vicinus, George Chauncey (Meridian Books, 1989).

This advert for Mona’s Club 440 (440 Broadway, San Francisco) comes from San Francisco Life 1942:

This advert mentions Gladys Bentley, described as “Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs” and “America’s Greatest Sepia Piano Artist.”

In his A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem, Eric Garber mentions Bentley’s appearances in New York in the 1920s/30s:

‘Perhaps the most famous gay-oriented club of the era was Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, a narrow, smoky speakeasy on 133rd Street. The Clam House featured Gladys Bentley, a 250- pound, masculine, darkskinned lesbian, who performed all night long in a white tuxedo and top hat. Bentley, a talented pianist with a magnificent, growling voice, was celebrated for inventing obscene Iyrics to popular contemporary melodies. Langston Hughes called her “an amazing exhibition of musical energy.” Eslanda Robeson, wife of actor Paul Robeson, gushed to a friend, “Gladys Bentley is grand. I’ve heard her three nights, and will never be the same!” Schoolteacher Harold Jackman wrote to his friend Countee Cullen, “When Gladys sings ‘St. James Infirmary,’ it makes you weep your heart out.”

In the 1950s she appeared on Groucho Marx’s TV show:

October 20, 2011
Categories: Cultural History, Gender, Queer Studies . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 1 Comment

“An 18th century drag ball in London” @ History is made at night

One of the most popular posts on Pop Culture Transgressions is Queering Pop Music Studies, which discusses my research and writing on the history of transgendered entertainers in African American music. Drag balls were a significant feature of that history that existed since at least the 1880s. (see, “Gender Crossings: A Neglected History in African American Music”). I must admit a complete ignorance of the British prehistory of drag balls that go back to at least the 18th century.

Thanks to the always excellent History is made at night for posting An 18th century drag ball in London and turning me on to Richard Norton’s Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook.

 

Richard Norton’s Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook includes lots of fascinating material, not least in relation to ‘Molly Houses‘ and other places where gay men socialized in that period. The following account from 1718 alludes to a Ball in Holborn, in the vicinity of which a number of men were arrested and imprisoned.

The context is interesting as the arrests were ordered by Charles Hitchin, Under City Marshal and a member of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, which campaigned against ‘immorality’. Hitchin though was accused of being no stranger to ‘He-Whores’ himself, as claimed here in the words Jonathan Wild, the famous thief-catcher/crook whose capture Hitchin had secured:

‘As he was going out of the House he said, he supposed they would have the Impudence to make a Ball. The Man desiring him to explain what he meant by that, he answer’d, that there was a noted House in Holborn, to which such sort of Persons used to repair, and dress themselves up in Woman’s Apparel; and dance and romp about, and make such a hellish Noise, that a Man would swear they were a Parcel of Cats a Catter-wauling. — But, says he, I’ll be reveng’d of these smock-fac’d young Dogs. I’ll Watch their Waters, and secure ‘em, and send ‘em to the Compter.

Accordingly the Marshal knowing their usual Hours, and customary Walks, placed himself with a Constable in Fleet-street, and dispatch’d his Man, with another to assist him, to the Old-Bailey. At the expected Time several of the sporting Youngsters were seized in Women’s Apparel, and convey’d to the Compter. Next Morning they were carried before the Lord-Mayor in the same Dress they were taken in. Some were compleatly rigg’d in Gowns, Petticoats, Head-cloths, fine lac’d Shoes, furbelow’d Scarves and Marks; some had Riding-hoods; some were dressed like Milk-Maids, others like Shepheardesses with green Hats, Waistcoats and Petticoats; and others had their Faces patch’d and painted, and wore very extensive Hoop-petticoats, which had been very lately introduced. His Lordship having examin’d them, committed them to the Work-house, there to continue at hard labour during Pleasure. And, as Part of their Punishment, order’d them to be publickly conducted thro’ the Streets in their Female Habits. Pursuant to which order the young Tribe was carried in Pomp to the Work-house, and remain’d there a considerable Time, till at last, one of them threaten’d the Marshal with the same Punishment for former Adventures, and he thereupon apply’d to my Lord-Mayor, and procured their Discharge. This Commitment was so mortifying to one of the young Gentlemen, that he died in a few Days after his Release. — Any that want to be acquainted with the Sodomitish Academy, may be inform’d where it is, and be graciously introduced by the accomplish’d Mr. Hitchin’.

SOURCE: Richard Norton (ed.), Jonathan Wild Exposes Charles Hitchin, 1718, based on ‘Select Trials at the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey, From the Year 1720, to this Time’, 1742.

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October 19, 2011
Categories: Cultural History, Gender, Queer Studies . Tags: , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 1 Comment

Blues Singer Petite Swanson — Crossing the Gender Line in 1940s Chicago

One of my research interests is the largely forgotten history of transgendered performers in American popular music. I thank Ray Astbury for bringing Petite Swanson to my attention, a blues singer in Chicago who recorded four sides for the Sunbeam record company in 1947 (Billboard reported her signing by Sunbeam in March 1947). At the time, Swanson was a member of Valda Gray’s troupe of female impersonators, who were the main attraction at Joe’s Deluxe Club in Chicago. She recorded four sides in 1947 for the Sunbeam label. These were not novelty recordings; they featured mainstream jazz musicians, mostly local journeymen but two of Swanson’s sides for Sunbeam (“I’m Sorry” and “Did You Ever Feel Lucky”) included legendary tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons. The Petite Swanson page of Queer Music Heritage includes a collection of press articles that describe drag entertainment for mainstream audiences in Chicago during the 1940s that is quite similar to the Sissy Bounce phenomenon in New Orleans for the last decade (see Sissy Bounce — an anomaly or just another transgendered musical tradition).

A history of the Sunbeam label by Robert L. Campbell, Armin Büttner, and Robert Pruter includes this fascinating portrait of Pettite Swanson and the scene at Joe’s Deluxe Clug (thanks Ray):

…soon thereafter, Marl Young recorded with his own trio behind vocalist Petite Swanson. Petite Swanson was a member of Valda Gray’s troupe of female impersonators, who for much of the 1940s were the main attraction at Joe’s Deluxe Club in Chicago; Marl Young had led the band there in 1943. Some of the entertainment at Joe’s Deluxe is preserved on the recordings made by two of the house band leaders: Dallas Bartley’s session for Cosmo and his three soundies from 1945, and Bill Martin’s 1946 sessions for Hy-Tone (although Martin used a studio lineup instead of the musicians he was appearing with nightly). But the Swanson session includes the only surviving performances by a member of the Gray troupe. Referring to him as a “fem impersonator,” Billboard announced in its March 22, 1947 issue that Swanson had just been signed to the label. The way indie labels usually did their business, we infer from this that Swanson had already recorded. In his article on the label in Blues & Rhythm, Bo Sandell gives La Swanson’s real name as Alphonso Horsley. In its March 1948 issue, Ebony magazine ran an article on the female impersonators at Joe’s Deluxe Club. Petite Swanson is mentioned as a regular performer there; Ebony spells Alphonso’s last name as “Hersley” and states that he was 40 years old at the time, a former school teacher who “attends Catholic church quite regularly.” According to the Ebony writer, he was a “topnotch blues singer but favorite song is Schubert’s ‘Serenade’.”
Not everyone appeared to understand Petite Swanson’s act. In 1945, a young Marshall Stearns, in from New York, decided to take in Dallas Bartley’s six-piece group at Joe’s Deluxe Club, and wrote a rave review of Bartley’s band–which then included Bartley on bass, Mac Easton on alto sax, Reese Thomas on tenor, and Bob Hall on trumpet (the other two were unnamed)–hailing their music as “real jazz.” He was also thrilled by Swanson, writing, “Highlight of the floor show is a blues singer named Petite Swanson, whose idols are Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. When Petite backs away from the mike and lets go with ‘Evil Gal Blues,’ put up on what she’s putting down! She has the power and tone of the old-time, great blues singers and she knows the style by instinct.” Nothing in Stearns’ report indicates that he was watching a female impersonator floor show, or that the source of Ms. Swanson’s power and tone included some testosterone! In any case, he knew the jazz was real. See M. W. Stearns, “Dallas Bartley Pleases Those in Search of Jazz,” Down Beat, 15 September 1945, p. 2. (http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/sunbeam.html) [The Ebony article is included full text on the Petite Swanson page of Queer Music Heritage website -- more fascinating stuff].

For more interesting history, check out Queering Pop Music Studies.

October 9, 2010
Categories: American Music, Blues, Cultural History, Gender, Queer Studies . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Sissy Bounce — an anomaly or just another transgendered musical tradition

Big Freedia Queen of New Orleans Bounce (Image by Incase. via Flickr)

Unexpectedly, when I was doing research on the history of a former blues nightclub district in North Richmond, California, I stumbled upon a facet  of that history I had not anticipated: the participant of cross-gendered performers and club-goers. And, in mainstream venues. It flew in the face of all my presumptions of the role of drag  performers in the history of American music and African American music in particular. Sensing that the community members I was interviewing would not take kindly to a slew of questions about drag performers and club-goers, I tread lightly on that subject and the only information I gleaned was from the one bandleader who told me about Jean LaRue, his best (not his only) drag queen singer –she was so popular that she did not work for the band but made separate deals with clubowners.

Transgendered performances became rare in the U.S. by the 1950s (McCarthyism‘s persecution of leftists was accompanied by an as serious persecution of homosexuals that accompanied a newly serious policing of gender roles). Most were for straight audiences as safe parody in the ministrel show tradition that is one of — if not the — wellsprings of American popular entertainment. There were also a few performances for the transgendered community, such as the ball tradition (see the excellent film Paris is Burning), but mixed audiences in mainstream venues did not see transgendered performers. And it still is rare. That is why it struck me when I learned about a sub-style of the Bounce style of hip-hop out of New Orleans called “Sissy Bounce” from a N.Y. Times article by Jonathan Dee in July 2010. Here’s a taste of that article, which is worth checking out in its entirety:

If “gay rapper” is an oxymoron where you come from, how to get your head around the notion of a gay rapper performing in a sports bar? What in most cities might seem plausible only as some sort of Sacha Baron Cohen-style provocation is just another weeknight in the cultural Galapagos that is New Orleans. Sometime after midnight on the sweltering Thursday before Memorial Day, the giant plasma-screen TVs at the Sports Vue bar (which “proudly airs all major Pay Per View events from the world of Boxing and Ultimate Fighting”) were all switched off, and the bar’s backroom turned into a low-lit, low-ceilinged dance club, where more than 300 people awaited a return engagement by Big Freedia, who by day runs an interior-decoration business and who is, to fans of the New Orleans variant of hip-hop music known as “bounce,” a superstar. (from Sissy Bounce, New Orleans’s Gender-Bending Rap).

The question I’m left with is if there are other transgendered performance traditions that have established a “respectable” position in particular locales or is New Orleans a special case (yet once again)? I look forward to learning more.

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September 24, 2010
Categories: American Music, Blues, Gender, Genre, Musical Performance, Popular Music, Queer Studies, Rap/Hip-Hop . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 7 Comments

Musical Subversion: “Glee” version of Dr Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit”

Reposted from Sociological Images


FINDING GLEE IN DR. DRE’S BITCHES AIN’T SHIT

Sociologist Michael Kimmel passed along a fantastic and entertaining example of resistance. In the video below, a Columbia University a cappella group sings Dr. Dre’s Bitches Ain’t Shit. The appropriation of the song works on so many levels: the all-white, all-female group, the sweet choral arrangement, the pastel prep fashion, the strategically placed tennis rackets. They use race, class, and gender contradictions to force us to see and hear the song in a new way. All serve to mock the original, taking the teeth out of the language at the same time that they expose it as grossly misogynistic. Awesome.


September 14, 2010
Categories: American Music, Art & Politics, Gender, Human Dignity, Music & Politics, Popular Music, Rap/Hip-Hop, Sexism . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Where are all the female writers and directors? (@GompArts)

Busy with a job search, a simultaneous search for new “revenue streams” and diving back into the book on Moroccan music (time to wrap up the second) draft, I haven’t had much time to write original posts but I will continue to post items from other blogs and websites that I find of interest. Here is an interesting piece by Will Gompertz of the BBC on the lack of representation in the arts.

Where are all the female writers and directors?

Will Gompertz | 08:45 UK time, Tuesday, 18 May 2010

“Women don’t count,” I was told firmly by a high-profile novelist recently. “Blimey, don’t they?” I replied, genuinely taken aback.

Kate Mosse“No, it’s a very male thing” she said “I stop writing when I’ve had enough, then I pour myself a drink. Why would I want to count how many words I have written?”

The insight into this particular writer’s approach to her craft was being offered to me in response to a question I had posed based on the notion that John Updike wrote 3,000 words a day without fail.

I have no idea if it was true, but it was a good enough peg for me to ask the author for a daily word count.

I was puzzled by her response. How could anybody possibly sit down at a computer, spend the whole day bashing out words and then not want to count them up at the end?

It would be like being on a diet, abstaining with great discipline all week and then not wanting to step on the bathroom scales – it’s a fundamental part of the process. Isn’t it?

Apparently not for women. And the author in question should know, it was Kate Mosse, co-founder of the Orange Prize for Fiction.

To be fair she was making a flippant remark not stating a fact on behalf of all female writers, but the broader point she was making, was that women think differently. This led a conversation onto female representation in the arts. (To read more click here…)

May 18, 2010
Categories: Cinema, Gender, Literature . Tags: , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Transgressive Women from Myth and Fairy-tale: Tales from the Velvet Chamber

Guest Post by LA Slugocki

Greek Goddess Athena

I am the project editor/writer for Tales from the Velvet Chamber: An Anthology of Revisioned  Fairy-tales and Myth, A Call for Writers. The inspiration for this book comes from many different places — I’ll start with The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. For those who haven’t read the book, Ms. Zimmer took a classic text, the story of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, and foregrounded the women, the witches and the queens.  Suddenly, Morgaine, who heretofore, had been a very, very bad girl, became luscious and powerful, dark and sexy.

I decided I wanted to do the same for Mary Magdalene. Why not? If a text as stable and universal as King Arthur could be revisioned, why couldn’t I re-write the most infamous whore in the Bible? My Mary was wise, strong, a cohort of Jesus Christ, and his lover. This was the start of The Erotica Project, co-authored with Erin Cressida Wilson, which mapped the subterranean depths of female sexuality and produced on WBAI (Winner of the 1999 NFCB Award), and Off Broadway at The Public Theatre, as well as in San Francisco, Seattle and London. The full text is published by Cleis Press.

I also discovered The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels of Princeton University.  Amazingly, the earliest story Mary Magdalene in Christianity is very similar to mine; she was the “one who knows the all.”  Certainly not the penitent harlot in the Old Testament.  Following this thread, as an MA student at New York University, I continued to investigate and interrogate feminine archetypes; the good, the bad and the ugly. I discovered that classical literature, myth and fairy-tale tell one monolithic story. The Velvet Chamber wants many different voices. The Velvet Chamber wants the old stories to come out of hiding; the folktales, the oral tradition. These fables are bloody, sexy, and transgressive. They’re far more complex, darker, and psychologically dense.

Finally, Quentin Tarantino is a personal hero. I love his mash-up of anime, mangaka and spaghetti westerns in Kill Bill.  His Bride is a mythical protagonist who doesn’t give a shit about finding her man. This bitch is out for revenge.  The Velvet Chamber welcomes mash-ups, flash fiction, mangaka, as well as speculative, post-apocalyptic, classical and mythical interpretations— whatever the style or genre, we begin to see female archetypes through another lens. With a different narrative.  Medea is a priestess and a murderer, but we haven’t really heard that story.  Ashputtel, the original version of Cinderella, is a filthy, bloody little girl, but on Broadway, she’s a princess.

Please visit, http://talesfromthevelvetchamber.blogspot.com for more information.

May 10, 2010
Categories: Aesthetics, Gender, Genre, Guest Posts, Literature, Myth . Tags: , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Spinning tunes for the sisterhood lands award for Australian women’s DJ collective

Guest Post by Dana Flannery

When a Lady Fingers DJ spins a record, expect just about anything – from a mellow Reggae tune to South Asian beats, to swing and Soul. The Lady Fingers DJ Collective of Melbourne, Australia is all about music, diversity and sisterhood. Their message of equality through cross-cultural unity has just landed them a Moreland Award.

The Moreland Awards recognise the important contributions of women to social justice and community well-being. The awards acknowledge achievements in the areas of political, business, advocacy, organisational, and community projects and are part of Australia’s International Women’s Day Celebrations.

Lady Fingers DJ Collective was nominated for the creation of an empowering social enterprise that teaches DJ skills to young women from culturally and socially diverse backgrounds. Lady Fingers were acknowledged for reaching out to young women through community cultural events and providing skills to women in a field that has been traditionally dominated by men. What started as a community project quickly gathered a groundswell of interest from women of all cultural backgrounds.

The group, formed in 2009, is united by a love of music and dance that crosses all cultural boundaries. Lady Fingers members hail from rural Australia, Somalia, South Korea, Uruguay, Samoa, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Rwanda and give audiences beats that include Bhangra, swing, African, Rock, RNB and exotic styles from every corner of the planet.

At a time when Australia is plagued by race riots, hate crimes and ongoing criticism for the treatment of it’s indigenous people, Lady Fingers DJs draw on their combined cultural strength, their passion, their creativity and their DJ skills to bring their global beats and a message of peace and empowerment to ever increasing audiences, making big waves in the Australian World Music scene.

About the Author:  Dana Flannery is a professional media writer with a background in radio. Dana works with women of all backgrounds and nationalities through her work at Brisbane Civil Celebrant

May 4, 2010
Categories: Gender, Genre, Guest Posts, Identity, Music & Politics, Popular Music, Technology . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: Leave a Comment

Queering Pop Music Studies

I had a female impersonator for years named Jean LaRue. I didn’t tell you about that. She was out of Oakland. I don’t know if she is living or dead. She was with me for years. Name was Jean LaRue. (August 14, 1998 Interview of Clarence ‘Little Red’ Tenpenny).

“Little Red” was one of my richest sources of information (and knowledge) when I was doing research for my Master’s thesis on the blues nightclub district that existed in North Richmond, California from the mid-40s to early ’70s. Red mentioned Jean LaRue in our first interview but didn’t mention that she was a female impersonator until a later conversation.  That remark sparked my interest and led to later research, which resulted in my writing “Gender Crossings: A Neglected History in African American Music”*,  an analysis of the exclusion of female and male impersonators from the history of African American music. I’ve also written an encylcopedia entry for the long-delayed but forthcoming Encyclopedia of African American Music: “Transgendered Experience in African American Music” (a terrible title — not my choice). {Digital copies of this entry and/or my MA thesis Musical Community: The “Blues Scene” in North Richmond, California available on request

Also, check out Sherrie Tucker’s excellent article “When Did Jazz Go Straight? A Queer Question for Jazz Studies” in Critical Studies in Improvisation (2008). An insightful article that asks the right questions (and kindly cites my article “Gender Crossings”). I haven’t checked it out yet but Sherrie is one of the editors of Big Ears:  Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies that was published in October, 2008.

Female Impersonator Jean LaRue with the Red Calhoun Orchestra (from "Woman's a Fool to think her man is all her own" -- Nationwide Production, 1947 -- available from ACinemaApart.com) Not the Jean La Rue that Clarence Tenpenny told me about. La Rue seems to have been a popular stage name for female impersonators (i.e. the famous British entertainer Danny La Rue).

* published in Queering the Popular Pitch in 2006 (Sheila Whiteley & Jennifer Rycenga, eds. – New York & London: Routledge). 2006.

December 15, 2009
Categories: Blues, Gender, Jazz, Popular Music, Queer Studies . Tags: , , , , . Author: Jeffrey Callen . Comments: 8 Comments

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