Today’s playlist celebrates the August 29 birthday of The Jackson ‘s Michael Jackson, Charlie Parker, Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, Dinah Washington, Johnny & the Hurricanes’ Johnny Paris, Pebbles, Fairground Attraction’s Eddi Reader, MeShell NdegeOcello, Kevie Kev, and Galantis’s Style of Eye; the August 30 birthdays of The Mamas & The Papas’ John Phillips, Kitty Wells, Hurts’s Theo Huthcraft, Paul Oakenfold, and D:Ream’s Peter Cunnah; and the August 31 birthdays of Van Morrison, Battles’ Ian Williams, Squeeze’s Glenn Tillbrook, The Vines’ Craig Nichols, Tony DeFranco, Bobby Parker, Debbie Gibson, Ivan, Bob Welch, Broadway lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, Richard Gere, and Julie Brown.
Look at some of the names who had hits in 1960: Elvis Presley, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Buddy Holly, Ella Fitzgerald, The Everly Bros., Roy Orbison, Fats Domino, The Drifters, Ike & Tina Turner, Dion, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Darin, Chubby Checker, Brenda Lee. It’s like the radio only played superstars. Here are 30 of that year’s best:
The years between 1958 and 1963 are often thought of as a sleepy time for rock and roll, a quiet time between the genre’s initial burst onto the charts and the onslaught of the British Invasion. However, lots of great records were charting during those years. Check out this playlist of thirty hits from 1961 for proof.
Though it was 65 years ago, the names of many of the hitmakers of 1956 remain well-known to today’s public: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, The Platters, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, James Brown, Bill Haley and His Comets, Frank Sinatra, Bo Diddley, Ella Fitzgerald, The Drifters. What a year! Check out some highlights below.
A popular misconception that I sometimes fall into is that the years after The Day The Music Died (early 1959) and before The Beatles hit in America (early 1964) the pop chart was pretty dull. Sure, there was a lot of schmaltz on the Hot 100 – there always is – but there was a lot of exciting stuff, too, as today’s Throwback Thursday playlist will attest. Girl groups, Motown, Ray Charles, James Brown, Frankie Valli, Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys and lots of other good stuff made the top 40. Have a listen to thirty of 1962’s best.
Happy 2021 Pride! Though LGBTQ+ Pride should be celebrated every month, June is the month officially designated to celebrating one’s identity, orientation and possible otherness.
To celebrate Pride this year I’m going to create thirty-song playlists broken out by decade, kicking off today with two decades combined – the 1950s and the 1960s. I’ll post these lists sporadically throughout the month.
Here is what you’ll hear on today’s playlist and what makes it queer:
“Cry” – Johnnie Ray
Poor old Johnnie Ray, as he was referred in Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen,” was a closeted gay man, arrested for soliciting male undercover officers on more than one occasion. “Cry” was a humongous hit, spending more than two months at #1.
“Hound Dog” – Big Mama Thornton
Chances are you’re familiar with Elvis Presley’s hugely successful version of this song from 1956. Three years earlier, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, who preferred to dress in what would be considered men’s clothing, sold a half million copies of her version, from which she made $500.
“Too Much” – Bernard Hardison
Another song covered by Elvis, Bernard Hardison released his version two years prior to The King. The song was played on the web radio series Queer Music Heritage, though I cannot find any other indication anywhere about Hardison’s sexual orientation.
“Don’t You Want a Man Like Me” – Billy Wright
As a youth, Billy Wright sang the gospel in church and worked as a female impersonator. The openly gay Wright was an influence on young Little Richard, suggesting he wear his hair in the pompadour style. Speaking of…
“Tutti Frutti” – Little Richard
No matter that the hit version altered the original lyrics “Tutti frutti, good booty / If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy,” the song and the performer are oh so queer.
“Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” – Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns
As his nickname might indicate, Huey Smith was a piano player. The singer in his band was an openly gay man named Bobby Marchan.
“Chances Are” – Johnny Mathis
Johnny Mathis never covered up his sexual orientation, though he didn’t come out as gay until 1982, when a reporter printed his off the record acknowledgment.
“Jailhouse Rock” – Elvis Presley
“Number 47 said to number 3, ‘You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see. I sure would be delighted with your company. Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me.” Nothing queer about that, right?
“Secretly” – Jimmie Rodgers
“Wish we didn’t have to meet, secretly / Wish we didn’t have to kiss, secretly / Wish we didn’t have to be afraid to show the world that we’re in love / ‘Til we have the right to meet openly / ‘Til we have the right to kiss openly / We’ll just have to be content to be in love secretly.” Make of those lyrics what you will.
“Rockin’ the Joint” – Esquerita
Though Little Richard released records prior to Esquerita, it was Black flamboyant Esquerita who taught Little Richard his style of piano playing and perhaps introduced the high-pitched “whoo”s in his singing.
“Frances and Her Friends” – Frances Faye
Frances Faye was openly embracing of bisexuality in her stage shows, as the lyrics of this tune will attest. In the late 1950s she met a woman named Teri Shepherd who became her life partner.
“My Baby Likes Western Guys” – Brenda Lee
Oh, does he now?
“He Don’t Care About Me” – The Miracles
Yes, those Miracles. Written by Smokey Robinson with lead vocals by his wife Claudette, you wonder why he don’t care about her. When she sings “Don’t he know that I could make him gay?,” you just have to respond “Girrrrrrrl!”
“Up on the Roof” – The Drifters
Rudy Lewis, who sang lead on this Drifters hit as well as “On Broadway” and others, was a closeted gay man who sadly died of a drug overdose when he was just 27 years old.
“Any Other Way” – Jackie Shane
Though she didn’t call herself trans, Jackie Shane presented and sang in a way typically associated with women. She considered herself to be a gay man, and my use of pronouns here is not intended to disrespect that.
“You Don’t Own Me” – Lesley Gore
Lesley Gore came out as a lesbian in 2005, revealing that she knew she was attracted to women since age 20 and never sought to hide out, though didn’t announce it before then.
“You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” – The Beatles
Many believe that The Beatles’ John Lennon wrote this song about the group’s gay manager, Brian Epstein. It wasn’t until 1967, two years after this song’s release, that England decriminalized sex between two men over the age of 21, and Epstein would no longer have to hide his love away. Sadly, he died in August of that year.
“See My Friends” – The Kinks
The Kinks’ Ray Davies wrote this song about a young man who is unsure of his sexual orientation, a feeling Davies said he experienced.
“To Try for the Sun” – Donovan
The song’s teenage narrator and his “gypsy boy” friend have an obvious affection for each other. “And who’s going to be the one to say it was no good what we done?”
“You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” – Dusty Springfield
“I know that I’m as perfectly 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. There was someone on television the other night who admitted that he swings either way. I suppose he could afford to say it, but I, being a pop singer, shouldn’t even admit that I might think that way. But if the occasion arose I don’t see why I shouldn’t.” – Dusty Springfield, 1970, in an interview with The Evening Standard
“Do You Come Here Often?” – The Tornados
Produced by legendary gay producer Joe Meek, “Do You Come Here Often?” has to be heard to be believed. The song was the b-side of a forgotten 45, released on a major record label.
“I’m a Boy” – The Who
The story of a boy whose parents wanted a girl, so his mother raises him as a girl.
“Willkommen” – Joel Grey
From the Tony Award winning musical Cabaret, written by openly gay lyricist Fred Ebb and openly gay composer John Kander, based on a book by openly gay writer Christopher Isherwood, comes this number, performed by Joel Grey, who publicly came out in 2015 at age 82.
“Sweet Soul Music” – Arthur Conley
Arthur Conley was living as a closeted gay man in the United States when “Sweet Soul Music” became a smash. He later moved to the Netherlands, changed his name to Lee Roberts, met a man who became his life partner, and then lived as an openly gay man.
“Arnold Layne” – Pink Floyd
“Arnold Layne” became Pink Floyd’s first hit single, despite Radio London eventually banning it from airplay as its subject matter of a transvestite stealing women’s clothing off clothes lines was considered by them to be too distasteful for “normal” society.
“Let the Heartaches Begin” – Long John Baldry
Reginald Dwight changed his name to Elton John after Elton Dean, a fellow musician in the backing band of Long John Baldry, the gay vocalist from where the John comes.
“Save the Country” – Laura Nyro
The late Laura Nyro was bisexual, enjoying romantic relationships with men and women, the longest one being with painter Maria Desiderio.
“Triad” – The Byrds
Written by The Byrds’ David Crosby, this 1967 recording of a song about a throuple went unreleased until 1987.
“Candy Says” – The Velvet Underground
Inspired by Candy Darling, a transgender actress in Andy Warhol films, “Candy Says” tells of a trans woman who has “come to hate her body.”
“That’s the Way God Planned It” – Billy Preston
A brilliant musician whose friends and collaborators knew he was gay, Billy Preston didn’t publicly come out until shortly before his passing in 2006.
“You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963
“He had a dream now it’s up to you to see it through, to make it come true” – “King Holiday”
Inspired by the December 29 birthdays of The Band’s Rick Danko, Marianne Faithfull, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim Reid, The Offspring’s Dexter Holland, Propellerheads’ Alex Gifford, Yvonne Elliman, UGK’s Pimp C, GQ’s Emanuel Rahiem Leblanc, Brand Nubian’s Sadat X and Mary Tyler Moore.
Inspired by the December 28 birthdays of Pops Staples, The Weather Girls’ Martha Wash, Alex Chilton, John Legend, Edgar Winter, Terrace Martin, Johnny Otis, Kym Sims, Lonnie Liston Smith, and 2 Unlimited’s Anita Doth.
