LGBTQ mic history is so much more than a timele of who me out when and which songs beme gay anthems -- ’s also about the artists who weren’t aaid to be themselv eras when dog so often had real risks attached.
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CHART TOPPG SGERS WHO HAVE COME OUT AS GAY
Ltle Richard honed his craft as a teenage drag queen. In everythg om his hairstyle to his lyrics, we see the fluence of gay ntemporari like Esquera and Billy Wright. * gay singers 50s *
Poor old Johnnie Ray, as he was referred Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen, ” was a closeted gay man, arrted for solicg male unrver officers on more than one ocsn. Johnny Mathis never vered up his sexual orientatn, though he didn’t e out as gay until 1982, when a reporter prted his off the rerd acknowledgment. Rudy Lewis, who sang lead on this Drifters h as well as “On Broadway” and others, was a closeted gay man who sadly died of a dg overdose when he was jt 27 years old.
From the Tony Award wng mil Cabaret, wrten by openly gay lyricist Fred Ebb and openly gay poser John Kanr, based on a book by openly gay wrer Christopher Isherwood, this number, performed by Joel Grey, who publicly me out 2015 at age 82. He later moved to the Netherlands, changed his name to Lee Roberts, met a man who beme his life partner, and then lived as an openly gay man. Regald Dwight changed his name to Elton John after Elton Dean, a fellow mician the backg band of Long John Baldry, the gay volist om where the John .
A brilliant mician whose iends and llaborators knew he was gay, Billy Prton didn’t publicly e out until shortly before his passg 2006.
REHOBOTH’S GALLERY 50 TO HOST SHOWS BY TWO GAY ARTISTS
Some of the songs were nsired que progrsive durg the time they were released, when homosexualy was nsired a mental illns and crossdrsg was illegal. Mad About The Boy – Dah Washgton – Origally wrten by Noël Coward 1932 for mil revue Words and Mic, the song has a hidn gay meang.
The msage behd this versn is that cema un all, and you n maybe even extend that to beg acceptg of other people, that gay or straight, we’re really not that different after all. Noël Coward even wrote vers supposed to be sung by a bsman who is eher gay or bisexual about beg “mad about the boy” – ‘When I told my wife, she said “I’ve never heard such nonsense my life! Noël Coward was really secretive about his sexualy bee those days, society was really homophobic and he feared losg everythg if he me out.