GayCultureLand: Joan Armatradg

Contents:

• THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985
• THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

"As for Takg My Baby Up Town, about a uple who are shouted at the street but keep walkg arm arm, the song has bee a gay pri anthem. But Armatradg is keen to qualify s succs: “My songs are for everybody: black, whe, male, female, gay, straight, bi. She explaed: “I was fed up wh everybody thkg I was gay.

She said: “Biddy has never sent me a Christmas rd sce then, to which I would say, ‘Have you spent 30 years beg acced of beg gay? ’ Everybody go, ‘Oh, she’s gay, isn’t she? Sexism, homophobia, racism: The folks clud this brief history have uniformly faced one or more of the obstacl along the way.

Bgraphers say Sister Tharpe was known to have a relatnship wh at least one other woman while she toured, wh the road makg easier for many women to live more openly whout fear of homophobic retributn. Genr policg and segregatn worsened after the Send World War, and so the “act” of homosexualy was one that queer and genr-nonnformg women micians navigated refully om the late 40s and well to the 50s and 60s.

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Combed wh the ia of Free Love and gay liberatn, the women’s movement spawned an entire women’s mic movement that aligned wh the nfsnal folk mic of the era but were separate their separatism – that is, they wrote songs explicly for and about women, and many of them were lbian nature. Cris Williamson, Holly Near, Maxe Feldman, and Phranc are jt a few notable sger-songwrers who performed for their muny si church, ffee ho, gay bars, and at all-women mic ftivals, where activism and muny were as much of a foc as the mic self.