Born On This Day- June 30th... Gay Icon, Lena Mary Calhoun Horne

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

She was my father's favorite movie star & he has a story of filling her automobile's gas tank at the gas station he worked at on La Cienega Boulevard in 1944. Lena Horne had a primary occupation of nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. Besides her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 & brought her 3 Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. She appeared in 16 feature films & several shorts between 1938 & 1978. She performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony winning show- Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981/1982; & she sang & acted on radio & TV.

Adding to the challenge of maintaining such a career was her position as an African-American facing discrimination personally & in her profession during a period of enormous social change in the U.S. Her first job in the 1930s was at the Cotton Club, where blacks could perform, but not be admitted as customers.

By 1969, when Horne acted in the film Death of a Gunfighter, her character's marriage to a white man went unremarked in the script. Horne herself was a pivotal figure in the changing attitudes about race in the 20th century; her middle-class upbringing & musical training lent he talent to the popular music of the day, rather than the blues & jazz more commonly associated with people of color. Lena's photogenic beauty was close enough to Caucasian that frequently she was encouraged to try to "pass" for white, something she consistently refused to do. But her position in the middle of a social struggle enabled her to become a leader in that struggle, speaking out in favor of racial integration & raising money for civil rights causes. By the end of the century, Horne could look back at a life that was never short on conflict, but that could be seen ultimately as a triumph.

Horne was closely associated with the songs of her friend-the openly gay Billy Strayhorn.

She left this world 10 years after the start of the new century, with a legacy of the music & images of her stunning beauty.

Born On This Day- May 26th... Peggy Lee

It seems just perfect to me that a little redheaded 15 year old boy would be obsessed with a song filled with existentialist angst, a half spoken, half sung opus to disillusionment with life, even when the events are exceptional. The singer suggested that I "break out the booze & have a ball… if that's all …there is". I decided to take the singer’s advice. She also let me know that suicide was not an option, for even that would be a disappointment.


Lady & The Tramp was my favorite childhood Disney movie, & I especially loved singing the songs from the movie into the bathroom mirror as a tot. My parents suggested that I might also enjoy the recordings of Miss Peggy Lee, who had written the songs for the Disney movie, & had voiced several of the characters.

As a kid, I totally got into her albums: Black Coffee, Dream Street, & I Like Men!. But as I became a fan of The Beatles, The Supremes, & The Kinks, I forgot my parental unit's album collection & favored my own. I heard Is That All There Is? on the radio in 1969 & was entranced. I bought the single & played it over & over, sometimes stealing little sips of my father’s whiskey from the forbidden liquor cabinet. I was back to listening to Peggy Lee.

Peggy Lee was a singer, a songwriter, an actress & an innovator. Her popular music is a map to the best of jazz, blues, swing, Latin, & rock. She & recorded over 650 songs & released 60+ albums. Best known for her smooth, sultry 1958 cover of the R&B hit- Fever, in spring 2010, Peggy Lee is back on the Billboard Top 100 album chart for the first time since 1970 with the release of the Starbucks compilation- Come Rain or Come Shine. The album is # 51 on the pop charts, #2 on the jazz charts.


Peggy Lee was one of the few of the traditional pop singers to embrace the songs of the Beatles, Randy Newman ( the arranger & conductor of Is That All There Is?), Carole King, & James Taylor. From 1957 until her final recording in 1993, she routinely released 2 albums a year including standards, her own compositions, & material from new artists.


Lee was nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for Is That All There Is? In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Peggy Lee was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress for her work in Pete Kelly's Blues.


Is she already a Gay Idol? If not, I hereby nominate Miss Peggy Lee. She left us in 2002. Lee would have been 92 today. Is That All There Is?

Here's To Life

I am so in touch with my inner 12 year old boy this spring, in part, because of my having been cut loose of the most difficult responsibilities & being cognizant of my audacious happiness, happiness that I may have given up ever living with again.


I was so happy today, even though I should be on the most cautious of budgets, I bought a turntable! In one week, a bicycle & a turntable! I appreciate that the same stuff that I swooned over 46 years ago still thrills me. I didn't even have to mow any lawns to come up with the dough. Getting old turns out to not be so bad. As long as I am still in the game, I’ll play.

When I chanced upon the tid-bit that May 1 is the birthday of Jazz artist Shirley Horn & my musical senses went immediately to her recording of Here’s To Life. Tonight, as the first day of May exits, I feel as if this song was being sung just to me.

She was decidedly not gay & not really a Gay Icon, but on her birthday, I want celebrate Shirley Horn’s amazing ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence & ability on the piano while singing, something that I have only tried a few times, & when I did it in the musical- Pump Boys & Dinettes in the early 1990s, I only got away with it because it had a rock score.

Horn had a lush, smoky contralto, which begged the listener in close with her compelling confidential& vibrato-less delivery. Horn's reputation rode on her ballad work, with one of the slowest deliveries in jazz & a very unusual way of phrasing. I am looking forward to appropriating my parent's Horn albums on vinyl on my next visit to see them. I am also looking forward to my new life in Hi-Fidelity.

No complaints & no regrets

I still believe in chasing dreams & placing bets

For I have learned that all you give

 Is all you get

So give it all you’ve got

I had my share, I drank my fill

& even though I’m satisfied,

I’m hungry still.

To see what’s down another road

 Beyond the hill

& do it all again

So here’s to life,

& all the joy it brings.

Yes, here’s to life

& dreamers & their dreams

Funny, funny how the time just flies

How love can go from warm 

& those to sad goodbyes

& leave you with the memories you memorize

To keep your winters warm

How love can turn from warm hellos to sad goodbyes

& leave you with the memories

 You’ve memorized

To keep your winters warm.

There’s no yes in yesterday

& who knows what tomorrow brings

 Or takes away

As long as I’m still in the game I want to play

For laughs, for life, for love.

So here’s to life & all the joy it brings

Yes, here’s to life

& dreamers & their dreams

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

Molinary/Butler

1962

Born On This Day- April 28th... Cabaret Great Blossom Dearie

I am going to become a recluse. I can feel it coming on. Under the new austerity program, I have to diminish my participation in 2 of my favorite activities: cocktail sipping & shopping, & I look so damn feeble, I figure… why not just stay home? I think I am going to spend the summer at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, receiving only the occasional guest, although I would love for any of you stop by for a glass of wine or a libation in the garden.


On the positive side, I am taking on the monumental project of dealing with my CD collection. The husband recently moved an extraordinary piece- a 15 foot long merchant's table with 20 drawers, European pine from the early 19th century, from the den to his studio. This major piece of furniture has long been the home to my music collection. I have decided that since I deal with mostly downloads in the new century, I would move the CDs into storage in my dressing room & free up the many drawers for his art supplies & found objects.


I like to look at each CD & think about why it is the collection & what it means to me, why the artists matters, & what moved me about the music in the first place... or else it goes.


Today is the birthday of a wonderful artist from my collection that was famous for being a bit of a recluse & guarding her privacy. I saw her perform at NYC's Danny’s Skylight Lounge, a number of times in the mid-1970s, at the very apex of her talent.

Singer, pianist & songwriter with an independent spirit, Blossom Dearie had a career that blurred the line between jazz & cabaret. An interpretive minimalist with caviar taste in songs, she rarely raised her sly voice, & she confided song lyrics in a playful style with layers of insinuation. But, just under her fey mask was a needling wit. It brought a breezy sophistication to all of her songs. If you listen closely, you can hear the caustic contempt she brings to her signature song- I’m Hip by Portland’s very own- Dave Frishberg. Mr. Frishberg wrote another of her classics- Peel Me a Grape.




All 6 of her albums on Verve- Blossom Dearie (1956), Give Him the Ooh-La-La (1957), Once Upon a Summertime (1958), Sings Comden & Green (1959), My Gentleman Friend (1959) & Soubrette Sings Broadway Hit Songs(1960) are cult classics. Check out the Vereve remix albums with the Brazylian Girls remix Blossom Dearie - doing Just One of Those Things. The last song Ms. Dearie recorded was -It’s All Right to Be Afraid, a comforting ballad dedicated to the victims & survivors of 9/11.


The jazz pixie with a little girl voice with a bit squeakiness & pageboy haircut was a fixture in New York for decades, she died in 2009 in her Greenwich Village apartment of 50 years. She was 84 years old.

Born On This Day- October 31st... Ethel Waters

When doing research for my posts, I am always struck by the cruelty, hatefulness & challenges that were/are foisted on minority artists & performers in the past century. That their work should be adored & rewarded, but the artist would still need to enter a theatre or hotel by the back door. That these amazing performers persevered & gave us so much is a testament to the power of art.

Ethel Waters rose from stardom from a most-obscure beginning, a whore's alley in Philadelphia where she lived in poverty with her mother and grandmother. She faced unspeakable racism during her rise to fame. Ethel Waters was born on October 31, 1896, as a result of her mother's rape at age 13, Ethel Waters was raised in a violent, impoverished home. She never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. Waters: "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family." Despite this unpromising start, Waters demonstrated early the love of language that so distinguishes her work. Waters' birth in the North and her vagabond life exposed her to many culture, & gave to her interpretation of southern blues a unique sensibility that pulled in eclectic influences from across all American music. Ethel Waters: singer, dancer, actress, & evangelist, never be confined to a single identity. As a singer, she played with styles, doing what was called- “race music” & doing white standards.

Waters married at the age of 13, but soon left her abusive husband & became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel working for less than $5 a week. On her birthday- Halloween night 1913, she attended a party in costume at a nightclub in Philadelphia. She was persuaded to sing 2 songs, & impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She later recalled that she earned $10 a week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.


She was a street kid whose highest aspiration was to be a lady's maid. Instead, she found herself in vaudeville. As an actress, in films like The Member of the Wedding, Waters gave the “mammy” roles real edge & depth. Her life was as varied as her singing. She was a Catholic who could swear like a sailor. She was a lesbian whose loud fights with her lovers made more proper lesbians like Alberta Hunter label her a disgrace to their tribe. She joined Billy Graham & toured the country. Her signature song had been Stormy Weather, but once she joined the Graham crusade, she never sang it again. Waters: “My life ain't stormy no more”, which was good for her & bad for her fans. Her best known recording was her version of the spiritual- His Eye is on the Sparrow.




In 1933, Waters made a satirical all-black film entitled Rufus Jones for President. She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where she sang Stormy Weather. Waters: “I sang it from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed & suffocated." She took a role in the Broadway musical revue As Thousands Cheer in 1933, where she was the first black woman to appear in an otherwise all white show. In addition to the show, she starred in a national radio program & continued to work in nightclubs. She was the highest paid performer on Broadway, but she was starting to age. MGM hired Lena Horne as the ingénue in the all-Black musical- Cabin in the Sky, & Waters reprised Petunia, her stage role. The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli, was a success, but Waters was offended by the attention given to Horne, & she was feeling her age.


She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1949 for Pinky. In 1950, she won the NY Drama Critics Award for her performance opposite Julie Harris in the play- The Member of the Wedding. Waters & Harris repeated their roles in the 1952 film version. In 1950, Waters starred in the TV series- Beulah but quit after complaining that the scripts' portrayal of African-Americans was degrading.


Waters was the second African American ever nominated for an Academy Award. She was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. Waters' recording of Stormy Weather was honored by the Library of Congress. It was listed in the National Recording Registry in 2004. Waters was approved for a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. However, the actual Star has not been funded, & as of her birthday in 2010, public fundraising efforts continue.

A Sad Song

Eleanora Fagan was born on this day in 1915. Eleanora cut school so often she was sent to live at the House of the Good Shepherd, a home for “colored girls” run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. She was returned to her mother after a year, but in 1926, 11 year old Eleanora was raped by a neighbor & sent back to Good Shepherd. But the nuns refused to keep her for long.


At only 11 years old, Eleanora earned money cleaning at a whorehouse. The madam let her listen to the records of Louis Armstrong & Bessie Smith. Eleanora was able to express her feelings with music & she began singing at various storefront churches.


As a young teenager, Eleanora moved to NYC with her mother, to pursue a singing career, instead she found work as a prositute in Harlem.


Billie Holiday was the self creation of young Eleanora Fagen. She began to get small gigs & out of the way clubs, but Holiday was gaining popularity with fellow musicians. After years of touring with Count Basie, Holiday was offered her first steady job at Café Society in 1938, earning $75 a week. She went on to be featured soloist at clubs all over the country, acquiring the nickname “Lady Day.” Her distinctive voice, which she used like a musical instrument, transformed jazz singing. Holiday: “I don’t think I’m singing; I feel like I’m playing a horn.”


Holiday had many affairs with both men & women, but was known as a lesbian among many of her peers in the jazz world, where she aquired the moniker- Mister Holiday, because she was seldom seen in the company of gentlemen. Holiday: “Sure, I’ve been to bed with women… but I was always the man.” She had an affair with Orson Welles & Tallulah Bankhead.


Billie Holiday was unlucky in life, unlucky in love & dead from drink & drugs at the age of only 44.

By the late 1930s, Holiday had married small-time drug dealer Jimmy Monroe, who introduced her to opium & heroin. In 1947, she spent a year in prison for possession of drugs. After she was released Holiday had difficulty finding work & she had a string of relationships with maniacal men & a decline into dependence on drugs, a roughening of her voice & a physical decline.

On 10 July 1959, Holiday died in hospital in NYC of cirrhosis of the liver. In a characteristically cruel turn she had been arrested on her deathbed for possession of narcotics, & spent her final days under police guard.


The life & legend of Lady Day seems to point to a victim, a problematic, profane & pushy woman. She was after all, a junkie & an alcoholic; she had sex with a great many men & many women"




I like to think that Billie Holiday was a determined woman with a great appetite for life, who lived it on her terms in a man’s world. Holiday was never able to capitalize on her amazing talent to live a life as a music superstar. She couldn’t break the pattern of abuse from others or herself, but that fed her genius. Her brand of self destruction was a plea for the love that ironically her bad behavior pushed away. But that voice, that perfectly imperfect gift, will always be loved.

Born On This Day- March 27th... Sax Blowing Gay Guy Dave Koz

In 2004, Dave Koz came out publicly as a gay man in the Advocate. Later the same year, he was named by People magazine as one of their "50 Hottest Bachelors" in their June issue. His career was already established & the world of jazz is not really the most gay friendly sub-group on the musical universe. I feel that artists like Koz, with their fan base in place. can win over prejudices & that is important."Smooth Jazz" is not my favorite genre (by any means), but I admire his good looks, musicality, & bravery. Koz turns 48 years old today.

Koz: "Music is important for everyone…even those that wouldn’t classify themselves as die-hard music fans. Could you imagine our world without it? What about going to a movie without a soundtrack? Or a bar without some ambiance of music playing? We mark our experiences with songs & artists & moments in time become forever etched in our brains with musical soundtracks all their own. So I don’t think using ‘music as comfort’ it’s uniquely a LGBT experience. I think everyone has that usage for it to some extent. But I do think that there are musical stereotypes that get attached to certain groups…like dance/techno is the only thing that gays like to listen to/respond to. Tell that to the ever-increasing LGBT audience I am overjoyed to see at the concerts, cruises, events my band and I do."

Born On This Day- March 25th... Jean Sablon

A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away, & I mean Seattle in the 1990s, the Husband owned his own grocery store/café- Plenty in the Madrona neighborhood. In the search for fun music to play on the sound system, I discovered Post Apocalyptic Bohemian favorite Jean Sablon.

Jean Saboln was openly gay, living with his partner, a US service man, for more than 4 decades, yet he was a matinee idol & the French housewife's pin-up of choice. He recorded in the 1920-1980s, & he topped bills in cabarets & concert halls in Paris, London & on Broadway. In the1960s- 1980s Saboln made highly rated TV specials in France & Britain. Gershwin & Cole Porter wrote songs for him. Sablon helped to popularize swing music in France by teaming up on several occasions with Stephane Grapelli & Django Reinhardt.


In 1937, Sablon made his first visit to the USA. He spent the war years here, singing on stage & on the radio he was featured on the CBS Hit Parade, where he was ranked higher than Sinatra. The microphone revolutionized the music industry, & Sablon pioneered the subtleties of it use.His voice was heard by 50 million listeners twice each week. Bing Crosby owned all of his records, & Sinatra compared himself to Sablon in interviews. Sablon spent some time living in Hollywood where his close friends included Cary Grant, & Marlène Dietrich.

Sablon toured 5 continents demonstrating his independence & inquisitiveness, the qualities led him to introduce many new musical genres to France: biguine, calypso & bossa nova.
 
After Chevalier & Piaf, he was the only French singer to have tremendous success in the USA. In France, his style was that of a chanteur de charme which the American term 'crooner' hardly does justice to, but he was known as "the French Bing Crosby".

Sablon was the very definition of a suave, stylish, seductive Parisian lover. He sang with a velvety voice, thrilling in its lower registers. light & lovely on his upper notes. Listening to him makes me dizzy & horny.

In 1981 he gave his 75th anniversary concert at the Lincoln Center in New York Sablon was beloved in Brazil & it was in Rio de Janeiro, in 1983, that he gave his farewell recital to a very emotional public in tears as he said goodbye: "I bow myself out . . ."


He died in France in 1994.

Born On This Day... December 29th- No One Really Knew Her Until She Was Dead... Billy Tipton

Attend the tale of Billy Tipton. I first became aware of her when she passed away in Spokane, the city that I grew up in, & the the truth was discovered. She lived as a man from 21years old until she died at age 74. Her 3 adopted sons never suspected a thing. Here is the fun part: Tipton lived with 5 women over 5 decades, all of them attractive, even vava vavoom. She had intercourse with all 5, none stumbled onto the truth that her husband was a woman… well, #4 figured it out eventually. Like 1000s of fans, they were taken in by one of the great performances of all time.

Dorothy Lucille Tipton decided to become Billy Tipton in 1935, ostensibly because it was the only way an aspiring jazz musician could get work in an almost exclusively male business. The ruse wasn’t all that difficult. Billy's face was boyish, and her figure full, but not curvy. She had sizable breasts but no waist. A sheet wrapped around her chest, men's clothing, & a bit of padding in the crotch, & she passed. Billy was actually boyishly handsome; women found him adorable.. A talented pianist, horn player, & tenor, he quickly found a gig with a band.

At the start Billy was strictly a cross-dresser, making no great effort to hide her gender during her off hours. She lived with a woman with the unusual name of Non Earl Harrell, in what was assumed was a lesbian relationship. Initially they were based in Oklahoma City, but by 1940 they had moved to Joplin, Missouri, then an entertainment center. There Billy began to pretend to be a male full-time, a pose he would adopt for the rest of his life.

Billy & Non Earl broke up in 1942. After a relationship of a few years with a singer named June, Billy took up with Betty Cox, a pretty 19 year old with a striking figure. The couple were together for 7 years. Betty claimed that they had a passionate heterosexual relationship, including intercourse. She even thought she'd had a miscarriage. I sometimes think I don’t really know my Husban. But after the first 7 years, I think I knew which sex he was. JustlLike the Husband & I, Billy & Betty made love only in the dark. Doesn’t everybody? Billy never removed his underwear & wore a jockstrap that was fitted with a "prosthesis." He wore massive chest bindings at all times, supposedly for an old injury. He would not let himself be touched below the waist. He never shared a bathroom. Betty may also have been distracted. Acquaintances said she went out with other men while she was with Billy, & while she appears to have been genuinely fond of him, in some ways this may have been a marriage of convenience for both.

The turning point in Billy's life came in 1958. He had his own jazz trio & a growing reputation, & a new hotel in Reno wanted to hire them as the house band. He seemed on the verge of a fairly successful career. But instead, he took a job as a booking agent in Spokane, Washington, & playing with the house band at The Tin Pan Alley. He played mainly swing standards rather than the jazz he preferred. His performances included skits imitating celebrities like Liberace & Elvis Presley. In some of these sketches, he played a little girl, but he never impersonated a woman, & he would make jokes about homosexuality Perhaps he feared fame would lead to the discovery & decided he'd gone as far as he dared.

In Spokane, Billy was living with a call girl, but in the early 1960s he left her for a beautiful but troubled stripper named Kitty Kelly. She claimed she & Billy never had sex, but in other respects they lived a stereotypical suburban life. They adopted 3 boys, but neither could handle the kids during adolescence, and after a bitter quarrel in 1980 Billy moved into a trailer with his sons. From there it was all downhill. The boys split, his income dried up, he refused to see a doctor. He remained in Spokane, living in poverty, until he collapsed & died in 1989. The paramedics who were trying to revive him uncovered the truth. Death must have come as a relief; he had been pretending for 54 years.

Born On This Day... Favorite Musician Chet Baker

Not gay, but absolutely one of my most important musical figures in my considerable lifetime is Chesney Henry Baker, Jr., a trumpet player & singer with matinee idol beauty, emotionally remote performances, & a well publicized drug habit.

In 1952, Baker joined the Gerry Mulligan Quartet, which was an instant phenomenon. The Quartet's version of My Funny Valentine, featuring a memorable Baker solo, was a major hit, and became a song with which Baker was intimately associated.


The Quartet found success quickly, but lasted less than a year because of Mulligan's arrest and imprisonment on drug charges. In 1953, Pacific Jazz released Chet Baker Sings. In the year I was born, 1954, Baker won the Downbeat Jazz Poll. Because of his chiseled good looks, Hollywood studios approached Baker & he made his acting debut in the film Hell's Horizon, in 1955. He declined an offer of a studio contract, preferring life on the road as a musician. Over the next few years, He became an icon of the West Coast jazz sound, helped by his good looks & singing talent.


Baker was a heroin user since the 1950s, & eventually saw his musical career decline as a result. At times, Baker pawned his instruments for money to maintain his drug habit. In the early 1960s, he served more than a year in prison in Italy on drug charges; he was later expelled from Germany & Britain for drug related offenses. He settled in Northern California where he played music in San Francisco between short jail terms served for prescription fraud. In 1966, Baker was severely beaten after a gig in San Francisco, sustaining severe cuts on the lips & broken front teeth. From that time he had to learn to play with dentures.


In the 1970s, Baker returned to Europe. From 1978 until his death, Baker resided & played almost exclusively in Europe, returning to the USA roughly once per year for a few performance dates. From 1978 to 1988 was Baker's most prolific era as a recording artist.


In 1983, another of my favorite artists, Elvis Costello, a longtime fan of Baker, hired the trumpet player to play a solo on his song Shipbuilding, from the album Punch the Clock. The song was a top 40 hit & exposed Baker's music to a new audience. Later, Baker often featured Costello's song Almost Blue in his live sets, and recorded the song on Let's Get Lost, a documentary film about his life.





In the early morning of May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the street below his 2nd story room of Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. Heroin & cocaine were found in his hotel room. His death was ruled an accident.


To get to know this amazing musician try Let's Get Lost, which shows him as a cultural icon of the 1950s, but juxtaposes this with his later image as a drug addict. The film, directed by fashion photographer Bruce Weber, & shot in black & white, includes a series of interviews with friends, associates & lovers, interspersed with film from Baker's earlier life, & with interviews with Baker from his last years.


With a breathy, walking-on-eggshells trumpet tone similar to the sound & achy, whisper, weathered & weary vocals, Baker delivers piercing takes on a number of standards: Just Friends, My Funny Valentine. Elvis Costello joins Baker on blue embered versionss of The Very Thought of You & You Don’t Know What Love Is. Baker recorded over 50 albums. Everyone should have at least 1 Chet Baker CD in their collection. I recommend- Chet Baker Sings (1953) & Chet Baker Sings & Plays (1963).

Born On This Day- September 26th... Song Stylist- Miss Julie London

Around this time of the year, the Husband & I have traditionally traveled a bit. We have had major, marked, momentous, meaningful journeys: Northern Italy, NYC several times, Vancouver BC, San Fransisco. Even in lean times we would pack up the dogs & rent a cabin on the Washington Coast. The trips to the coast were always very perfect, really. We would bring books, magazines, whiskey, pot & a big stack of perfect beach CDs. There was nothing as sexy, seductive & special as playing Julie London's or Chet Baker’s music on the sound system, as waves crashed, the wind rattled the little WPA era cabin that we frequently rented, & we would get a little drunk & a little dreamy while listening to Julie London’s perfect music.

Now, in the 21st century, I also hear a perfect sound for my mind wrapping around this season’s Mad Men. It could be made that the phrase “bedroom community” was coined with London in mind.


I love the economy of London’s singing. Her phrasing is spot on & yet surprising in its nuance. With her throaty, smoky voice, playfully seductive as any voice I have heard, London was a skilled temptress. But she never played the goddess. Her appeal wasn’t like an unattainable Rita Hayworth or Lauren Bacall. She cleverly cast herself as the not quite as wholesome, non-Doris Day girl, the chick at cocktail parties who would send every man in the room fumbling for his lighter whenever she reached for a cigarette. As a recording artist she was, perhaps more so than any other, entirely a product of her time. No wonder her career began in the mid-1950s, just as the USA was starting to discover sex as recreation, & ended in 1969.

The character London played on her albums was no pushover: My Heart Belongs to Daddy, An Occasional Man, Take Back Your Mink could reduce a real man to jelly. When suggested that Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast, her closing line was “pass the jam”.


If you only know London for her 1955 gigantic hit -Cry Me A River, (despite 100s of other versions, London’s remains definitive),or for her role as nurse Dixie McCall on the long-running NBC series Emergency, you would be surprised by the depth & breadth of her recording career From 1955-1969, London released 29 studio albums, a live session & greatest hits compilations. Among the adult pop singers, she rivaled the biggest sellers of the day: Sinatra, Mathis, Streisand in terms of output, & easily out sold Fitzgerald, Vaughan, & Tormé.


I was slightly scandelized & somewhat aroused by the covers of my parent’s Julie London Albums. They seemed to have some relation to my father’s Playboy magazines. There was- Julie, featuring a seemingly naked London reclining in a wire mesh chair & Whatever Julie Wants with her sporting nothing but a mink stole. I think I don't understand the vetting process... why is Julie London not a Gay Icon or the basis for a drag persona?

London fully appreciated her vocal limitations & her ability to make the most of them: “It’s a thimbleful of a voice, & I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of over-smoked voice, & it automatically sounds intimate.”

Happy Birthday, Michael Franks

I was very much into him before I met the man that would become my husband & lifemate. Lucky for me that man had also already found this music. His music was a soundtrack to our 1st few years as couple & when I re-listened in preparing this post, I felt that his music had become timeless, even if it brings me back to the late 1970s/early 1980s. Michael Franks is pigeonholed into the smooth jazz genre, but I am not sure that fits. I think of him more as Singer/Songwriter with a jazzy edge with a big nod to Antonio Carlos Jobim.





Over the long meandering journey of 35 years & 18 albums, Michael Franks has mesmerized & seduced me. Seamlessly weaving lyrics of stunning sensuality, satire, shadow, & sophisticated style over music that tastefully incorporates shadings of jazz, soul, pop, chamber & world music, Michael Franks the songwriter is simply a statesman of song craft. His best known works include Popsicle Toes, When the Cookie Jar is Empty,Tiger in the Rain, Rainy Night in Tokyo & Tell Me All About It. His work has been covered by artists from Diana Krall & Natalie Cole to Manhattan Transfer & The Carpenters). As if that weren't enough, Michael Franks the singer is gifted with a gentle, deliciously expressive voice identifiable from the 1st note. As a singer, I have been influenced by the economy of his singing. He was a huge influence on me when I was singing jazz & standards.

Michael Franks is also very much "my type" ( & I don't just mean male & still breathing), I find him very attractive.I love a rainy day at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia, with a glass of whiskey & Michael Franks on the sound system. I can get lost in his exotic, intoxicating world.