From Publishers Weekly
In the world of that most disparaged of musical genres—disco—the subject of this biography commanded respect. By conventional standards, Sylvester James was an outsider—he was an out, gay, African-American who dressed in drag and sang with a thundering falsetto—but he found mainstream success in the late 1970s and early '80s with three Top 40 hits, Dance (Disco Heat), You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and I Who Have Nothing, and an international #1 sensation (Do Ya Wanna Funk). At times, Gamson's (Freaks Talk Back) extensively researched volume is a vibrant and moving oral biography, with firsthand conversations with virtually everyone who knew or worked with Sylvester, from his youth in South Central L.A. through his successful music career, to his death from AIDS in 1988 at 41. The richness of this material (Sylvester's background singers Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead, who later became the Weather Girls, are particularly amusing and insightful raconteurs) reveals all the shadings of Sylvester's diva persona: he was fierce but generous, caustic but caring, temperamental but talented. Gamson's pulsating use of song lyrics, sounds and descriptions also creates a tangible history of San Francisco as it changed from a joyous oasis of liberation to the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic. Seventeen years after his death, this gay icon gets the celebratory biography he deserves. Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Hot on the heels of Pam Tent's book on the Cockettes, Midnight at the Palace [BKL N 15 04], Gamson limns another gender-bending San Francisco entertainment phenomenon, whose career arced high without quite denting general national consciousness. Sylvester James Jr. came from nearly all-black South Central L.A. As a teen, he started cross-dressing and sneaking out to glitzy parties. Possessed of a remarkable singing voice, he advanced from the antics of his cross-dressing street-gang-cum-sorority the Disquotays to become immortalized onscreen when a scene in the Bette Midler vehicle The Rose called for a drag Diana Ross. "The producers thought it would be hilarious to have a Diana who tipped the scales at around two-fifty, so Sylvester was hired." The seventies were a cornucopia of glitz and success for Sylvester. When he died of AIDS in 1988, even his funeral was a show full of singing, sermonizing, and an audiotape of the deceased cutting loose--in falsetto, of course--on Christmas carols. "Most people in the church were overcome"; Sylvester would've wanted them to be. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
A journey back through the music, madness, and unparalleled freedom of an era of change-the '70s-as told through the life of ultra-fabulous superstar Sylvester
Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome-to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson-a Yale-trained pop culture expert-uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom. Gamson captures the exuberant life, feeling, energy, and fun of a generation's wonderful, magical waking up-from the parties to the dancing and music.
The story begins with a little black boy who started with nothing but a really big voice. We follow him from the Gospel chorus to the glory days in the Castro where a generation shook off its shame as Sylvester sang and began his rise as part of a now-notorious theatrical troup called the Cockettes. Celebrity, sociology, and music history mingle and merge around this endlessly entertaining story of a singer who embodied the freedom, spirit, and flamboyance of a golden moment in American culture.
About the Author
Joshua Gamson is a professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco. He is the author of Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity and Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. He formerly taught at Yale. He lives in Oakland, California.
Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the 70's in San Francisco FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Our story begins in the mid-sixties with Sylvester, a boy whose dreams were as big as his voice, a child whose family didn't quite understand the special difficulties of raising a potential superstar. Joshua Gamson follows this young diva-to-be from his church choir days (as the child wonder of gospel), through his adventures with a crazed gang of glamour-seeking L.A. gay kids called the Disquotays, and on to his move up north to San Francisco, where the hills were alive and where Sylvester began his rise in the notorious theatrical troop known as the Cockettes. When he links up with two amazingly gifted, but never slender, backup singers called Two Tons o' Fun (Martha Wash and the late Izora Rhodes Armstead), Sylvester suddenly shoots to stardom. But he discovers, as the burgeoning gay liberation movement begins to provoke violent reactions and powerful enemies, that he stands for much more than he ever realized - a truth that is underscored when the tragedy of AIDS begins to rob him of the people he loves." Set against the beat of a magical time, this is the story of Sylvester's life, his quest for stardom against all odds, and the legacy he created by standing up for everybody who was just a little different. Josh Gamson uses Sylvester to lead us through the world of San Francisco in the seventies, when a new kind of music helped usher in an era of change that liberated us from conformity, boredom, and the Carpenters. Through Sylvester's journey, Gamson captures the exuberant life, feeling, and fun of a generation's wonderful awakening - the parties, the dancing, and most of all, the music.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In the world of that most disparaged of musical genres-disco-the subject of this biography commanded respect. By conventional standards, Sylvester James was an outsider-he was an out, gay, African-American who dressed in drag and sang with a thundering falsetto-but he found mainstream success in the late 1970s and early '80s with three Top 40 hits, Dance (Disco Heat), You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) and I Who Have Nothing, and an international #1 sensation (Do Ya Wanna Funk). At times, Gamson's (Freaks Talk Back) extensively researched volume is a vibrant and moving oral biography, with firsthand conversations with virtually everyone who knew or worked with Sylvester, from his youth in South Central L.A. through his successful music career, to his death from AIDS in 1988 at 41. The richness of this material (Sylvester's background singers Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes Armstead, who later became the Weather Girls, are particularly amusing and insightful raconteurs) reveals all the shadings of Sylvester's diva persona: he was fierce but generous, caustic but caring, temperamental but talented. Gamson's pulsating use of song lyrics, sounds and descriptions also creates a tangible history of San Francisco as it changed from a joyous oasis of liberation to the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic. Seventeen years after his death, this gay icon gets the celebratory biography he deserves. Photos. Agent, Ira Silverberg. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The grooving story of the disco sensation, freighted with a goodly amount of cultural analysis. Gamson (Freaks Talk Back, not reviewed) is so in love with his subject that this biography of 1970s disco superstar Sylvester is in fact more celebration than study, though carefully researched nonetheless and able to unearth the occasional sociological gem. Born in 1947, Sylvester James grew up in a large, churchy black family in South Central Los Angeles, where he loved singing in the gospel choir as much as tottering around in his mother's heels. In adolescence, when his screaming femininity stopped seeming cute, Sylvester left home and started hanging with the Disquotays, a fierce band of drag queens who could hold their own in fights with the local toughs-he would never again have any desire to dress the way society said a man should. By 1970, Sylvester had migrated to San Francisco and fallen in with the absurdist drag/clown performing troupe the Cockettes. With his gospel-tinged style and oddly effective falsetto, he quickly became one of the group's star attractions and was the sole high point of their otherwise disastrous 1971 New York shows. Afterward, Sylvester went on his own. His solo career steadily gathered steam, culminated with his smash 1978 disco hit "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," then swiftly downshifted with the late '70s anti-disco backlash. Unlike most stories of supposed one-hit wonders, however, Gamson's narrative is thoroughly grounded in Sylvester's work in the San Francisco gay club scene, where he remained a huge sensation well into the 1980s, before dying of AIDS in 1988. Sylvester's flamboyant diva style is excitingly rendered here, as friends and associatesseemingly fall over each other to describe one more fabulous outfit or dramatic entrance, the best being that time Sylvester roller-skated through the streets of South Central in full drag and pigtails. Worshipful, occasionally overenthusiastic, yet engaging and sometimes surprisingly insightful. Regional Author tour. Agent: Ira Silverberg/Donadio and Olsen Literary Agency
Art & Photography
Book Info
