Wrabel - "The Village" & "Bloodstain"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

I've written about the enigmatic Stephen Wrabel before, and in much detail, to check that out head here:

http://song-and-soul.com/www.Song-and-Soul.com/Song_%26_Soul/Entries/2015/8/7_Wrabel_-_I_Want_You.html

However, for the Cliff's Notes version, here goes. He's got the kind of songwriting prowess that has been likened to Sia or Sam Smith, and the kind of upbeat urban pop sound that calls back to the classic pop singers like Fleetwood Mac & Elton John. He's charming, and funny, and a fairly silly on stage, but that all simply serves to help him create an atmosphere of honesty about his music. 

He has written songs for Ellie Goulding, Will Young, Prince Royce, Phillip Phillips, Adam Lambert, Pentatonix, Katharine McPhee, Lea Michele, Léon, and many more, and that same honesty rings through his music, no matter whose voice is leading it. 

I was lucky to catch him opening for  Léon at the El Rey theatre here in Los Angeles a while back, and I can tell you the show was great. He did a short set of mostly piano tracks, but his vocal intensity and honest performance make you smile and shake your head in agreement with every word.

So to continue my theme of Queer Artists during #NationalPrideMonth, I choose “The Village”, which has been resonating with me through the week. Wrabel told us the story of how he met a couple of trans kids after a show, and ended up befriending them, and as they stayed in touch he reached out to them on the day that trans protections were taken away from schools, and he wanted to see how they were, and what they were going through. The song itself rings so clearly true; there is NOTHING wrong with you ... it's true.  Whether you're gay, straight, trans, of color, different in any other way, or simply shy, there is nothing wrong with you. 

The second song, “Bloodstain”, I chose because it is a beautiful simple love song to a lover you haven't met yet. It's honest and true about the pain he's gone through to get where he is, and it's unabashedly gay. It's honest, but that's only PART of what makes it incredible, it's also just a killer song. 

So today, with my heart lain open like the Grand Canyon, I choose Wrabel's "The Village" & "Bloodstain" as my, you are everything you need to be, see the strength in your own heart, vulnerability is your biggest strength, songs for a, break down your burdens, lift up your eyes, better is just around the corner, Tuesday.

Chely Wright - "Like Me"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

She was the first out bonafide country music star. She created huge waves in the industry, and her fearless leap into a genre of music that very quickly could have shunned her, still resonates with many artists. 

In the early to mid 90's she was a country music darling, a star of the Grand Ol Opry, and she was on every country radio station. It took immense strength and courage but she was also the first person to buck that system. 

 On the strength of her debut album in 1994, the Academy of Country Music (ACM) named her Top New Female Vocalist in 1995. Wright's first Top 40 country hit came in 1997 with "Shut Up and Drive". Two years later, her fourth album yielded a number one single, the title track, "Single White Female". Overall, Wright has released seven studio albums on various labels, and has charted more than fifteen singles on the country charts. As of May 2010, Wright's previous eight albums and 19 singles released had sold over 1,500,000 copies in the United States. In May 2010, Wright became one of the first major country music performers to publicly come out as lesbian. In television appearances and an autobiography, she cited among her reasons for publicizing her homosexuality a concern with bullying and hate crimes toward gays, particularly gay teenagers, and the damage to her life caused by "lying and hiding".

She has written songs that have been recorded by Brad Paisley, Richard Marx, Indigo Girls, Mindy Smith and Clay Walker, among them Walker's top ten hit, "I Can't Sleep" that won her a BMI award. On May 4, 2010, Wright simultaneously released her memoir, Like Me, and her first album of new songs since 2005, Lifted Off the Ground.

Wright's eighth album, I Am the Rain, was released on September 9, 2016, by MRI/Sony and was produced by Joe Henry. It entered the Billboard country chart at 13, the second highest debut of her career. It was also her first appearance on the Americana album chart, where it reached number 9.

So, today, with bravery and hope bundled tightly together I choose Chely Wright's "Damn Liar" as my, get it together, back to the middle, find your truth, song for a, listen to the melody inside, hide nothing, give all you can, Monday.

Frankie Knuckles - "The Whistle Song"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

Although EDM has become the dominant genre of mainstream pop, the lack of historical perspective held by the notoriously white and straight fist-bumping fans of the style is often apparent. House music’s popularization (traveling a tortuous route from underground, inner-city warehouse parties to the 1990s rave scene to Jersey Shore to the stages of Coachella) has had some significant cultural consequences, one of which is the erasure of the queer, black origins of the music. With that in mind, it’s hard to underestimate Frankie Knuckles’ influence on our contemporary sonic landscape. Transforming the tropes of disco into a futuristic sounding, lifelong thesis on love and desire, Knuckles’ music – equal parts sultry, political, licentious, and earnest – is so widely beloved that his death in 2014 prompted personal letters to close friends from President Obama. With the city of Chicago serving as the setting of his immaculately produced tracks, the spirit of the “Godfather of House” lives on in the thumping, seductive sounds providing the backdrop for a new generation of escapist party goers. Eric Shorey

Knuckles made numerous popular Def Classic Mixes with John Poppo as sound engineer, and Knuckles partnered with David Morales on Def Mix Productions. His debut album Beyond the Mix (1991), released on Virgin Records, contained what would be considered his seminal work, "The Whistle Song", which was the first of four number ones on the US dance chart. The Def Classic mix of Lisa Stansfield's "Change", released in the same year, also featured the whistle-like motif. Another track from the album, "Rain Falls", featured vocals from Lisa Michaelis. Eight thousand copies of the album had sold by 2004. Other key remixes from this time include his rework of the Electribe 101 anthem "Talking with Myself" and Alison Limerick's "Where Love Lives".

When Junior Vasquez took a sabbatical from The Sound Factory in Manhattan, Knuckles took over and launched a successful run as resident DJ. He continued to work as a remixer through the 1990s and into the next decade, reworking tracks from Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Diana Ross, Eternal and Toni Braxton. He released several new singles, including "Keep on Movin'" and a re-issue of an earlier hit "Bac N Da Day" with Definity Records. In 1995, he released his second album titled Welcome to the Real World. By 2004, 13,000 copies had sold.

Openly gay, Knuckles was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1996.

So today, whistling while I work, I choose Frankie Knuckles’ "The Whistle Song" as my, break the mold, shake the derby, crack the skies, song for a, magic in the music, it’s all around us now, be the light you need, Friday.

Leslie Gore - "You Don't Own Me"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

As a teen, Lesley Gore became the powerfully ubiquitous and feminist voice of Sixties pop. She spent the following decades outside of the teen idol spotlight, going to Sarah Lawrence for college and getting an Oscar nomination for the score to Fame, which she composed with her brother Michael. Forty years after launching empowering hits such as “It’s My Party” and “You Don’t Own Me,” she became a LGBT rights activist, serving as one of the many guest hosts for the PBS series In the Life. It wasn’t until after hosting various episodes of the show for a couple years – which all centered on LGBT issues – that she spoke openly about her partner of over two decades and the struggles of being gay in the music industry. “I think the record industry – by and large what’s left of it – is still totally homophobic,” she said, noting that she came out in her twenties and never went to “lengths” to conceal it. “I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do.”

So today, with strings cut, I choose Leslie Gore’s iconic "You Don't Own Me" as my, I am my own, these are the only tools I need, like bending a spoon with your will, song for a, break down the walls, jump into flight, take the time to resonate with the brightest frequencies, Friday.

Chavela Vargas - "Paloma Negra"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

Born Isabel Vargas Lizano, Chavela Vargas left her hometown in Costa Rica at 17 to become a cigar-smoking, gun-toting ranchera singer in 1930s Mexico City. She would remain there for the rest of her 93 years, pushing the bounds of Mexican social mores around music, gender and sexuality. Whereas ranchera music was typically the domain of heterosexual men and their drunken declarations of heartbreak, Vargas notoriously refused to swap pronouns in her songs, aiming her throaty bellows towards women who scorned her all the same. There continues to be speculation that she once had a dalliance with bisexual Mexican painter Frida Kahlo; an iconic photo, taken in the 1940s, captures the two mid-giggle as they snuggle in the grass.

In the 2002 biopic Frida, Vargas plays a specter who serenades Kahlo – played by actress Salma Hayek – with her original song, “La Llorona” [“The Weeping Woman”]. Vargas would also appear in several of Pedro Almodóvar’s films, including La Flor de Mi Secreto; but she insisted that acting was never her focus. She did not come out as a lesbian until the age of 82, or when her autobiography, Y si Quieres Saber de Mi Pasado [And If You Want to Know About My Past], was published in 2002. In spite of her Costa Rican heritage, dozens of Mexican singers have since cited Vargas as an influence, from Lila Downs to Grammy winner Natalia Lafourcade. In 2007, the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences granted her a Lifetime Achievement Award – which she accepted dressed in a man’s button-down shirt and straw hat. Chavela, a documentary chronicling her life, was released in the U.S. October 2017.

She is a BOSS.

A leader for not only Latinx music but also for women in music and especially LGBTQ+ representation in music. Her style is authentic and soft and filled with heartache, like a female Johnny Cash she has a sound that, though not typically pleasing, is hard to forget and easy to listen to. She is a true icon.

So today, with boundaries to be pushed, I choose Chavela Vargas’ "Paloma Negra" as my, change your mindset and change your mind, listen to the stories that haven’t been told, yours is not the only divinity on this sphere, song for a, shake up the box, lift the veil, honor the things that have brought you to this point, Wednesday.

John Grant & Andy Butler /Hercules & Love Affair - "I Try To Talk To You"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

In 2008, Andy Butler created Hercules and Love Affair, a dance music project with a rotating cast of musicians. Butler, who grew up in an abusive household, found solace in Greek mythology and club music. He became famous for "Blind," a song performed with musician and friend Antony Hegarty, which won Pitchfork's Best Song of 2008.

"'Blind' was about growing up a gay kid, my immediate family and social group rejecting me, and asking why I was born into this situation. But knowing that as soon as I could escape, I would, and that I would find freedom and solace. As an adult, however, I found a life full of excess and other wounded people and confusion. Thus, I felt blind," he told the New York Times.

The project for 2014, Feast of the Broken Heart, is a sonic achievement, with peaks of joyful energy, homage to disco and also heartwrenching emotional lows. The album was a collaboration with Viennese house revivalists and also features a song with John Grant, who sings about being HIV-positive.

Meanwhile, John Grant makes the kind of music that changes lives. Sometimes even saves them. In his big, baritone voice, he sings – with a candour that stops you in your tracks – of lust, love, addiction, oppression, HIV and self-loathing. British singer-songwriter Tom Robinson, one of the very first rock musicians to come out as gay, believes that if Grant had been around in the Sixties, “he could have saved me 10 or 15 years of heartache and pain”.

“Mmm, that’s lovely,” says Grant, swilling a glass of icy water. We’re in the beer garden of a London pub, sheltering from the sun at the shady end of a wooden table. It’s taken no time at all for the conversation to become intense. Grant is a warm, wry presence – all bear hugs and belly laughs – but just like his music, he is immediately, startlingly frank; ripping himself open at every turn and casually inviting me to have a look.

Grant knows better than anyone the solace that music can provide. Growing up in a conservative, religious town in Michigan, he listened to Culture Club in secret, sensing a kinship with Boy George before he even understood why. It was only in his mid-twenties – around the time he joined alt-rock band The Czars – that he came out as gay.

In their collaboration something incredible was made. This song in particular speaks on so many levels, which is ironic because it talks about how the lead singer wants to, but can’t, talk to his partner.

So today, with a few stifled attempts, I choose John Grant & Andy Butler w/Hercules & Love Affair’s "I Try To Talk To You" as my, break down the silent towers, open up to the warm touch of your skin, slide a hand down your back, song for a, the smell of your neck, the taste of your lip, the heavily lashed lid that reveals your sparkling eye, Tuesday.

Me’shell Ndegeocello - "Two Doors Down (Dolly Parton Cover)"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

Genius musician Me’shell Ndegeocello is a veteran at relaying dynamic stories through song. Her work spans classical to cosmic reggae with vocal deliveries ranging from fiery emcee to tender acoustic songstress. Ndegeocello’s lyrics easily fall into a lineage of black poetry: love, pleasure, commercialism, heartbreak, revolution, time travel, space, religion, politics, sorrow, and joy. “Leviticus: Faggot,” from her early album, Peace Beyond Passion. contextualizes the harsh realities queer youth [of color] experience daily predisposing them to health outcomes such as drug addiction, homelessness, or suicide.

Similarly to Prince, her musical inspiration, Ndegeocello has struggled throughout her career honoring her authenticity in an industry confused how to neatly market beautiful gender binary blurring blackness. Honoring her authentic self – while escaping categories besides being Grammy-nominated – shows the resilience of black queer women carrying the blues tradition in the music industry. Me’shell offers days worth of listening with 12 albums under her belt, her most recent, Ventriloquism, just released spring 2018. M.B.

This song in particular is off of an album that Ndegeocello collaborated on with many other female artists honoring Dolly Parton’s work for women in music. Something about the way she fully reinvented the song has always really inspired me.

So today, with a little twist and another turn, I choose Me’shell Ndegeocello’s version of "Two Doors Down" by Dolly Parton, as my fight the monsters, remember your history, magic is all around us, song for a, sleeping but not got, recharge your juice, step up to the king, Monday.

Lorenz Hart (& Richard Rodgers) - "Falling In Love w/ Love" & "Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered"

In June we will be featuring all LGBTQ+ artists in honor of LGBTQ Pride Month

Most people don’t actually know this, but before Richard Rodgers teamed up with Oscar Hammerstein II to have some of his most successful and fruitful years, he partnered with Lorenz Hart to create some of Broadway’s most memorable music.

You can hear the words of an unrequited lover in each of his songs. He was a romantic at heart. However, as an openly gay man, he was at war with himself, and you can see in his writing the turmoil he must have been in, in a time when he could still be legally killed for being gay. His lyrics often said the words he wished he could say openly to other men, and just often they exposed the painful underbelly of love that goes unspoken.

Some of his more famous lyrics include "Blue Moon," "Mountain Greenery," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Manhattan," "Where or When," "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," "Falling in Love with Love," "Have You Met Miss Jones?," "My Funny Valentine," "I Could Write a Book", "This Can't Be Love", "With a Song in My Heart", "It Never Entered My Mind", and "Isn't It Romantic?".

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart were introduced in 1919, when both attended Columbia University, when asked to write an amateur club show. After writing together for several years, they produced their first successful Broadway musical, The Garrick Gaieties, in 1925, which introduced their hit song, "Manhattan" and led to a series of successful musicals and films. They quickly became among the most popular songwriters in America, and from 1925 to 1931 had fifteen scores featured on Broadway. In the early 1930s they moved to Hollywood, where they created several popular songs for film, such as "Isn't It Romantic?" and "Lover", before returning to Broadway in 1935 with Billy Rose's Jumbo. From 1935 to Hart's death in 1943, they wrote a string of highly regarded Broadway musicals, most of which were hits.

Many of their stage musicals from the late 1930s were made into films, such as On Your Toes (1936) and Babes in Arms (1937), though rarely with their scores intact. Pal Joey (1940), termed their "masterpiece", has a book by The New Yorker writer John O'Hara. O'Hara adapted his own short stories for the show, which featured a title character who is a heel. So unflinching was the portrait that critic Brooks Atkinson famously asked in his review "Although it is expertly done, how can you draw sweet water from a foul well?" When the show was revived in 1952, audiences had learned to accept darker material (thanks in large part to Rodgers' work with Oscar Hammerstein II). The new production had a considerably longer run than the original and was now considered a classic by critics. Atkinson, reviewing the revival, wrote that "it renews confidence in the professionalism of the theatre."

Rodgers and Hart subsequently wrote the music and lyrics for 26 Broadway musicals during a more-than-20-year partnership that ended shortly before Hart's early death. Their "big four" were Babes in Arms, The Boys From Syracuse, Pal Joey, and On Your Toes. The Rodgers and Hart songs have been described as intimate and destined for long lives outside the theater. Many of their songs are standard repertoire for singers and jazz instrumentalists. Notable singers who have performed and recorded their songs have included Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie, and Carly Simon. Hart has been called "the expressive bard of the urban generation which matured during the interwar years." But the "encomiums suggest(ing) that Larry Hart was a poet" caused his friend and fellow writer Henry Myers to state otherwise. "Larry in particular was primarily a showman. If you can manage to examine his songs technically, and for the moment elude their spell, you will see that they are all meant to be acted, that they are part of a play. Larry was a playwright."

So today’s two songs showcase both the sweet and the sour of Lorenz “Larry” Hart’s romantic life. The idea that love was foolish, and nothing to be romantic about, only to be entranced by someone new and given over to all those intoxicating feelings again. His was a beautiful but difficult life, and yet somehow he still left us with an incredible amount of music to hold on to.

So today, with hope and cynicism in equal measure, I choose Lorenz Hart (& Richard Rodgers)’ "Falling In Love w/ Love" & "Bewitched, Bothered, & Bewildered" as my, play the fool, with eyes unable to see, don’t let it fall out with me, songs for a, what a fool and don’t I know it, but a fool can have his charms, lost my heart - but what of it, Friday.

I’m so sorry there’s so many videos … I simply couldn’t choose a “best” version!