dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (10/21/83)
PLEASE POST (pseudonym = "nym") Can someone recommend some groups who produce songs about being gay? I am looking for recorded media only, not sheet music. Any style (rock, pop, jazz vocal, punk, hardcore, new age, disco, classical, etc.) is welcome; I like practically every KIND of music as long as it's GOOD. nym
dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (10/24/83)
Here are two mail responses to the question about songs with a gay theme. I also add my own two cents. /Steve Dyer ************** Nym, Holly Near has a lot of good stuff recorded in the past few years. She started out in the early seventies with a lot of Vietnam stuff and gradually became involved with other issues. ************** I have found several albums which have quite enjoyable music along this line. One of them is "Gay and Straight Together" on the Folkways label. Gay and Straight Together has several selections that were recorded on an open stage in a, I presume, gay bar. They are excellent. If you need to know the record number, I can get it and send it to you. Another album which I quite like is by Charlie Murphy, titled "Catch the Fire". If my memory serves me correctly, it is produced by Good Fairy Productions. Again if you need the details, I can get them for you. Another album which I have heard some selections off of, but which I don't have is titled "Walls to Roses -- Songs of Changing Men" and produced on the Folkways lable. I have ordered this album for myself from a local record store, and will be able to provide you with more information when it comes in. If you are interested in lesbian music, I could get you some information on it also, but nothing particular comes to mind at this time. I hope this has been of help. I would be interested in hearing how you like these albums if you get a chance to hear them. ************** I have the "Walls to Roses" album, and it is a strange mixture of the very good and the uncomfortably bad. One song, "The Sensitive Little Boy", is hilarious and touching, but there are others that are just plain lugubrious. I find that it's aligned a little too much along the GCN/Cambridge/leftist axis for my own taste, but others might certainly not feel that way. I think it is worth having, given the scarcity of records with gay topics. It's from 1979, Folkways FTS 37587. I like Joan Armatrading's albums, first and foremost because she is a terrific artist, but she often presents songs which don't have references to the traditional sex roles. /Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (10/24/83)
One of the most biting songs I ever heard is Tom Robinson's "Glad to Be Gay", which is on the first album by the Tom Robinson Band and also on the Secret Policemen's Ball album. Tom Robinson is an outspoken gay rights activist who has worked with 2 really good bands (TRB and Sector 27) producing some really powerful music. Equally powerful is "Power in the Darkness" (I forget which album it's from) which gets in its digs at all of those who would suppress human rights for any- and everyone.
phil@amd70.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (11/01/83)
I have liked songs by Holly Near, Meg Christian, Cris Williamson,
and Marge Adams.
Sure feels strange going to their concerts, though.
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Phil Ngai (408) 988-7777 {ucbvax|decwrl|ihnp4|allegra}!amd70!phil