Sylvester disco biography

Sylvester’s “Mighty Real” remixed a gospel song and became a pioneering disco record, musically and socially. It’s one of Billboard’s top LGBTQ anthems and is a catchy, uptempo dance single.

Sylvester also had success with other songs, including “Dance (Disco Heat),” “Someone Like You” and “Do You Wanna Funk?” According to his Associated Press obituary, “Five of his songs became gold record hits, selling more than , copies, and one went platinum, selling more than one million records.”

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He could put on a show. His performances were described as soulful and glittery, he was known for entrances that resembled movie scenes, and he had plenty of standing ovations and sold-out appearances.

“A lot of people love my show because they don’t understand it,” Sylvester said, according to Joshua Gamson’s book “The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco.”

At one performance, a background singer felt the venue vibrate. She thought it was an earthquake, Gamson wrote, but no. The vibrations came from people dancing in the balcony, causing it to rock and sway visibly.

His music became the soundtrack of gay liberation. “If Harvey Milk was the mayor of Castro Street, Sylvester was its undisputed first lady,” Gamson wrote.

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Sylvester was born Sylvester James Jr. in in Watts, California. As a kid, he went by the family-given nickname “Dooni” and grew up in the church, singing in the choir before he stopped attending. By the time he was 11, he lost interest in riding bikes and fishing, and focused on playing with dolls and wearing his mother’s high heels or jewelry.

“You’re very strange,” he recalled his mother saying, to which he replied, “That’s OK.”

He was part of a group called the Disquotays in Los Angeles, which featured cross-dressing and transgender women. And when he moved to San Francisco in , he joined the Cockettes

American singer-songwriter (–)

Sylvester James Jr. (September 6, &#;&#; December 16, ), known simply as Sylvester, was an American singer-songwriter. Primarily active in the genres of disco, rhythm and blues, and soul, he was known for his flamboyant and androgynous appearance, falsetto singing voice, and hit disco singles in the late s and s.

Born in Watts, Los Angeles, to a middle-class African-American family, Sylvester developed a love of singing through the gospel choir of his Pentecostal church. Leaving the church after the congregation expressed disapproval of his homosexuality, he found friendship among a group of Blackcross-dressers and transgender women who called themselves the Disquotays. Moving to San Francisco in at the age of 22, Sylvester embraced the counterculture and joined the avant-garde drag troupe the Cockettes, producing solo segments of their shows, which were heavily influenced by female blues and jazz singers such as Billie Holiday and Josephine Baker. During the Cockettes' critically panned tour of New York City, Sylvester left them to pursue his career elsewhere. He came to front Sylvester and his Hot Band, a rock act that released two commercially unsuccessful albums on Blue Thumb Records in before disbanding.

Focusing on a solo career, Sylvester signed a recording contract with Harvey Fuqua of Fantasy Records and obtained three new backing singers in the form of Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes – the "Two Tons O' Fun" – as well as Jeanie Tracy. His first solo album, Sylvester (), was a moderate success. This was followed with the acclaimed disco album Step II (), which spawned the singles "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" and "Dance (Disco Heat)", both of which were hits in the US and Europe. Distancing himself from the disco genre, he recorded four more albums – including a live album – with Fantasy Records. After leaving this label, he signed to Megatone Records, the dance-oriented co

Amazon Music have released a short film on Youtube about legendary disco singer, Sylvester. 

The documentary, Love Me Like You Should: The Brave and Bold Sylvester, explores Sylvester's beginnings with a church choir through to his years spent immersed in San Francisco's queer nightlife scene, and is available to view for free as part of celebrations for LGBTQI+ pride.

The LA-born singer was responsible for vocals on classics such as 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' and 'Dance (Disco Heat)', and releasing records on imprints owned by the likes of Patrick Cowley. Sylvester was also a prominent activist against the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout his career.

The documentary features candid interviews with Billy Porter, Martha Wash (The Weather Girls, Two Tons o’ Fun), Sylvester’s sister Bernadette Baldwin, biographer Josh Gamson, producer/songwriter James Wirrick, and more. Check it out below. 

Joshua Gamson

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Jun 27,
Category: Biography

Sylvester was Pride Month all by himself/herself. From this biography: &#;Sylvester was gay, black, a woman and a man. And that is why he was beloved: His sound brought to mind a bright, soft, blue-skied world &#; one where race and gender no longer divide us and we love whom, when and how we want.&#; The arc of this man/woman&#;s remarkable story is vast. A few chapters in, and you&#;re in love. How can you not, when he&#;s called a faggot, and he shoots back: &#;That&#;s Miss Faggot, to you.&#;

Donna Summer died, and the entire country paused to remember disco. Not that America had really embraced this music in the late &#;70s; it was gay, druggy, dance-hall fare, far too sexy for the heartland. But &#;Love to Love You Baby,&#; even with its orgasmic moaning, broke through. As did &#;Hot Stuff.&#; As did &#;Last Dance.&#;

Not to denigrate Donna Summer or Gloria &#;I Will Survive&#; Gaynor, but the disco singer I most cherish is Sylvester. History is not kind to drag queens; he&#;s almost forgotten. But his performances were legendary, his life story is dazzling and a few of his songs&#;.if you can&#;t quite place him, try Mighty Real and Disco Heat.

At the height of her fame, Donna Summer tried to commit suicide by jumping out a window. Thwarted, she turned to Christianity and never tried to hurt herself again. Sylvester would never have thought to ruin his makeup. When he was a young teenager in Los Angeles in the early ls, the priority of his crew was the creation of larger-than-life, to-die-for personalities. Gay? Sure, but not that interested in the act itself: &#;They had taken bubble baths and washed themselves with Jean Nate,&#; Joshua Gamson notes. &#;They might be willing to get nasty later in the evening, but they had their reputations and hairstyles to uphold, and they worked way too hard on their Max Factor to let just anybody mess it up e