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Rainey, Gertrude ("Ma") (1886-1939)

SHORT, FAT, AND COUNTRY TO THE CORE, Ma Rainey may not have appeared very impressive to someone passing her on the street. However, when she took the stage, dressed in one of her trademark sequined gowns and her necklace of gold coins, and began to belt out a song such as "See See Rider," Rainey captivated every audience that heard her.

In the process, she introduced audiences to one of the most powerful forces in American music—the blues.

Born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, on April 26, 1886, Rainey was initiated into show business by her family, who performed in minstrel shows. She first sang and danced for an audience when she was fourteen years old.

Two years later, in 1902, she heard her first blues song, in St. Louis, and made the warm, earthy rhythms a part of her style. In 1904, she married the comedian and song-and-dance man Will Rainey. Since Will had long been billed as "Pa" Rainey in his act, it was only natural that Gertrude would be called "Ma" when she joined him, and the name stuck throughout her career.

Billed as "Ma and Pa Rainey and the Assassinators of the Blues," the Raineys played the Southern minstrel circuit for two decades with a show called the Rabbit Foot Minstrels.

Ma Rainey not only sang the blues, but also actually created them, blending the raw country sound of her youth with the more sophisticated urban music she heard on the circuit.

When Paramount Records signed her to a recording contract in 1923, she became virtually the first artist to record the blues, and the sound became identified with the powerful, gutsy voice of Ma Rainey.

Variously nicknamed "the Mother of the Blues," "the Paramount Wildcat," and "Madame Rainey," Rainey recorded over 100 songs for Paramount between 1923 and 1928. Her music, beloved for years across the South, had finally come North.

Accompanied by her "Georgia Band," which included such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong, Thomas Dorsey, and Coleman Hawkins, she belted out song after song with titles like "Rough and Tumble Blues," "Jealous Hearted Blues," and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Blues."

In spite of her marriage to "Pa," Rainey made no secret of her relationships with women. Indeed, her famous "Prove It on Me Blues," recorded in 1928, sounds more like the testimony of a lesbian than that of a bisexual:

Went out last night with a crowd of my friends, They must have been women, 'cause I don't like no men. Wear my clothes just like a fan, Talk to gals just like any old man 'Cause they say I do it, ain't nobody caught me, Sure got to prove it on me.

Rainey was a close friend (and a friendly rival) of another bisexual blues singer, Bessie Smith. The Raineys had "discovered" Smith when their minstrel show passed through Smith's home state of Tennessee. Smith had joined the show, and many credit Ma Rainey as a major influence on Smith's career.

In fact, Smith bailed Rainey out of a Chicago jail in 1925, after police raided a women's party hosted by Rainey. There is no proof, but much suspicion, that Rainey and Smith were lovers.

Ma Rainey retired from performing in 1935 and moved back to Columbus. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Rainey had maintained control of her own career and her own money (the famous necklace of gold coins was one of her "savings accounts"); and when she retired, she owned her own house as well as two theaters, the Airdrome in Columbus and the Lyric in Rome, Georgia.

She operated the theaters herself until her death on December 22, 1939, from a heart attack.

—Tina Gianoulis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baxter, Derrick S. Ma Rainey & the Classic Blues Singers. Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1970.

Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies & Black Feminism. New York, Pantheon Books, 1998.

Lieb, Sandra. Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.

Sullivan, Tom. "Mother of the Blues." The Ma Rainey Page: www.lambda.net/~maximum/rainey.html

Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937)

ONE OF FRANCE'S MOST DISTINGUISHED COMPOSERS, Maurice Ravel was a prolific and versatile artist who worked in several musical genres, creating stage music (two operas and several ballets), orchestral music, vocal music, chamber music, and piano music. His unique musical language, employing harmonies that are at once ravishing and subtle, made him one of the most influential composers of the twentieth century.

Ravel's sexuality has been the subject of considerable speculation. Although it is not certain that he was gay, he was rumored to be so. Fiercely protective of his privacy, his most significant emotional relationship seems to have been with his mother. At the same time, however, he embraced a public identity as a cultured dandy, a dapper man-about-town of refined taste and sensibility.

A lifelong bachelor, Ravel had several significant relationships with men, including the pianist Ricardo Viñes, a fellow dandy and bachelor, but it is not certain whether these friendships were sexual.

He was born Joseph Maurice Ravel on March 7, 1875, at Ciboure, France, near St. Jean de Luz, Basses-Pyrénées, a village close to the French-Spanish border, to a Swiss father and a Basque mother.

Ravel's father, who was talented musically, was an engineer. The composer may have inherited from his father the devotion to craftsmanship and meticulous detail that led Igor Stravinsky to describe him as the "Swiss watch-maker of music."

Although he was raised in Paris, Ravel was very conscious of his Basque heritage. He always felt a special affinity with Spanish and Basque culture.

Ravel studied music at the Conservatoire de Paris with Emile Decombes, Charles-Wilfrid Beriot, Emile Pessard, and Gabriel Fauré. An accomplished pianist, he took courses at the Conservatoire in both piano and composition.

As a young man, Ravel joined a circle of avant-garde writers and composers called Les Apaches. This group included Viñes and the composers Manuel de Falla, Florent Schmitt, and Stravinsky. Several members of the circle, including Ravel, developed an interest in the new American form of music, jazz. Not surprisingly, jazz rhythms entered some of Ravel's compositions, such as his late Sonata for Violin and Piano, which includes a jazzy movement called "The Blues."

Ravel's career and life can be divided into two parts, separated by World War I, which had a traumatic effect on him. Before the war, he was an important presence in French musical circles, often conducting his own works, giving piano concerts, and collaborating with Sergei Diaghilev on commissions for the Ballets Russes. After the war, however, the composer's physical and emotional health deteriorated. He retreated from Paris and spent the last decade of his life in semiretirement.

Ravel is most famous for instrumental works that capture the music and culture of Spain. His interesting uses of harmony and subtle orchestration have added to the distinctive quality of his highly sophisticated music. His music also often refers back to earlier French composers such as Couperin and Rameau. In addition, it reflects Ravel's enduring fascination with the East and its cultures and music.

Among Ravel's earliest compositions are Schéhérazade (1898) and the Rapsodie espagnole (1908), both of which are distinguished by exotic settings. His stately Pavane pour une infante défunte (1910) also grows out of his interest in Spanish history and culture.

Perhaps Ravel's most famous early composition is Daphnis et Chloë (1912), a ballet originally commissioned by Diaghilev and choreographed by Michel Fokine for the Ballets Russes. The music for Daphnis et Chloë is particularly noteworthy for its eroticism and mystery, including a rhapsodic part for wordless chorus.

Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (1914-1917) beautifully indicates his interest in French music of the Neoclassical period, while the ballet La Valse (1919), originally choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, reflects his enduring desire to create music for the dance.

Ravel's most familiar work to contemporary audiences is the Boléro of 1928, which he considered something of a well-orchestrated joke because of its constant repetition of the same melody. Commissioned by the dancer Ida Rubenstein for a ballet choreographed by Nijinska, Boléro is a bravura work built on a relentless rhythm that culminates in the wild abandon of Dionysian revels. It is certainly one of the most widely performed and recognized pieces of classical music.

In 1930, Ravel wrote his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand at the request of pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm in World War I.

Ravel also wrote two appealing operas. Although they are minor works, they continue to please contemporary audiences. L'Heure espagnole, which premiered in Paris in 1911 at the Opéra Comique, tries to capture a day in the life of the bored, unfaithful wife of a clockmaker in eighteenth-century Spain. L'Enfant et les sortilèges, with a libretto by Colette, had its first performance at the Monte Carlo Opera in 1925 and explores a child's relationship with his mother, his environment, and his fantasies.

Near the end of his life, Ravel received numerous accolades. The French government planned to award him the Légion d'Honneur. Unfortunately, the honor was announced publicly before Ravel had been informed of the decision. Infuriated, the composer declined to accept the award. In 1931, however, he accepted an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

In 1928, Ravel made a triumphant four-month tour of the United States, where he met many musical notables, including George Gershwin, whom he admired greatly.

In his final years, Ravel suffered a series of health problems and gradually lost the ability to communicate with others. He died in Paris on December 28, 1937, after a series of strokes and an unsuccessful brain operation.

—John Louis DiGaetani

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kelly, Barbara A. "Maurice Ravel." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Stanley Sadie, ed. London: Macmillan, 2001.

Laloy, Louis. Louis Laloy on Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 1999.

Mawer, Deborah, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ravel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Reed, Lou (b. 1942)

IN THE 1960S, 1970S, AND 1980S, THE ROCK MUSICIAN Lou Reed, pencil-thin, craggy, and dressed in tough leather or androgynous glitz, came to symbolize the rebellious outsider. Reed produced a gritty urban rock and roll that made even the protest and acid rock of the 1970s seem tame in comparison.

Beatniks listened to Pete Seeger and the Weavers. Hippies listened to the Doors and Jimi Hendrix. The real freaks listened to Reed's Velvet Underground.

A rebel from an early age, Reed horrified his parents on Long Island with his effeminacy and his violently loud rock music. Hoping to curb his homosexuality, they sent him to a mental hospital for electroshock treatments. Although the treatments were painful and damaging, Reed emerged with his antisocial impulses (and bisexuality) more or less intact.

He moved to New York City, where he met Andy Warhol, the experimental artist who made a cult of both the decadent and the mundane. In 1965, Reed—as part of Warhol's studio, The Factory—joined fellow musicians John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker to form the Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol managed the band, which supplied the music for his Exploding Plastic Inevitable art shows in 1966.

Although Velvet Underground sold few albums and disbanded after only five years, the group had an impact that lasted for decades. Taking rock back to its rawest form—a few simple chords played very loudly—Velvet Underground's urban decadence was the opposite of the visionary dreaminess of much of the music of the era.

Their songs were about drugs and junkies, hustlers and drag queens, all sung with a bare-bones intensity that made them appealingly taboo. The 1980s alternative rock scene would honor the music of Velvet Underground as an influential forerunner of punk.

After the breakup of Velvet Underground, Reed continued to violate taboos as a solo artist. Bisexual in his private life, Reed linked up with another allegedly bisexual rocker, David Bowie, who in 1972 produced Reed's first solo album, Transformer.

On Transformer, Reed changed his look from urban tough to glam-rock flash. He also introduced his most famous signature song, "Walk on the Wild Side," the story of a transgendered hooker's odyssey from Los Angeles to the hard streets of New York, told with an understated, ironic affection and a catchy backbeat.

Reed has continued his solo career, producing wellreviewed albums every few years and frequently touring Europe and the United States. His work retains an honesty and clarity of poetic lyric that often makes him seem a more mature performer than many other aging rock stars.

His 2000 album Ecstasy is a powerful work with an unusual theme for a rock album—the celebration of a long-term relationship. Inspired by his association with the experimental rock musician Laurie Anderson, Reed explores the issues of partnership with a hard-edged depth and complexity.

Reed's brutally romantic lyrics can also stand on their own, as, for example, in his artistically designed books:

Between Thought & Expression (1995) and Pass Thru Fire (1999).

—Tina Gianoulis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bockris, Victor. Transformer: The Lou Reed Story. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

Browne, David. "Lou Reed: Too Legit to Quit." Entertainment Weekly, February 21, 1992, 28.

"Lou Reed." Current Biography 50.7 (July 1989): 28-33.

Rogers, Ray. "Lou Reed." Interview, March 1996, 86.

Sischy, Ingrid. "Focus, Thy Name is Lou." Interview, May 1998, 90.

Robbins, Jerome (1918-1998)

THE BISEXUAL CHOREOGRAPHER AND DIRECTOR JEROME Robbins was both a great choreographer of classical ballet and a Broadway innovator. But he was fearful that he might be outed, and his reputation was tarnished when—during the height of McCarthyism—he "named names" during a meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

According to the critic Clive Barnes, Jerome Robbins "was an extremely demanding man, not always popular with his dancers, although always respected. He was a perfectionist who sometimes, very quietly, reached perfection."

From 1944 to 1997, Robbins choreographed sixty-six ballets and choreographed (and often also directed) fifteen Broadway musicals. During his extraordinarily prolific career he not only excelled in two different fields of dance, but he also worked with chameleon-like versatility, never seeming to repeat himself.

Born Jerome Rabinowitz to Harry and Lena Rabinowitz on October 11, 1918, in New York City, he and his family soon moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. His father's corset business allowed young Robbins to attend New York University for one year, where he majored in chemistry, before a slump in business forced him to withdraw.

Robbins had already started accompanying his sister to dance classes, which led to his professional debut in a Yiddish Art Theater production in 1937.

For five summers Robbins choreographed and performed at the famous Poconos resort Lake Tamiment, in between dancing in four Broadway musicals, one choreographed by George Balanchine.

Robbins was hired as a choreographer for the second season of Ballet Theatre (1940-1941). His meteoric career took off with his first ballet, Fancy Free (1944), to an original score by Leonard Bernstein.

The ballet was an instant hit; and the composer and choreographer, both twenty-five years old, joined forces with lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green to create a musical out of Robbins's comic ballet of three sailors on leave in New York City: On the Town. The success of On the Town made Robbins the boy genius of two worlds: musical theater and concert dance.

In the 1950s, Robbins began to direct as well as choreograph, creating such masterpieces as The King and I (1951), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Gypsy (1959), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), and, most notably, West Side Story (1957).

Robbins's darkest hour occurred at the height of McCarthyism. In 1953, he named eight colleagues as members of the Communist Party during a House Un—American Activities Committee hearing.

Robbins never explained or defended his motives for naming names. He may have testified to avoid being blacklisted on Broadway or out of fear of being outed as a homosexual. Many colleagues and others considered his behavior a betrayal and never forgave him for it.

Unlike other directors of musicals, Robbins demanded that his actors dance as well as sing. His high expectations of the cast of West Side Story, for example, created the triple-threat performer: the actor/singer/dancer. This landmark production in the history of musical theater was also the beginning of a new genre: musical tragedy.

While the librettist Arthur Laurents felt that the shared Jewishness of its collaborators was the greatest influence on the creation of West Side Story, surely the show was also influenced by the fact that seven members of the creative team were gay: Robbins, Laurents, composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, set designer Oliver Smith, lighting designer Jean Rosenthal, and costume designer Irene Sharaff, in addition to the first actor to play Tony, Larry Kert.

One result of the homosexuality of most of the creative team is that, despite the heterosexual plot line, West Side Story is nevertheless intensely homoerotic. The male characters are eroticized as much as the female characters, if not more so; and Riff seems to love Tony as much as Tony loves Maria.

Jerome Robbins in "Three Virgins and a Devil," photographed by Carl van Vechten in 1941.

At the invitation of Balanchine, Robbins joined New York City Ballet as a dancer, choreographer, and Associate Director from 1949 through 1959. He returned to New York City Ballet as Ballet Master in 1969.

For the next twenty years, the former king of Broadway choreographed numerous masterpieces of ballet, including Dances at a Gathering (1969), The Goldberg Variations (1971), Glass Pieces (1983), Ives, Songs (1988), and 2 & 3 Part Inventions (1994). There is little doubt that his ballets would have been more highly regarded, then and now, had they not been created in Balanchine's shadow.

Robbins's classicism was not as dedicated to a strictly codified idiom as Balanchine's; rather, it was infused with theatricality and emotional expressiveness. Many of Robbins's ballets have a naturalness, a democratic air, because they translate (and transform) European (especially Russian) ballet conventions into a more familiar vernacular. Robbins's ballets are not about Americana, yet they are very American.

Shortly before the death of Balanchine in 1983, Robbins and Peter Martins were named codirectors of New York City Ballet, a post Robbins held until 1990.

Robbins took a leave from New York City Ballet in 1988 to stage Jerome Robbins' Broadway (1989), an anthology of dances and scenes from eleven of his Broadway shows. It won the Tony Award for Best Musical and ran for 624 performances.

Robbins the perfectionist was often his own worst enemy. He was savagely demanding of his performers and unrelenting in his demands on himself. High expectations ruled his personal life as well, as Robbins pursued both men and women, but formed no permanent relationship.

Robbins's ballet Facsimile (1946) reflects his bisexuality, as two men and one woman vie for one another's affections.

The ballet dancer Nora Kaye told reporters that she and Robbins were to be wed in 1951; at the same time, Robbins was in the midst of a five-year live-in relationship (1950-1955) with the Broadway dancer Buzz Miller. Robbins also had romantic affairs with the actor Montgomery Clift, the writer Christine Conrad, the photographer Jesse Gerstein, and the filmmaker Warren Sonbert.

On July 29, 1998, Robbins died of a stroke at the age of seventy-nine. His numerous awards include one Emmy (Peter Pan), two Oscars (West Side Story), four Tony Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors (1981), and a National Medal of the Arts (1988).

The greatest classical choreographer born in this country, and a Broadway innovator, Robbins took millions of people to a new place—a world, as he once said, "where things are not named."

—Bud Coleman

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conrad, Christine. Jerome Robbins: The Broadway Man, That Ballet Man. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2000.

Kisselgoff, Anna. "Jerome Robbins, 79, Is Dead; Giant of Ballet and Broadway." New York Times, July 30, 1998.

Lawrence, Greg. Dance With Demons: The Life of Jerome Robbins. New York: G. T. Putnam's Sons, 2001.

Robinson, Tom (b. 1950)

ROCK MUSICIAN TOM ROBINSON WAS EMBRACED BY the gay rights movement when he sang "Glad to Be Gay" in the late 1970s, but found himself the subject of controversy in the 1990s when he chose to live with a woman and become a father.

Robinson was born into a middle-class family in Cambridge, England, on June 1, 1950. His first musical experience was as a choirboy.

Robinson realized at the age of thirteen that he was gay, a frightening thought for the boy given that penalties in England for same-sex sexual activity included prison terms at the time. He had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide when he was sixteen and spent the next six years in a therapeutic community facility.

Robinson moved to London in 1973 and founded the trio Café Society. The group recorded an album, but it sold only 600 copies.

In London Robinson became involved in the gay rights movement and in combating sexism and racism, causes that he continues to champion.

He left Café Society in 1976 and founded the more political Tom Robinson Band. The following year, the group put out the hit single "2-4-6-8 Motorway," which alludes obliquely to a gay truck driver, and "Glad to Be Gay," which was embraced by gay audiences and banned by the BBC.

The band recorded an extremely successful first album, Power in the Darkness (1978), but the follow-up was a failure, and the group soon broke up.

Robinson organized a new band, Sector 27, that produced a well-reviewed but not particularly successful album. The band nevertheless received an enthusiastic reception at a Madison Square Garden concert with The Police. In short order, however, their management company went bankrupt, the band disintegrated, and Robinson suffered another nervous breakdown. Desolate and in debt, Robinson moved to Germany, cadging music work in East Berlin.

In 1982, Robinson penned the song "War Baby," about divisions between East and West. It spent nine weeks on the Top 10 charts in the United Kingdom and revived his career.

Upon returning to the British Isles, Robinson began performing in cabarets in Scotland. A producer from the BBC soon tapped him to become the host of a BBC World Service radio show. He continues to host music programs and occasional special features, including Surviving Suicide, which he wrote and presented in 1994.

Robinson, a longtime supporter of and former volunteer for London's Gay Switchboard help line, was attending a 1982 benefit for the organization when he met the woman with whom he would eventually live and have two children.

In the mid-1990s, when Robinson became a father, the tabloid press had a field day, blaring the news with the headline "Britain's Number One Gay in Love with Girl Biker!" The gay press reviled him, but Robinson continued to identify as a gay man, telling an interviewer for the Manchester Guardian, "I have much more sympathy with bisexuals now, but I am absolutely not one." He added that "our enemies do not draw the distinction between gay and bisexual."

Tom Robinson.

In a 1994 interview with the Boston Globe, Robinson asserted, "We've been fighting for tolerance for the last 20 years, and I've campaigned for people to be able to love whoever the hell they want. That's what we're talking about: tolerance and freedom and liberty—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So if somebody won't grant me the same tolerance I've been fighting for for them, hey, they've got a problem, not me."

Robinson has indeed been a strong advocate of liberty for all. He is a steadfast supporter of Amnesty International and Peter Tatchell's human rights organization Outrage!, and is a leader in the Rock Against Racism campaign in England.

Over his career, Robinson has put out more than twenty albums either as a solo performer or as a member of a group. Among the best known are Love over Rage (1994) and Having It Both Ways (1996).

In addition to doing radio work, he continues to tour. He has moved to a more mellow sound, playing acoustic guitar in his concerts, and even includes some spokenword pieces in his performances. He knows, however, that his fans turn out to hear his classic songs, and so his signature tune, "Glad to Be Gay, " remains in his repertoire, although he updates it to reflect current events.

— Linda Rapp

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fanshawe, Simon. "The War Baby at Peace: He Was Glad to Be Gay, and He Became the Spokesperson for a Generation. Then It All Went Wrong and He Fled the Country with a Nervous Breakdown. Now, Tom Robinson Is Back." Manchester (England) Guardian, May 27, 1994.

Fowler, Rebecca. "National Music Festival: 2-4-6-8, It's Never Too Late; He Went in and out of Fashion, but Tom Robinson Is Still Driven by Music." Independent (London), June 4, 1996.

Graustark, Barbara. "Rock 'N' Wrath." Newsweek, July 30, 1978, 72.

Robinson, Tom. www.tomrobinson.com

Sullivan, Jim. "Robinson Returns; After 15 Years, the Angry Young Revolutionary Has a New Record Deal and the Same High Ideals." Boston Globe, August 12, 1994.

Rock Music

ROCK MUSIC REFERS TO AN ARRAY OF RELATED MUSICAL styles that have come to dominate popular music in the West since about 1955. Originating in the United States, rock music was initially influenced by the black rhythm-and-blues (R & B) music of the American South.

Over the last five decades, rock music has been shaped by, and in turn has been an influential force on, a broad range of cultures and musical traditions, including country western, folk, gospel, blues, electronic, dance, and the popular music of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The genre also encompasses a wide range of substyles, such as heavy metal, punk, alternative, world beat, rap, and techno.

Rock music has become closely associated with freedom of expression, symbolized especially by the rebellious rock star. As such, rock music and musicians have helped to establish new fashions, forms of language, attitudes, and political views.

Surprisingly, however, homosexuality is still generally considered a stigma in the world of rock music. Despite the large number of gay and lesbian people working behind the scenes in the industry, mainstream gay and lesbian rock artists are often discouraged by their corporate record companies from being publicly open about their sexual orientation.

Little Richard to Wayne/Jayne County

In the late 1950s, Little Richard (born Richard Wayne Penniman) brought a flamboyantly theatrical style to early rock music with his sequined vests, tight trousers, eyeliner, and pompadour hairstyle. His shouted vocals and frantic piano playing defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll and led to an uninterrupted run of smash hits— "Tutti Frutti, " "Long Tall Sally, " "Rip It Up, " "Lucille, " "Keep A Knockin, " and "Good Golly Miss Molly." Little Richard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He has, however, never explicitly come out as gay.

Flamboyant theatrics reemerged in the early 1970s with the flourishing of glitter and glam rock, a fusion of feminized—or at best androgynous—images and virile rock anthems.

Glitter or glam rock groups include, most notably, the New York Dolls, T. Rex, Mott The Hoople, and Alice Cooper. Despite their image as sexual outlaws, these rock performers were, nevertheless, firmly ensconced in the world of heterosexuality. Even such rock luminaries as Lou Reed and David Bowie flirted with glam rock and cultivated fashionably gay or bisexual personae; they later married, however, and claimed they had been straight all along.

The one openly gay performer in the era of glam rock was Jobriath, born Bruce Wayne Campbell in 1946. "I'm a true fairy, " the renamed Jobriath Boone proclaimed to the press when his eponymous debut album was released in October 1973. The release of that album was followed by a colossal media blitz. Full-page ads appeared in Vogue, Penthouse, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times, with an image of Jobriath as a discreetly nude statue crawling on smashed legs. The image was even reproduced on a Times Square billboard and splashed across hundreds of New York City buses.

Jobriath's first album was quickly followed up with the release of a second one, Creatures of the Street, a mere six months later. Although the albums, especially the first, received a few respectable reviews, the extensive media hype did not help to sell records. Drug and alcohol addiction also hastened the rapid descent of Jobriath's music career; he was abandoned by his manager and record company halfway through his first U.S. tour.

Jobriath promptly announced his retirement from the music industry and moved to New York, where he pursued an acting career with little success. Jobriath died of an AIDS-related illness in 1983.

Perhaps rock's most prominent transgendered performer is Wayne/Jayne County, born Wayne Rogers in 1947. A performance artist as much as a rock musician, he began his career in the late 1960s as Wayne County in New York's underground theater world. In the early 1970s, County formed his first band, Queen Elizabeth. The band recorded several music demos, most notably a song titled "Max's Kansas City, " celebrating the legendary New York club of the same name, where County had begun performing in drag. County subsequently formed another group, Wayne and The Back Street Boys, which became part of New York's burgeoning punk scene. The group's first album, recorded in 1976, was never released.

Unsuccessful in finding an American label interested in his brand of rock music, County moved to England. There he formed yet another group, The Electric Chairs; they were signed by the independent label Safari Records, which issued his 1978 debut album, The Electric Chairs. Soon after came the release of the most renowned of County's songs, "Fuck Off, " which Safari chose to release under a pseudonymous label. Further albums include Storm the Gates of Heaven (1978), the group's most commercially successful work, and Things Your Mother Never Told You (1979).

In 1979, Wayne County moved to Berlin and later that year reemerged as Jayne County. A live album titled Rock 'N' Roll Resurrection, County's first recording as Jayne, was released in 1980. Her next album was the self-produced Private Oyster, released in 1986. Periodic releases followed in the 1990s, some featuring new songs, others featuring reworked versions of past material. County published her autobiography, Man Enough to be a Woman, in 1996. Her most recent album is So New York (2003).

Freddie Mercury to Melissa Etheridge

The 1970s disco scene saw the emergence of such gay, or at least gay-friendly, performers as Sylvester, the Village People, and Grace Jones, and in the 1980s, dance and techno groups such as Bronski Beat, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and the Pet Shop Boys. The world of adult contemporary music has also seen several openly gay— and best-selling—artists, such as Boy George, Elton John, George Michael, Rufus Wainwright, and k.d. lang.

However, within the realm of rock music, a world dominated by swaggering men with electric guitars and their mostly straight male audiences, there have been, until quite recently, few openly gay musicians whose music also reflects their sexuality.

For example, Freddie Mercury, the gay rock icon and former front man for the British power-rock group Queen, only publicly declared his homosexuality one day before his death of AIDS-related illnesses in 1991.

Likewise, Morrissey (born Steven Patrick Morrissey), lead singer of the British rock band The Smiths from 1984 to 1988, who has been embraced by many in the gay community as one of their own, has never publicly come out and has contradicted himself repeatedly on the subject of his sexuality.

There have, nevertheless, been a few exceptions. The British rocker Tom Robinson broke political ground in the late 1970s with his song "Glad To Be Gay." Although Robinson subsequently married and fathered two children, he continues to define himself in the media as either queer or bisexual. And his music continues to reflect his sexuality. He cleverly titled his 1996 album Having It Both Ways, and the bisexual-themed "Blood Brother" won him Best Song at the 1998 Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards.

Joan Jett rose to fame in the 1970s all-girl rock band the Runaways. Her cover of "I Love Rock 'N' Roll, " with her band the Blackhearts, was a number one hit in 1982; "Crimson and Clover" was another hit. Jett, however, did not come out as a lesbian until the 1990s.

One of the most successful gay rock artists today is the award-winning singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge, who began recording in 1988. Etheridge's sensual, bluesbased, and autobiographical songs became even more deeply personal and confessional after she publicly came out as a lesbian in 1993. Moreover, her coming out caused her career no harm; her album Yes I Am—released in the year of her coming out—;became her biggest seller to date.

Although Melissa Etheridge has a strong lesbian following, she has also become a crossover success; among her ardent fans are men and women of all sexual orientations.

Queercore

Angered by the homophobia and sexism within much of the rock and punk music scenes, a group of young, militant gay musicians started a movement that has been dubbed queercore. It is characterized by hard-core punk music and frank lyrics that address such issues as queer desire and societal prejudice.

Queercore gained notoriety in the late 1980s through such underground zines as Homocore, JD's, and Chainsaw and in the art of Bruce La Bruce and G. B. Jones. Later, throughout the 1990s, queercore was most visibly exemplified by the raw music, political rage, and social commentary of such groups as Pansy Division, Fifth Column, Team Dresch, and God Is My Co-Pilot.

At the same time, the Riot Grrl movement started to take off. Riot Grrl was a grassroots feminist movement with several lesbian bands in the forefront, including Bikini Kill, L7, Tribe 8, and the Butchies. As the Riot Grrl movement gathered steam, queercore participants (both men and women) started to take notice, and the two movements began to feed off each other, leading to a diverse assortment of music and ideas.

Although queercore has a small but passionate group of supporters, it is perhaps too raw and controversial to move beyond the fringes of the music industry. Few radio stations are willing to play queercore music, and the independent labels that support queercore bands rarely have the resources to market them sufficiently.

As more musicians publicly declare their homosexuality, being gay in the world of rock music may become less of an issue or a perceived detriment to a mainstream career. In recent years, for example, such rock musicians as singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco; Kathleen Hanna of the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre; Corrin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney; Michael Stipe, the lead singer for R.E.M.; Jonsi Thór Birgisson, the front man for the Icelandic techno-rock group Sigur Rós; Chuck Panozzo, the longtime bassist and cofounder of the arena-rock band Styx; and Rob Halford, vocalist of the heavy-metal British band Judas Priest, have all come out publicly as gay or bisexual.

—Craig Kaczorowski

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Collum, Danny Duncan. "Rock's Little Secret." Sojourners 30.5 (September-October 2001): 52.

County, Jayne, with Rupert Smith. Man Enough to be a Woman. New York: Serpent's Tail, 1996.

Dickinson, Chris. "The Music Is the Message: Some Radical Gay Bands Put Their Sexuality Way Up Front." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 21, 1996.

McDonnell, Evelyn, and Ann Powers, eds. Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap. New York: Delta Books, 1995.

Sullivan, Caroline. "Queer to the Core." Guardian, December 17, 1993.

Artist Home Pages:

www.thebutchies.com

www.eltonjohn.com

www.sonymusic.co.uk/georgemichael

www.melissaetheridge.com

www.morrissey-solo.com

www.pansydivision.com

www.petshopboys.co.uk

www.rufuswainwright.com

www.letigreworld.com

www.tomrobinson.com

Rorem, Ned (b. 1923)

NED ROREM IS ONE OF THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED AND prolific composers of art songs in the world, but his musical and literary endeavors extend far beyond this specialized field. Rorem has also composed symphonies, piano concerti, operas, chamber music, ballets, and music for the theater. In addition, he is the author of thirteen books, including five volumes of diaries and collections of lectures and criticism.

Born in Richmond, Indiana, on October 23, 1923, to Quaker parents, Rorem was raised in Chicago, where he demonstrated an early interest in composition and piano. At seventeen, Rorem entered the Music School of Northwestern University, where he pursued advanced musical studies.

Two years later, he received a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He then studied composition under Bernard Wagenaar at Juilliard, where he received his master's degree in 1948. While at Juilliard, Rorem also worked privately with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and Virgil Thomson in New York.

Additionally, in 1948 the Music Library Association voted his song The Lordly Hudson (based on a poem by Paul Goodman) the best published song of that year.

Upon graduating from Juilliard, Rorem traveled to Morocco, and in 1950 to Paris, where he remained for seven years, achieving international recognition for his compositions and recording his experiences in a diary published to literary acclaim.

His years as a young composer among the leading figures of the artistic and social milieu of postwar Europe are portrayed in The Paris Diary of Ned Rorem

(1966). His subsequent diaries and essays offer elegant and erudite analyses of aesthetic questions and candidly detail his life in the gay cultural fast lane.

Since his return to the United States in 1957, Rorem has divided his time between Manhattan and Nantucket, continuing to add to his extensive catalog of over 400 art songs. His individual settings and cycles draw their texts from a wide range of poetry and prose. Among his favorite sources have been works by W. H. Auden, Paul Goodman, Frank O'Hara, Theodore Roethke, and Walt Whitman.

In addition to his art songs, Rorem has composed three operas, most notably Miss Julie, based on the play by August Strindberg, which premiered at the New York City Opera in 1965; three symphonies; three piano concerti; several large-scale choral works, including the powerful Whitman Cantata (1983); as well as smallerscale keyboard and chamber pieces.

Among the distinguished conductors who have performed his music are Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Kurt Masur, Thomas Schippers, and Robert Shaw.

In 1976, Rorem received the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his orchestral work Air Music.

Rorem continues to write and compose, and he enjoys a steady stream of commissions and performances. He has steadfastly remained faithful to tonality and the song; his compositions are musically rich and exquisitely fashioned. Above all, there is an emotional generosity that pervades much of his work, together with his unique brand of soaring lyricism that has attracted some of the twentieth century's most distinguished interpreters.

Recent recordings of Rorem's work include Evidence of Things Not Seen (1998), a thirty-six-song cycle based on disparate texts ranging from works about youth's unbounded hope to the losses and hard-won faith of old age; Songs of Ned Rorem (2000), a collection of thirty-two songs sung by lyric mezzo Susan Graham; and More Than A Day (2000), a song cycle sung by the countertenor Brian Asawa and based on poems by actor and writer Jack Larson to his late lover, the film director James Bridges, both of whom Rorem first met in the early 1960s.

Rorem's own lover of over thirty years, Jim Holmes, died in 1999. Another Sleep (2002), a cycle of nineteen songs based on texts by such authors as Milton, Shakespeare, and Sappho, is a memorial to Holmes.

—Craig Kaczorowski

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Goldstein, Richard. "AIDS Culture: The Next Wave." Village Voice, April 13, 2001, 50.

Philbrook, Erik. "Words' Worth." Playback 5.4 (1998): 6-8.

Smith, Patrick. "Diamond Ned Rorem." Opera News, March 28, 1998, 4.

The Official Ned Rorem Web Site.

http://nedrorem.com

Rosenmüller, Johann (1619-1684)

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPOSERS OF INSTRUmental music and sacred vocal music in Germany in the middle of the seventeenth century, Johann Rosenmüller survived a homosexual scandal in Leipzig and reconstituted his career in Venice.

At age twenty-one, Rosenmüller entered the University of Leipzig and became the assistant of the Thomasschule Cantor (or director of music). In 1651, he was appointed organist at the Nicolaikirche, one of the three important churches in the city. Two years later, the town council promised him the position of Cantor at the Thomasschule on the demise or resignation of the current holder. This was the same position that Johann Sebastian Bach would assume in 1723.

In 1655, however, Rosenmüller's career was abruptly derailed when he and several choirboys were arrested on charges of homosexuality. He managed to escape prosecution and fled to Venice, where presumably a less restrictive environment existed.

Nothing else is known of Rosenmüller's personal life, but the arrest has led, perhaps unjustifiably, to the assumption that he was a pedophile.

In Venice in 1658, Rosenmüller became a trombone player at St. Mark's, the most prestigious musical estab-lishment in the city. A few years later, he attained a position as maestro di coro, or Master of the Chorus, at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, a school for illegitimate girls that specialized in musical training. As late as 1682, he was being paid by the school as a composer.

In Venice, Rosenmüller also continued to compose music (primarily masses, psalms, Magnificats, and motets, as well as instrumental sonatas), which reflected Italian influence and which circulated in Germany. Moreover, he attracted students who came to study with him from Germany. Thus, as a result of his disgrace, he helped disseminate Italian musical idioms in Germany.

None of his music sets homoerotic texts, but some of his music for solo voices adopts an arguably eroticized approach to the setting of sacred texts.

In 1682, he finally returned to his homeland to become the court composer at Wolfenbüttel in Saxony, where he died in 1684.

At his death, Rosenmüller was described as "the Amphion of his age." In the late eighteenth century, he was praised by Goethe. Recent recordings of Rosenmüller's sacred music have reestablished him as a significant composer.

—Robert A. Green

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Skinner, Graeme. "Rosenmüller, Johann." Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History from Antiquity to World War II. Robert Aldrich and Garry Wotherspoon, eds. London: Routledge, 2001. 382-383.

RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles) (b. 1960)

ASIX-FOOT-FIVE-INCH-TALL AFRICAN AMERICAN DRAG queen who usually performs in a blonde wig, RuPaul has been responsible for giving drag a new visibility in American popular culture. He is one of the most famous drag queens in mainstream media history. RuPaul is credited with the statement "We're born naked, and the rest is drag."

RuPaul conveys a gentleness and an almost wholesome warmth that have made drag far less threatening to mainstream audiences. As a result, he has had not only a successful recording career as a disco diva, but also a wide variety of film roles, both in and out of drag, and has hosted a popular VH1 talk show.

In perhaps his most appropriate gender-bending career, he has been the "Face of M.A.C. Cosmetics": spokesmodel for the Canadian cosmetics company and chairperson of the M.A.C. AIDS charity fund.

The concept of drag is all about manipulating surface images, and RuPaul's life has given him an intimate understanding of the ways in which the surface can be deceptive.

Born into a working-class family in San Diego on November 17, 1960, RuPaul Andre Charles had an early fascination with things feminine. By the age of four, he was already an effeminate boy, imitating Diana Ross and Jane Fonda and beginning to be labeled a sissy.

His parents divorced when he was seven, and RuPaul was raised from then on in a household of strong women, consisting of his adored twin sisters, seven years older than he, and his mother, whom he describes in his autobiography as "the fiercest drag queen I've ever known."

By the time he was fifteen, RuPaul was ready to come out as a gay man, and he chafed under his mother's iron rule. He moved into his sister's house, then moved with her to Atlanta.

There, free from parental constraints, he threw himself into the gay life, performing in drag clubs, and, briefly, with his own band, RuPaul and the U-Hauls.

In 1987, he relocated to New York and began the move into the big time. He landed roles in such films as Spike Lee's Crooklyn (1993), Betty Thomas's The Brady

RuPaul performs a tribute to Diana Ross at VH1 Divas 2000. Photograph by Nancy Kaszerman.

Bunch Movie (1995), Barry Shils's Wigstock: The Movie (1995), Wayne Wang's Blue In The Face (1995), Beeban Kidron's To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (1996), and Jamie Babbit's But I'm a Cheerleader (2000). In the latter film he appears sans drag, playing the part of a male, ex-gay camp counselor.

His albums, such as Supermodel of the World (1993) and Foxy Lady (1996), have received respectable reviews; and, from 1996 until September 1998, The RuPaul Show aired six days a week on VH1, featuring such guests as Cher, k.d. lang, Eartha Kitt, and Dennis Rodman.

In 2000, he narrated the acclaimed documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, about the evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. His presence in the film is a poignant irony for those who recognize the clownishly made-up right-wing Christian Bakker as an unintentional drag icon herself.

RuPaul enjoys playing with the contradictions of drag. As a black man, he is very conscious that most white people are much less threatened by him when he is dressed as a woman, even a six-foot-five woman.

However, though he cheerfully bends gender and challenges assumptions wherever possible, he is clear and irrepressible about his identity as a gay man. As he said to Maria Speidel in People magazine, "I never feel that I dress as a woman. I dress as a drag queen because, you know, women don't dress the way I dress. It's too uncomfortable."

—Tina Gianoulis

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles, RuPaul Andre. Lettin' It All Hang Out. New York: Hyperion, 1995.

Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Ru Paul. Boston, Beacon Press, 1997.

Motsch, Sallie. "Dude Looks Like a Lady." GQ, June 1997, 198.

Speidel, Maria. "Happy Camper." People, September 23, 1996, 148.

Trebay, Guy. "Cross-dresser Dreams: Female Impersonator RuPaul Andre Charles." New Yorker, March 22, 1993, 49.

Yarbrough Jeff. "RuPaul: The Man Behind the Mask." Advocate, August 23, 1994, 64.

Russell, Craig (1948-1990)

CRAIG RUSSELL WAS ONE OF THE MAJOR FEMALE impersonators of the 1970s and 1980s. He was one of the last of the school that actually sang or spoke in the voices of the ladies he impersonated. He was also an accomplished actor.

Born Russell Craig Eadie in Toronto on January 10, 1948, he began mimicking people at age five to amuse his family. His parents divorced when he was nine. As an adolescent, he suffered from skin problems and therefore wore makeup to school and was all too predictably picked on.

As a teenager, he became president of the Mae West International Fan Club and soon moved to Los Angeles to work for West as her secretary/companion. He returned to Toronto to complete high school, but quickly dropped out. He worked as a typist and, from 1969 until 1971, as a hairdresser.

By 1971, he had adopted the name Craig Russell and began performing at gay clubs in Toronto. He soon became a popular attraction at drag venues across the continent, acclaimed especially for his impersonations, which comprised a remarkable range of characters. His ladies included Bette Davis, Carol Channing, Janis Joplin, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Peggy Lee, and Mae West.

Equally remarkable was Russell's three-octave vocal range, which allowed him to impersonate Barbra Streisand in her own key. He could perform a duet between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. For his act's finale, he frequently performed a rundown of all the ladies who had performed in Hello, Dolly!

Another favorite impersonation, sure to whip up the audience in the late 1970s, was his Anita Bryant singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Russell's satirical impersonation of the antigay crusader indicated an astute political awareness and commitment on his part.

As a female impersonator, Russell attempted genuine verisimilitude, but he also added a great deal of his own personality and comic sensibility. His approach lies somewhere between the sharp-witted performances of drag comedians such as Charles Pierce or Lynne Carter and the dead-on likenesses of impersonators such as Jim Bailey or Jimmy James.

Russell became famous as a result of his starring role in the Canadian feature film Outrageous! (1977), directed by Richard Benner, one of the first North American films with a gay theme to receive widespread distribution. In it, Russell played Robin Turner, a gay hairdresser who wants to be a drag queen.

The film is based on Margaret Gibson's novel Making It, a chronicle of the author's life as Russell's roommate. Russell was awarded Best Actor by the 1978 Berlin Film Festival for his work in the film.

After Russell's success in Outrageous, he was able to play much larger and more prestigious venues. He performed in Las Vegas, Hollywood, Berlin, London, and Paris. He even had a one-man, off-Broadway show entitled A Man and His Women (1977).

But at the peak of his success, Russell became unable to cope with the pressures of fame. His substance abuse and psychological problems increasingly affected his performances, and his career suffered.

In 1986, Russell returned to Toronto to film a sequel to Outrageous. Entitled Too Outrageous! and also directed by Benner, the sequel follows Russell's life as a female impersonator in New York City. It was released in 1987 to mixed reviews and failed to find an audience.

Although he never made a secret of his homosexuality, Russell married Lori Jenkins, one of his female fans, in 1982.

During the final years of his life, Russell battled AIDS. He died from an AIDS-related stroke on October 30, 1990.

—Joe E. Jeffreys

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Senelick, Laurence. The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Slide, Anthony. Great Pretenders: A History of Female and Male Impersonation in the Performing Arts. Lombard, Ill.: Wallace-Homestead, 1986.

Street, David. Craig Russell and His Ladies. Toronto: Gage Publishing, 1979.

r

Rainey, Gertrude ("Ma") (1886-1939)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Reed, Lou (b. 1942)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Robbins, Jerome (1918-1998)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Robinson, Tom (b. 1950)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Rock Music

Little Richard to Wayne/Jayne County

Freddie Mercury to Melissa Etheridge

Queercore

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Artist Home Pages:

SEE ALSO

Rorem, Ned (b. 1923)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEE ALSO

Rosenmüller, Johann (1619-1684)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEE ALSO

RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles) (b. 1960)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEE ALSO

Russell, Craig (1948-1990)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

SEE ALSO