(Source: Spotify)

Teddy Pendergrass, Heterosexualizer: For Ladies Only tour, 1978

Not that his one-nighters haven’t been enjoyable! Teddy relates that one in particular was a stand-out – when he played to a 100% female audience at Chino Women’s Prison during the summer.

“Now that was really something! It was a trip because naturally, a lot of women in prison find themselves becoming involved with other women – bisexuality and homosexuality develop in prisons – and I’d say that it was the first time a lot of those ladies had put on a dress since they’d been in there. And then some of those girls who were sitting on other girls’ laps got up and sat in their own seats during the performance and I think that 90% of the women in their really looked very feminine – like they’d gotten ready for the occasion. It just made me ask some of them what good-looking ladies like them were doing in a place like that!”

The performance came during Teddy’s season on “For Ladies Only” concerts which he says were attended “by 80% women. I don’t know if it turned any of my male fans off but then I didn’t consider that! I do know that I ended up with quite a collection of ladies’ underwear after the shows!”

Now, before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, let’s quickly emphasise that Teddy – whose image as a sex-symbol has been somewhat cast – was the recipient of same from members of his audience obviously moved to give him souvenirs and momentos of his performance! “What did I do with the underwear?” he laughs. “Donated it to a museum, of course!”

From “Teddy Pendergrass: The Sex Symbol of 1979,” by David Nathan, Blues & Soul Magazine

“Let’s just f*ck and get it over with.” Marsha Ambrosius goes, um, hard. Nice queer twist at the end. Laments about necessary though strangely unwanted sex are an interesting subset of the booty call song. 

Perennial

Gilda Gray, one of the exotic shimmy dancers I’ll be investigating as I move into the 20th century in my research. Hot-cha!

Gilda Gray, one of the exotic shimmy dancers I’ll be investigating as I move into the 20th century in my research. Hot-cha!

Firsts

Jeffrey Eugenides in Salon, on beginnning his books:

You’re absolutely right that what I’m searching for with the first sentence is the entire book. They’ve come to me in different ways with the three books. And the process is not always the same, but finally there is a sentence that seems to suggest the entire narrative and the tone and the narrative strategy and everything all in one. That’s when I know essentially that I have a book that I can write.

I wrote the first sentence of my book the other day. I think it will stick.

Edwin C. Hill writes the following in “Black Soundscapes, White Stages: The Meaning of Sound in the Francophone Black Atlantic”: 

“As a character in the repertoire of French colonial mythology, the doudou represents the Creole woman of color desperately in love with a French man but stranded in her colonial place. Caged in by geography, culture, and color, she melancholically sings, in the doux parler des iles” (“the sweet language of the islands” in Creole), her hopeless plight of seduction, love, and abandonment. Josephine Baker, in concert with this black Altantic orientation, most famously brought the doudou’s voice and body to life. Her signature song, “J’ai deux amours,” often performed as a duet, genders black transatlantic loyalty to France, conflating it with interracal romance and intercultural charm…”

“Often referred to a chansons de cocotte or chansons galantes, the written Creole lyrics and borrowed European melodies of these songs, intimately connected with the circulation of transatlantic ships, constitute some of the earliest Creole texts as well as the first texts of literary aspiration in the Francophone Antilles. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, French and Creole colonists adopted the perspective and the voice of populations of color when writing these romantic songs both to disguise their authors and to avoid the taboo expression of interracial relationships….”

“While their satire disguised any serious emotional investment in the subject of black love, these songs gave voice to the anxiety surrounding the power of women of color, especially mulatto and metisse women, to obtain freedom and other privileges (for themselves but also for their children and even for other family members and friends) through their intimate relationships with rich white men. In this sense, too, the doudou’s presence goes back just as far as does French West Indian textual production. From the official illegalization of interracial sexual relations in the Code Noir to early travel narratives and ethnographic accounts …  to the iconography of the Third Republic, the doudou’s long history demonstrates the way French texts have historically “stressed” the proximity of  black female sexuality to power, money, and politics.”

Lydia Thompson, the head of the British Blondes burlesque troupe, was an important transitional figure in the history of American theater. Say hello to her!

Lydia Thompson, the head of the British Blondes burlesque troupe, was an important transitional figure in the history of American theater. Say hello to her!

A kind of coming out story featuring Azealia Banks

Very nicely done.

Mighty tight women: Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and Linda Ronstadt dishing, 1974. Photograph by Henry Diltz View high resolution

Mighty tight women: Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur and Linda Ronstadt dishing, 1974. Photograph by Henry Diltz