Sylvester (singer)
Sylvester James Jr. (September 6, 1947 – December 16, 1988), 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 1970s and 1980s.
Sylvester
December 16, 1988 (aged 41)
AIDS-related complications
- Singer-songwriter
- composer
- record producer
- Vocals
- keyboards
- piano
1962–1988
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 Black cross-dressers and transgender women who called themselves the Disquotays. Moving to San Francisco in 1970 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.[1] 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 1973 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 (1977), was a moderate success. This was followed with the acclaimed disco album Step II (1978), 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 company founded by friend and collaborator Patrick Cowley, where he recorded four more albums, including the Cowley penned hit Hi-NRG track "Do Ya Wanna Funk". Sylvester was an activist who campaigned against the spread of HIV/AIDS. He died from complications arising from the virus in 1988, leaving all future royalties from his work to San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS charities.
During the late 1970s, Sylvester gained the nickname of the "Queen of Disco" and during his life he attained particular recognition in San Francisco, where he was awarded the key to the city.[2] In 2005, he was posthumously inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame, while his life has been recorded in a biography and made the subject of both a documentary and a musical.
Emerging solo career[edit]
1972–1974: Sylvester and his Hot Band[edit]
Returning to San Francisco, Sylvester was offered the opportunity to record a demo album by Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner. Financed by A&M Records, the album featured a cover of Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell's song "Superstar", which had been a recent hit single for the Carpenters. Nevertheless, A&M felt that the work was not commercially viable and declined to release the album.[45] For the album, Sylvester and his manager Dennis Lopez had assembled a group of heterosexual white males—Bobby Blood on trumpet, Chris Mostert on saxophone, James Q. Smith on guitar, Travis Fullerton on drums, and Kerry Hatch on bass—whom he named the Hot Band. After A&M's initial rejection, the band provided two songs for Lights Out San Francisco, an album compiled by San Francisco's KSAN radio and released on the Blue Thumb label.[46] Gaining a number of local gigs, they were eventually asked to open for English glam rock star David Bowie at the Winterland Ballroom. The gig did not sell particularly well, and Bowie later commented that San Francisco did not need him, because "They've got Sylvester", referring to their shared preference for androgyny.[47]
In early 1973, Sylvester and the Hot Band were signed by Bob Krasnow to Blue Thumb. On this label, they produced their first album, in which they switched their sound from blues to the more commercially viable rock, while the Pointer Sisters were employed as backing singers. Sylvester named this first album Scratch My Flower due to a gardenia-shaped scratch-and-sniff sticker adhered to the cover, although it was instead released under the title of Sylvester and his Hot Band.[48] The album consisted primarily of covers of songs by artists such as James Taylor, Ray Charles, Neil Young, and Leiber and Stoller.[49] Described by one of Sylvester's biographers as lacking in "the fire and focus of the live shows",[50] it sold poorly on release.[51]
Sylvester and his Hot Band toured the United States, receiving threats of violence in several Southern states, where widespread conservative and racist attitudes led to antagonism between the band and locals.[52] In late 1973, the band recorded their second album, Bazaar, which included both cover songs and original compositions by bassist Kerry Hatch. Hatch later commented that the Hot Band found the album more satisfactory than its predecessor, but nevertheless it again sold poorly.[53] The music journalist Peter Shapiro believed that on these Blue Thumb albums, Sylvester's "cottony falsetto was an uncomfortable match with guitars" and that they both had "an unpleasantly astringent quality".[54]
Finding Sylvester difficult to work with, and frustrated by his lack of commercial success, the Hot Band left Sylvester in late 1974, after which Krasnow canceled his recording contract.[51] At the same time, Sylvester's relationship with Lyons ended, with Lyons himself moving to Hawaii.[55]
1974–1977: Two Tons O' Fun and Sylvester[edit]
Now without the Hot Band or a recording contract, Sylvester set himself up with a new band, the Four As, and a new set of backing singers, two Black drag queens named Gerry Kirby and Lady Bianca. With this new entourage, he continued to perform at a number of local venues including Jewel's Catch One, a predominantly Black gay dance club on West Pico Avenue in Los Angeles, but reviewers were unimpressed with the new line-up, most of whom abandoned Sylvester in December 1974.[56] After a brief sojourn in England, Sylvester returned to San Francisco and assembled three young drag queens to be backing singers: Arnold Elzie, Leroy Davis, and Gerry Kirby. Nevertheless, although he performed at such events as the 1975 Castro Street Fair, success continued to elude him, and he eventually fired Elzie, Davis, and Kirby.[57]