Sylvester

Sylvester

Nacimiento : 1947-10-06, Los Angeles, California, USA

Muerte : 1988-12-16

Historia

Sylvester James Jr. (September 6, 1947 – December 16, 1988), known mononymously 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. 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 like 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 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 U.S. 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." An activist who campaigned against the spread of HIV/AIDS, Sylvester 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 moniker 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. 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sylvester (singer), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Perfil

Sylvester

Películas

Love Me Like You Should: The Brave and Bold Sylvester
Self (archive footage)
In partnership with filmmaker Lauren Tabak and writer/consulting producer Barry Walters, we dive into the music career of Sylvester, starting from church choir in South Central LA to his early years in San Francisco. It follows his ascent to stardom through his evergreen, international hits "Dance (Disco Heat)" and "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Through his groundbreaking career, Sylvester blew open the doors for queer visibility and gender fluidity in mainstream music, leaving a legacy that continues to influence today's pop music.
Ruminations
(archive footage)
A documentary profile on Rumi Missabu, the iconoclast cofounder of San Francisco's infamous Cockettes. Through archive footage, animation and new interviews with stars from SF's queer art past, his lurid tales in and out of the spotlight are revealed as he reinvents himself at the end of his life.
The Cockettes
Self (archive footage)
Documentary about the gender-bending San Francisco performance group who became a pop culture phenomenon in the early 1970s.
Castro
This is a first installment of a soap opera showing the Castro as a Gothic, sleazy neighborhood where danger and duplicity lurk. Assorted characters include the innocent new boy in town, a streetwise detective, a pair of lesbian astronauts, a bitchy male couple, and an alcoholic landlord.
La Rosa
Female Impersonator
Rose es una estrella de rock (Bette Midler) cuyo éxito está estrechamente vinculado al alcohol y a las drogas. Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo, esos excesos serán la causa de su declive. Cuando Rose, intentando salir de ese infierno, le pide a su mánager (Alan Bates) que le permita tomarse un respiro, él se niega. Entonces ella busca consuelo y amor en los brazos de un atractivo caradura (Frederic Forrest) que no podrá seguir el ritmo frenético de su vida de excesos.
Tricia's Wedding
Coretta Scott King / Delegate from Uma Guma
The world-famous Cockettes enact Tricia Nixon's wedding to Edward Cox on June 11, 1971. Hurtme O. Hurtme, television correspondent, covers the wedding and interviews celebrities in attendance such as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Jacqueline Onassis, Queen Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Taylor. Coretta King sings. During the reception, Eartha Kitt puts LSD in the punch. All hell breaks loose.