From the very beginning, the blues has had a close connection with the LGBTQ community. There is a long and decorated history of so-called 'dirty blues' songs, stretching back beyond the earliest attempts to capture the blues on record. The 1920s and 30s saw the release of dozens of raunchy, bawdy blues recordings aimed at a knowing LGBTQ audience. Queer Blues tells the story of the pioneering LGBTQ composers and entertainers that wrote, performed and recorded these wonderfully outlandish, life-affirming songs and chronicles, including: Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker to Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon and many more. This is the definitive account of the LGBTQ trailblazers of early blues and a fascinating consideration of the intersection between music and LGBTQ history, from the award-winning Darryl W. Bullock.

From Sia to Elton John, Dusty Springfield to Little Richard, LGBT voices have changed the course of modern music. But in a world before they gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who came after? Pulling back the curtain on the colourful world that shaped our musical and cultural landscape, Darryl W. Bullock reveals the inspiring and often heartbreaking stories of internationally renowned stars, as well as lesser-known names, who have led the revolution from all corners of the globe. David Bowie Made Me Gay is a treasure trove of moving and provocative stories that emphasise the right to be heard and the need to keep up the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Author of the Penderyn Prize-winning The Velvet Mafia Fifty years on from Britain's first Pride march, the long road to LGBT equality continues. Through protest songs and gay club nights, street theatre activism and fundraising concerts, the performing arts have played an influential role in each great stride made. With new interviews with musicians and DJs, performers and activists, including Andy Bell, Jayne County, John Grant, Horse McDonald and Peter Tachell, Pride, Pop and Politics hears from those whose art has been influenced by the campaign for LGBT rights - and helped push it forward. This informative, eye-opening book is the first to focus on the relationship between gay nightlife and political activism in Britain.

Winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize 2022 In the fifties and sixties, in the period leading up to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality and the founding of the Gay Liberation movement, a group of gay men behind the scenes of rock'n'roll was changing pop, politics and society for good. Through a mix of new interviews and contemporary reports, Darryl W. Bullock shines a light on the lives of the so-called 'Velvet Mafia', including impresario Larry Parnes, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, songwriter Lionel Bart, record producer Joe Meek, and Bee Gees and Cream manager Robert Stigwood. Compelling and enlightening, The Velvet Mafia explores how the LGBT professionals at the heart of the music industry were working together and supporting each other at a time when being homosexual could mean the end of your career - or much worse.

From Sia to Elton John, Dusty Springfield to Little Richard, LGBT voices have changed the course of modern music. But in a world before they gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who came after? Pulling back the curtain on the colourful world that shaped our musical and cultural landscape, Darryl W. Bullock reveals the inspiring and often heartbreaking stories of internationally renowned stars, as well as lesser-known names, who have led the revolution from all corners of the globe. David Bowie Made Me Gay is a treasure trove of moving and provocative stories that emphasise the right to be heard and the need to keep up the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Raised in poverty on an Iowa farm, the Cherry Sisters had little education and no training. But they possessed a burning desire to take to the stage and show the world what they could do-and what they could do was awful. Their unique act was "so bad it was good." When the sisters took the stage, they were met with rotten fruit and vegetables, festering meat, dead cats, old washtubs. Riots often broke out after (and sometimes during) their concerts, but despite that, they carried on, changing attitudes-and laws-along the way. This book follows the five women through their forty-year career in vaudeville theaters across the U.S. Proud, fearless and fiercely independent in a time when women were treated as second-class citizens, the Cherry Sisters insisted that their voices be heard.