About LGBTQIA+ History Month
Books from the Collection
- Queering the Pitch by A collection of gay and lesbian work in music and musicology. Musicologists, scholars, academics, critics, performers and composers examine the areas of musical education, voice and listening, history and biography, as seen through an interdisciplinary and political eye.Call Number: ML55 .Q44 1994
Glitter up the Dark by
From the Beatles to Prince to Perfume Genius, Glitter Up the Dark takes a historical look at the voices that transcended gender and the ways music has subverted the gender binary. Why has music so often served as an accomplice to transcendent expressions of gender? Why did the query "is he musical?" become code, in the twentieth century, for "is he gay?" Why is music so inherently queer? For Sasha Geffen, the answers lie, in part, in music's intrinsic quality of subliminal expression, which, through paradox and contradiction, allows rigid gender roles to fall away in a sensual and ambiguous exchange between performer and listener. Glitter Up the Dark traces the history of this gender fluidity in pop music from the early twentieth century to the present day. Starting with early blues and the Beatles and continuing with performers such as David Bowie, Prince, Missy Elliot, and Frank Ocean, Geffen explores how artists have used music, fashion, language, and technology to break out of the confines mandated by gender essentialism and establish the voice as the primary expression of gender transgression. From glam rock and punk to disco, techno, and hip-hop, music helped set the stage for today's conversations about trans rights and recognition of nonbinary and third-gender identities. Glitter Up the Dark takes a long look back at the path that led here.
Call Number: ML3470 .G44 2020
Queering Freedom: Music, Identity and Spirituality by
This book is intended to challenge the status quo of music learning and experience by intersecting various musical topics with discussions of spirituality and queer studies. Spanning from the theoretical to the personal, the authors utilize a variety of approaches to query how music makers might blend spirituality's healing and wholeness with queer theory's radical liberation. Queering Freedom: Music, Identity and Spirituality represents an eclectic mix of historical, ethnomusicological, case study, narrative, ethnodramatic, philosophical, theological, and theoretical contributions. The book reaches an international audience, with invited authors from around the world who represent the voices and perspectives of over ten countries. The authors engage with policy, practice, and performance to critically address contemporary and historical music practices. Through its broad and varied writing styles and representations, the collection aims to shift perspectives of possibility and invite readers to envision a fresh, organic, and more holistic musical experience.
Call Number: ML3916 .Q44 2018
Pop & Rock
Books from the Collection: David Bowie
The Words and Music of David Bowie by
All Music Guide's Stephen Thomas Erlewine has written, Even when he was out of fashion in the '80s and '90s, it was clear that Bowie was one of the most influential musicians in rock, for better or worse. In this comprehensive analysis of David Bowie's career, author James Perone examines the many identities and styles Bowie has developed over the years, and in so doing provides a stunning chronicle of creativity at work. Born David Jones in a London suburb in 1947, David Bowie changed his name in the late '60s to avoid confusion with the singer David Jones of The Monkees. This name change would turn out to be a highly prescient act: for in incorporating an exceptionally wide variety of styles, Bowie would become the most notorious chameleon of the rock era. Due in large part to his early success in the glam rock subgenre and his claims of homosexuality (dismissed by many writers as a ploy to generate public interest and record sales), Bowie raised serious issues about sexual orientation in rock music, regardless of whether or not his claimed homosexuality was genuine or part of his on-stage character. His regular use of theatrical personae also raises interesting issues concerning authenticity and the perception of authenticity in rock music. Although Bowie has been primarily an album artist, his recordings of Fame, Golden Years, Let's Dance, China Girl, Blue Jean, and Dancing in the Streets, all made it into the Billboard top 10 singles charts. Of these, all but one was written or co-written by Bowie. Even more notable are the songs he wrote and recorded that have made an impact far in excess of their chart standing. These include Space Oddity, Rebel, Rebel, Changes, Modern Love, and Young Americans. From his early 1970s albums like Hunky Dory and The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars-in both of which he assumed the character of the fictional, androgynous Stardust-to Diamond Dogs, Heroes, Tin Machine, and Black Tie White Noise, Bowie's albums generated both significant word-of-mouth interest and some of the most contentious critical reactions of any artist of the rock era. This long overdue investigation lets Bowie's artistry speak for itself. After a biographical introduction, chronologically arranged chapters discuss the singer's fascinating_and iconoclastic_body of work. A discography and annotated bibliography conclude the book.
Call Number: ML420 .B754 P47 2007
David Bowie Made Me Gay by
LGBT musicians have shaped the development of music over the last century, with a sexually progressive soundtrack in the background of the gay community's struggle for acceptance. With the advent of recording technology, LGBT messages were for the first time brought to the forefront of popular music. David Bowie Made Me Gay is the first book to cover the breadth of history of recorded music by and for the LGBT community and how those records influenced the evolution of the music we listen to today.David Bowie Made Me Gay uncovers the lives of the people who made these records, and offers a lively canter through the scarcely documented history of LGBT music-makers. Darryl W. Bullock discusses how gay, lesbian, and bisexual performers influenced Jazz and Blues; examines the almost forgotten Pansy Craze in the years between the two World Wars (when many LGBT performers were fêted by royalty and Hollywood alike); chronicles the dark years after the depression when gay life was driven deep underground; celebrates the re-emergence of LGBT performers in the post-Stonewall years; and highlights today's most legendary out-gay pop stars: Elton John, Boy George, Freddie Mercury, and George Michael. "Popular music is the great stealth art form, able to slip past our censors and explore all kinds of sexuality in ways closed to print or movies. Darryl Bullock's book is a wonderful encyclopedia of queer music, an encyclopedia with a plot: the history of one hundred years of social change. He not only connects the musical dots, but reveals dots I didn't know existed. Ambitious, wide-ranging, unpredictable, fast-paced, and highly informative, David Bowie Made Me Gay is also very entertaining."--Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters and Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America"From 'Ma' Rainey to Adam Lambert'with Janis Ian, the Village People, k.d. lang, and Pansy Division discussed along the way?David Bowie Made Me Gay is a whirlwind tour through how queer musicians have changed the rhythm and the beat of music and culture for almost one hundred years. Everyone knows that music is sexy, and sex is better with the right music'and LGBT people have been pushing the boundaries of music and sex for decades. The 'soundtrack' for cultural liberation over the decades has been written and performed by gay people'and this book does not miss a beat documenting who, how, and why that happened. A must read for anyone interested in, or fascinated by, music and popular culture."--Michael Bronski, author of A Queer History of the United States and Professor of Practice in Media and Activism, Harvard University"A fun and enlightening read, Darryl Bullock's David Bowie Made Me Gay is to popular music what William J. Mann's Behind the Screen is to Hollywood filmmaking: a convincing account of the hitherto ignored influence of LGBTQ people in a popular medium. Although there are other studies of some of these decades, Bullock's treatment of the past 100 years is an engaging 'one-stop' of many genres--[its] detailed coverage of women's music is welcome--and uniquely inclusive of both the US and UK. A valuable addition to the history of popular music as well as queer studies, and should appeal to general readers of all sexualities."--Vicki L. Eaklor, author of Queer America
Call Number: ML3800 .B957 2017
Links to Other Library Guides
LGBTQIA+ History Month
Books from the Collection: Ma Rainey
- Blues Legacies and Black Feminism by "Jazz, it is widely accepted, is the signal original American contribution to world culture. Angela Davis shows us how the roots of that form in the blues must be viewed not only as a musical tradition but as a life-sustaining vehicle for an alternative black working-class collective memory and social consciousness profoundly at odds with mainstream American middle-class values. And she explains how the tradition of black women blues singers - represented by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday - embodies not only an artistic triumph and aesthetic dominance over a hostile popular music industry but an unacknowledged proto-feminist consciousness within working-class black communities. Through a close and riveting analysis of these artists' performances, words, and lives, Davis uncovers the unmistakable assertion and uncompromising celebration of non-middle-class, non-heterosexual social, moral, and sexual values."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedCall Number: ML3521 .D355 1998
- Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers byCall Number: ML400 .S84
- Mother of the Blues by Briefly portrays the life of the influential blues singer, Ma Rainey, discusses the development of her music, and analyzes the theme of love in her music.Call Number: ML420.R274 L5
Books from the Collection: Britten & Eastman
Gay Guerrilla by
Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York. His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others, assault us with his obsessions. Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as reflected in legendary scandals like his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, and the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University. These episodes are examples of Eastman's persistence in pushing the limits of the acceptable in the highly charged arenas of sexual and civil rights. In addition to analyses of Eastman's music, the essays in Gay Guerrilla provide background on his remarkable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union. kable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union. kable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union. kable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union. can studies, gay rights, and civil rights. Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union.
Call Number: ML410.E21 G39 2015
Letters from a Life by
These remarkable letters, never before published, constitute a comprehensive biography told largely in Britten's own words. Volume 1 accompanies him through prep and English public school and then to London to the Royal College of Music, where the young composer is plunged into metropolitan life and makes influential new friends, among them Auden and Isherwood. This was a time of prodigious musical creativity, a growing awareness of his homosexuality, and the dawning of his political convictions. It was during this time that Britten met Peter Pears, the partner with whom his musical and personal relationship was to last a lifetime. This volume closes in May, 1939, when Britten and Pears depart for the United States. Volume 2 offers an overview of a crucial period in American and British history, politics, and culture. Britten's experience of exile, his return with Pears to England to face recriminations as a Conscientious Objector and prejudice as a brilliant gay artist, and the triumph of his first major opera, Peter Grimes, are all outlined in letters which are a fascinating mix of the public and private. These first two volumes of the Selected Letters and Diaries--a further two are in preparation--make a fundamental contribution to Britten studies and to twentieth-century cultural history.
Call Number: ML410.B853 A4 1991
Music Databases
- Music & Performing ArtsAn audio and video collection for classical, opera, jazz, world, popular music, and American music. Also includes theatre, dance, and film resources.
- Naxos Music LibraryA streaming audio database featuring a comprehensive collection of classical music. Search by composer, artist, label, and more. Includes guides on musical eras and other topical resources.
- Naxos Music Library: JazzA streaming audio database featuring contemporary jazz from around the world. Search by composer, artist, label, and more.
Books from the Collection: Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury by
The music of Queen and powerhouse lead singer Freddie Mercury are best experienced with the volume turned all the way up. Alfonso Casas's Freddie Mercury delivers a sonorous homage to the formidable singer and the turning points that produced a game-changing body of music that continues to inspire fans around the globe. First published in Spain and now available worldwide, this luminous work covers Freddie's three births: his birth as Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar; his adoption of the last name of Mercury and the launch of Queen with Brian May and Roger Taylor; and the emergence of the lasting legend after Freddie's death at the age of forty-five. Casas's evocative illustrations highlight the key moments in the singer's transformation from child prodigy to superstar, bringing to life the bold innovator who broke free of his conventional upbringing. Chronicling events from Freddie's marriage to Mary Austin and early fame in London's 1970s glam scene, to the making of multiple megahits (including the six-minute chart-topper Bohemian Rhapsody), to his final years in a lasting relationship with Jim Hutton, Freddie Mercury is an exhilarating, poignant portrait of a creative genius who lived life to the hilt.
Call Number: ML420.M389 C3713 2020
Mercury by
Revealing and intimate, based on more than 100 interviews with key figures in his life, this is the definitive biography of Queen front man Freddie Mercury, one of pop music's best-loved and most complex figures. A revealing, intimate look at the man who would be Queen. As lead vocalist for the iconic rock band Queen, Freddie Mercury's unmatched skills as a songwriter and his flamboyant showmanship made him a superstar and Queen a household name. But despite his worldwide fame, few people ever really glimpsed the man behind the glittering façade. Now, more than twenty years after his death, those closest to Mercury are finally opening up about this pivotal figure in rock 'n' roll. Based on more than a hundred interviews with key figures in his life, Mercury offers the definitive account of one man's legendary life in the spotlight and behind the scenes. Rock journalist Lesley-Ann Jones gained unprecedented access to Mercury's tribe, and she details Queen's slow but steady rise to fame and Mercury's descent into dangerous, pleasure-seeking excesses--this was, after all, a man who once declared, "Darling, I'm doing everything with everyone." In her journey to understand Mercury, Jones traveled to London, Zanzibar, and India--talking with everyone from Mercury's closest friends to the sound engineer at Band Aid (who was responsible for making Queen even louder than the other bands) to second cousins halfway around the world. In the process, an intimate and complicated portrait emerges. Meticulously researched, sympathetic yet not sensational, Mercury offers an unvarnished look at the extreme highs and lows of life in the fast lane. At the heart of this story is a man...and the music he loved.
Call Number: ML420.M389 J66 2012
Databases
- Archives of Sexuality and GenderFull-text primary source documents on important aspects of LGBTQ life. Documents span from 1940-2014, with the bulk from 1950-1990.
UTK Library only has access to LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 Part 1. - Encyclopedia of Popular MusicCovers popular music of all genres and periods from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music.
- LGBTQ+ SourceFull-text of the most important and historically significant LGBT journals, magazines, newspapers, and books related to gender and sexuality.