Vincent L. Stephens
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042805
- eISBN:
- 9780252051661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042805.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
This chapter explores how Johnny Mathis launched his career successfully by maneuvering the racial and gender norms of the 1950s. Through projecting a culturally respectable, sexually neutral, and ...
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This chapter explores how Johnny Mathis launched his career successfully by maneuvering the racial and gender norms of the 1950s. Through projecting a culturally respectable, sexually neutral, and musically inoffensive persona, marked by visual dandyism, he was appealingly ambiguous. Vocally, Mathis’s sweet tenor sound was somewhat unconventional yet soothing enough to make him a premier interpreter of love songs. Similarly, though jazz, R&B and pop crooning influenced him, his “raceless” sound helped him appeal across races and ages. Culturally, Mathis adheres to the “race man” persona prominent among postwar black male celebrities, but his muted politics and lack of a romantic relationship helped him avoid scandals. His queer black dandy persona has parallels among other performers including Bobby Short and Luther Vandross.Less
This chapter explores how Johnny Mathis launched his career successfully by maneuvering the racial and gender norms of the 1950s. Through projecting a culturally respectable, sexually neutral, and musically inoffensive persona, marked by visual dandyism, he was appealingly ambiguous. Vocally, Mathis’s sweet tenor sound was somewhat unconventional yet soothing enough to make him a premier interpreter of love songs. Similarly, though jazz, R&B and pop crooning influenced him, his “raceless” sound helped him appeal across races and ages. Culturally, Mathis adheres to the “race man” persona prominent among postwar black male celebrities, but his muted politics and lack of a romantic relationship helped him avoid scandals. His queer black dandy persona has parallels among other performers including Bobby Short and Luther Vandross.
Vincent L. Stephens
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042805
- eISBN:
- 9780252051661
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042805.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathias Queered Pop Music examines the way four popular male musicians who emerged in the 1950s, Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, ...
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Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathias Queered Pop Music examines the way four popular male musicians who emerged in the 1950s, Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace challenged post-World War II masculine conventions. Rocking is a critical close reading that fuses queer literary theory, musicology, and popular music studies frameworks to develop its argument. Recent scholarship in queer theory and literary history constitutes a key strand of the book’s discussion of queer ambivalence regarding identity. Notably, the book explores how the four artists challenged male gender and sexual conventions without overtly identifying their respective sexual orientations or necessarily affiliating with gay activism, identity politics, or community tropes. The book outlines the emergence of postwar social expectations of male figures and employs these expectations to define a unique a set of five “queering” tools the four musicians employed in various combinations, to develop their public personae and build audiences. These tools include self-neutering, self-domesticating, spectacularizing, playing the “freak,” and playing the race card. Despite the prevalence of postwar gender norms, their deft use of these tools enabled each artist to develop sexually ambiguous personae and capitalize on the postwar audiences’ attraction to novelty and difference. These “queering” tools endure among contemporary musicians who challenge masculine conventions in popular music.Less
Rocking the Closet: How Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathias Queered Pop Music examines the way four popular male musicians who emerged in the 1950s, Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace challenged post-World War II masculine conventions. Rocking is a critical close reading that fuses queer literary theory, musicology, and popular music studies frameworks to develop its argument. Recent scholarship in queer theory and literary history constitutes a key strand of the book’s discussion of queer ambivalence regarding identity. Notably, the book explores how the four artists challenged male gender and sexual conventions without overtly identifying their respective sexual orientations or necessarily affiliating with gay activism, identity politics, or community tropes. The book outlines the emergence of postwar social expectations of male figures and employs these expectations to define a unique a set of five “queering” tools the four musicians employed in various combinations, to develop their public personae and build audiences. These tools include self-neutering, self-domesticating, spectacularizing, playing the “freak,” and playing the race card. Despite the prevalence of postwar gender norms, their deft use of these tools enabled each artist to develop sexually ambiguous personae and capitalize on the postwar audiences’ attraction to novelty and difference. These “queering” tools endure among contemporary musicians who challenge masculine conventions in popular music.
Vincent L. Stephens
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042805
- eISBN:
- 9780252051661
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042805.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace are symbols of a hidden history of postwar queer masculinity. The chapter explores how queerness defied gender expectations of white men and ...
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Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace are symbols of a hidden history of postwar queer masculinity. The chapter explores how queerness defied gender expectations of white men and black men, who were also expected to be “race men.” After outlining the enduring presence of queer masculinities in U.S. popular culture, especially film, the chapter outlines five discernible queering tools the musicians employ in various ways to convey their sexually elusive personae. The chapter situates the artists and tools in Christopher Nealon and Heather Love’s anti-teleological theories of queer history combined with musicological arguments by Phillip Brett and Nadine Hubbs about the unique relationship between queerness and musical expression.Less
Johnnie Ray, Little Richard, Johnny Mathis, and Liberace are symbols of a hidden history of postwar queer masculinity. The chapter explores how queerness defied gender expectations of white men and black men, who were also expected to be “race men.” After outlining the enduring presence of queer masculinities in U.S. popular culture, especially film, the chapter outlines five discernible queering tools the musicians employ in various ways to convey their sexually elusive personae. The chapter situates the artists and tools in Christopher Nealon and Heather Love’s anti-teleological theories of queer history combined with musicological arguments by Phillip Brett and Nadine Hubbs about the unique relationship between queerness and musical expression.
Jon Burlingame
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199863303
- eISBN:
- 9780199979981
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199863303.003.0013
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, American
Because the new Bond film was shot mostly in France, John Barry could return to the franchise and scored Moonraker — about a villain who has built an entire space station above Earth — in Paris. His ...
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Because the new Bond film was shot mostly in France, John Barry could return to the franchise and scored Moonraker — about a villain who has built an entire space station above Earth — in Paris. His grand plans for a 2-LP set to be recorded by the Orchestre de Paris while the film was still being made, however, came to naught. Paul Williams wrote the original lyric to Barry's “Moonraker” melody and were to be sung by Frank Sinatra. Those plans fell through, however, and Johnny Mathis sang the Williams lyric, only to see both words and recording scrapped as subpar. Hal David wrote a new lyric at the last minute, and Shirley Bassey sang the song in Los Angeles just weeks before the premiere of the film in June 1979.Less
Because the new Bond film was shot mostly in France, John Barry could return to the franchise and scored Moonraker — about a villain who has built an entire space station above Earth — in Paris. His grand plans for a 2-LP set to be recorded by the Orchestre de Paris while the film was still being made, however, came to naught. Paul Williams wrote the original lyric to Barry's “Moonraker” melody and were to be sung by Frank Sinatra. Those plans fell through, however, and Johnny Mathis sang the Williams lyric, only to see both words and recording scrapped as subpar. Hal David wrote a new lyric at the last minute, and Shirley Bassey sang the song in Los Angeles just weeks before the premiere of the film in June 1979.
