20
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE FEBRUARY 9, 1996
EVENINGS OUT
With nothing to lose, they sang the Sissy Man Blues
by Sukie de la Croix There's two things got me puzzled There's two things I don't understand; That's a mannish-actin' woman, And a skippin', twistin' woman-actin' man.
So sang Bessie Smith in her self-penned criticism of butch dykes and effeminate men, "Foolish Man Blues," recorded in 1927. And yet this daughter of a Baptist preacher, born in 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was no stranger to the ways of Sappho. Not only did she sleep with several female members of her performing troupe, but she was also a good friend of male impersonator Gladys Fergusson and gay composer Porter Grainger.
Bessie Smith was introduced to the world of women-lovin' women by Ma Rainey. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, eight years her senior, was a portly woman with a rough goldtoothed charm. She was the first known female singer to sing in the less polished, earthier style of the male blues minstrels who roamed the streets and back roads of the southern states of America. Bessie Smith once said, "I know women that don't like men; it's dirty but good, oh yes." The bisexuality of Bessie Smith has been much written about, but what of the other lesbian blues singers and their songs? And what about gay men?
On February 14, 1920, Mamie Smith walked into the New York studios of the Okeh Record Company and recorded a song called "That Thing Called Love”—the first recording of a black person's voice. In the words of "Grandmama of the Blues" Alberta Hunter, "Mamie made it possible for all of us."
That first recording gave a voice to the black women of America, and they used it with a vengeance to document the brutality
of their own lives-almost exclusively at the hands of men. Armed with this new-found independence, many of these singers adopted "anti-social" behavior that sometimes alienated them from their own subculture.
One form of "anti-social" behavior that blossomed with the rise of black women singers was sexual experimentation. Driven by the power to com-
municate their feelings to the black record-buying public, and with a growing mistrust of men, la-
eling in stories of alcoholism and drug abuse, choose to ignore the sexuality of their subjects. But in 1920s and 1930s America, lesbianism and homosexuality, although frowned upon by the black community at large, were tolerated in the clubs and dives of Chicago, New Orleans, and New York.
So what happened to the blues? Sadly, the forces of Christian morality bleached it whiter than white, then handed it over to the likes of Frank Sinatra.
tent desires bubbled to the surface. Check out the lyrics of Bessie Jackson's (a.k.a. Lucille Bogan), “B.D. (Bull-Dyke) Women Blues":
Comin'a time, B.D. women, they ain't gonna need no men. (Twice)
The way they treat us is a low down and dirty shame.
B.D. women, they done laid their claim. (Twice)
They can lay their jive just like a natch 'l man
Or Ma Rainey's outrageous challenge to the straight world to "Prove It On Me":
Went out last night with a crowd of my friends.
They must have been women, 'cause I don't like no men.
It's true I wear a collar and a tie. Makes the wind blow all the while. Yeah, I do it.
But ain't nobody caught me Sure got to prove it on me
Most blues and jazz historians, while rev-
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But whatever the historians would have us believe, it's a fact that no other form of recorded folk song has ever been as sexually explicit as the blues. What other music would pose the question, "What's That Smells Like
Fish?" Or what woman would sing, “If I Can't Sell It, I'll Keep Sittin On It (Before I Give It Away)?" To be sure, the lyrics may be offensive to those of us listening today, but it would be an injustice to the history of black people to merely write them off as sexist. And so, unflattering words like "fish" were used to describe women, "jelly roll" for sex and "freak, fairy, mellow, sissy and drag,” for gay men.
As is often the case when researching gay men's history, I came up against a brick wall when I tried to find out more about George Hannah, an openly gay blues singer. Luckily for us, at least two of his recordings are known to exist. Check out the lyrics to "Freakish Man Blues":
She call me a freakish man, what more was there to do? (Twice)
Just 'cause she said I was strange, that did not make it true.
I say you mix ink with water, you bound to turn it black, (Twice)
You run around with "funny" people, you'll get a streak running up your back
George Hannah was a rare example of an openly gay man singing songs about his sexuality, but there are many examples of homosexuality being mentioned by supposedly "straight" singers. Josh White achieved his greatest success singing in Manhattan East Side in-group clubs, where his good looks made him a sex symbol. He was also married with five children, but that didn't stop him recording the classic "Sissy Man Blues." In the song he complains about losing his "gal," so he sets out to find another one with little success. In a state of heightened sexual frustration, he sings:
I woke up this morning
With my "poor kinda business" in my hand (Twice)
God, if you can't send me no woman, Then send me a sissy man.
In another song a woman complains that her man has been stolen away from her:
I dreamed last night I was far from harm, Woke up and found my man in a sissy's arms. Now all the people ask me why I'm all alone, A sissy shook that thing and took my man from home.
So what happened to the blues? Sadly, the forces of Christian morality bleached it whiter than white, then handed it over to the likes of Frank Sinatra. And the homophobia, sexism and anti-Semitism of some gangsta rap music today seems a very poor substitute for the outspoken songs of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and all the other blues singers. Maybe Bob Dylan was right when he sang, “When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose." Artists like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and George Hannah-a poor black homosexual blues singer in the racist America of the 1920s and 1930s—had nothing to lose. ✔
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