GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
JUNE 20, 1997
Evenings Out
Songs in the key of 44-GG
Blues and rockabilly singer Candye Kane brings her life as a porn star to her music
by Doreen Cudnik
Cleveland-Fans of blues and rockabilly music may not think that a fat, bisexual, Xrated welfare mom from Southern California would have much in common with the likes of Bessie Smith, Aretha Franklin, and Alberta Hunter. But ex-porn star Candye Kane delivers the goods time and time again, proving that she is deserving of a place among such distinguished company.
Her latest CD from Discovery Records, Diva la Grande, is a collection of fun, infectious tracks-most written by Kane herself— that showcases a voice and heart even bigger than the 44-GG breasts that helped make her famous.
While the album contains songs like "You Need A Great Big Woman," and the deliberately tongue-in-cheek "All You Can Eat (and You Can Eat It All Night Long)" don't be fooled-this Candye is much more than just empty calories.
"I feel like Diva la Grande is a perfect blend of blues, swing, and hillbilly music," Kane says in the album's liner notes. “[It's] music that I'm proud to play."
Kane will give Clevelanders an opportunity to start the holiday weekend off with a bang when she brings her live show to Wilbert's Bar & Grille in Cleveland on Thursday, July 3.
Some of the finest musicians in the business were assembled to work on this album. Rockabilly greats Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys sing with Kane on her tribute to the Lone Star state, "I Left My Heart in Texas;" and Toni Price ateams up with Kane on the S/M-tinged, hillbilly/Cajun version of the 1960s Nancy Sinatra hit "These Boots Were Made For Walkin."" And, as in her live shows, Kane is joined on Diva by her band The Swingin' Armadillos, featuring the beehive-wearing lesbian keyboardist Sue Palmer.
One of the few white girls in the East Los Angeles barrio where she grew up, Kane was forced to deal with size issues when at age 14 her breasts made their appearance and showed no signs of slowing down.
"It was horrible," Kane said, "All the older men were always slobbering over me and the girls would be like, "Oh my God!"
Like many of the young girls in her neighborhood, she became pregnant at sixteen with the first of two children. She got work as a phone-sex operator, then after her son was born, did gigs as a stripper, porn actress and cover girl for the porn magazines Hustler, Gent, and naturally, the breast-oriented pub-
lication Jugs.
With the help of her mom and dad, who watched her young son while she went on strip tours, Kane's life began to change.
"All of a sudden I was on the cover of magazines and getting fan mail and getting invited to go on airplanes, which was something I had never done before," Kane said. "I'm getting invited to go to Hawaii and Canada and New York and strip live. I'm
making $2,500 a week. I'm able to get off welfare, and I'm living a life that I never thought I could live."
She credits the support of her family, and the support of her network of friends in the Los Angeles music scene with helping her keep her life as a porn star in perspective.
Candye Kane
"My family didn't want me to be a stripper and a porn star-no way they wanted me to sing. But they were supportive," she said. "So I didn't get involved in the seedy, drug and prostitution part of the sex business. I just did my job, and then I went back home and took care of my son and wrote songs."
Kane's success in the adult entertainment industry empowered her to pursue her lifelong dream of a career in music.
"I thought, God, if I can get this much attention with my boobs, imagine how much attention I could get with my voice."
Needless to say, Kane didn't fit neatly into any particular musical category. She tried her hand at country, but found it to be too stifling and hypocritical.
She eventually found a home in the blues and rockabilly arena, even though some purists labeled her "too country."
As a bisexual woman, Kane was attracted to the historic legacy of blues women who were outspoken about their sexuality.
"The difference between blues and country is that in country, there are gay people and there are people who have been on welfare, and people who have been in prison, and people who are strippers, but most of them lie about it and cover it up," Kane said. "In the blues, there are the same kind of people, but they're not lying about it. They're writing songs about it, and singing about it.”
One example Kane gave was that of country music superstar Dolly Parton, who has for years been rumored to be bisexual, if not a lesbian.
"Personally, I know Dolly Parton is gay," Kane said. "But in country music, Dolly's forced to keep her sexuality under the rug because too many of the Bible-thumpers would say she was a heathen. Personally, I
think she could come out of the closet and the queers would embrace her. But for her stability, I think she likes to stay the way she is."
[In the July 1997 issue of Out magazine, Parton insists, "I'm not the least bit gay," and says of her constant companion Judy Ogle, "We're not lovers. IfI was gay, I'd certainly never find finer person than Judy as a mate."]
Kane proved the blues purists wrong when she was included in the House of Blues compilation CD, Thirty Essential Women of Blues, released this past January.
"No one was more surprised than me,” Kane said. "I often make jokes like, 'I thought I was fucking my way to the top, but I guess I fucked the wrong people.' " Now I make a joke, 'I was fucking my way to the top and I must have fucked someone right because I ended up on this compilation.'
"To be on a CD like this, I guess it proves that I am bluesy after all."
Kane makes it a point to come out as bisexual at every live show.
"One of the reasons I feel compelled to come out is because I see every day the bravery of my gay friends," Kane said. "I see that they can be bashed and killed just for looking gay, they don't even have to be gay. And all the while I can go out and be like a fag-hag or go and hang out with my dyke friends and be gay for a night, then come home to my safe life and drive my station wagon with my two kids. So I see that I have this safety net that they don't have, and so I admire them for being out every day of their lives."
She also sees her being out as a way to break down stereotypes about queer people, and to build communities among groups that might not think they have much in common.
"I think people come to the show with a lot of stereotypes in mind. One of them may be
that queers are freaks. So if I come out and say
this is how I am, then maybe they realize compared to me, most of their gay and bisexual friends are normal. Because I am pretty freaky!
"I like to think that I bridge a gap sometimes between the solid blues people, and the solid rockabilly people, and the queer community. It's really rewarding for me to see in a crowd lesbians and drag queens alongside bikers and rockabilly kids and fat women and the men or women who love them and porn fans. I think if you went up to the average feminist lesbian and said, 'What do you have in common with male porn fans?' they'll say, 'Nothing.' But at my show they have something in common because they love the music."
Having been a queer woman on the inside of the pornography business, Kane naturally has some comments about what is good and bad about the industry.
"For me, it was a positive experience in that I was a fat girl in a thin world," Kane said, "but there's a lot of problems with the pornography business. One is that it's all run by straight males, so it appeals to a very small segment of the population and leaves out most of us. But in some ways the pornography industry has acknowledged that certain groups that are alienated by this culture are attractive, like fat women and women over forty."
Another positive aspect of pornography, Kane said, is that it can be "very therapeutic for many people on many levels."
"If you're a disabled person or you live a very isolated life, or maybe just a very busy life, certainly pornography can be an outlet for you. And in the age of AIDS, we need to be looking at alternative ways of sexual expression.
"But the problem is that the sex business has taken this beautiful thing like sex and intimacy and turned it into this dark, sleazy and Continued on page 21