He was signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records in 1969 and recorded two albums on that label: That’s The Way God Planned It and Encouraging Words. It was released on Sam Cooke’s SAR Records. He did session and touring keyboard work for The Beatles (and later on George Harrison), Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Little Richard, and Ray Charles. He released his debut album when he was 16, 16 Year Old Soul. He was a Christian and that made it hard for him to come out of the closet and he didn’t come out until right before his death. As a kid, he played organ backing gospel singers Mahalia Jackson and James Cleveland. He grew up listening to gospel music and that had an influence on his singing. He passed away in 2003.īilly Preston – gay – R&B and soul singer and session musician. Some claim that the reason he left the US was because people didn’t accept his sexuality. In the 70s, he moved to the UK and later the Netherlands and changed his name to Lee Roberts. Otis Redding was so impressed with it that he signed him to his record label, Jotis Records. In 1964, he released the song “I’m a Lonely Stranger”. Paul Kossoff formed Back Street Crawler, but died at the age of 25.Īrthur Conley – gay – Soul singer best known for the 1967 hit “Sweet Soul Music” (#2 US), which was a remake of Sam Cooke’s “Yeah Man”. Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke went on to join Bad Company. The band went on to play at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 and were considered hard rock pioneers. Still aged 15, he got his first big gig playing bass for John Mayall. One day, he was introduced to Alexis Korner, who basically was a mentor to him. He was expelled from school at 15 and started playing in East End West Indian venues. He was born in London to a Caribbean father and an English mother and started playing piano at the age of 5 and trained classically for 7 years before switching to guitar. He co-wrote and produced the band’s biggest hit, “All Right Now” and the song came out just before his 18th birthday. This is the most popular post on the blog and I am very proud of this post! Thank you for reading! Enjoy!Īlice de Buhr – lesbian – Drummer for the band Fanny.Īndy Fraser – gay – Bassist and founding member of Free. There has been quite a bit of demand for it, so I will deliver. Note: I have since updated this post to include LGBT musicians from the 80s. In honour of that I want to talk about my favourite LGBT musicians from the 60s and 70s.
Thank you to all of the people who voted yes. This is a huge step in the right direction. I am writing this post from Ireland, where people voted on a referendum for marriage equality. Many of these musicians are people you’ve heard of.Ĭlassic rock is for all to enjoy, no matter your sexual orientation. Many lesbian, gay, bi, and trans rock musicians were in the closet for years or even decades before coming out. The first bisexual rock star was Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a rock and roll pioneer. For information call 77 or see the Web site, have been many musicians over the years who have openly identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender in classic rock.
Events include a zoo tour and musical excursions to the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park. "And I realized they're going to be lost."ĬhicagoGayTours.Com will offer more than a dozen tours and events in the next few months. "I developed a passion for these stories," he says. In search of Chicago's gay history, de la Croix has interviewed bar-goers in alleys. "There would be cops outside with a flashlight checking to see if they had their flies in front," which was considered a masculine style, de la Croix says.
Police enforced an old cross-dressing law that required women to wear three items of "female apparel." In the frantic early minutes of a raid, some women would run to the bathroom and trade clothes in an attempt to achieve the legally mandated minimum of women's attire. In the 1960s, lesbian bars were subjected to a particular form of police scrutiny. A few blocks away is a lesbian bar that opened in 1965. Across the street was the now defunct Blue Pub, which de la Croix has traced back to at least 1971. Irving Park Rd., was part of a triangle of gay bars.