SYLVESTER
flamboyant. fearless. fabulous.
Before gender-bending pop musicians like Prince, Boy George, Annie Lenox, Madonna, RuPaul, or Lady Gaga made their mark, there was iconic dance music sensation SYLVESTER.
A musical force-of-nature famous for his soaring falsetto and flamboyant image, Sylvester rocketed to #1 on the pop charts in 1978 with the irresistible dance-floor anthem "You Make Me Feel Mighty Real"—a song that music journalist Robert Christgau once called “one of those surges of sustained, stylized energy that is disco's great gift to pop music.”
But Sylvester —born Sylvester James in late 1940s Los Angeles —staged a fourteen-year professional career that was much more complex than that singular disco classic alone.
A superb musician, songwriter and producer, Sylvester made sophisticated music that spanned styles and genres like gospel, blues, R&B, glam, rock, and jazz. Over the course of his career, he racked up 24 Top 40 singles on Billboard’s combined Dance, R&B, and Pop Charts, including favorites like “Dance Disco Heat,” “Do You Wanna Funk” and “Someone Like You.”
Sylvester won many of the industry’s top honors, and in 1979, Billboard honored Sylvester as Disco Artist of the Year—an award that takes on special significance when you consider that it was presented during the height of disco’s mainstream popularity. Famed for his mesmerizing live shows, he packed clubs and stadiums worldwide, from New York’s Madison Square Garden to London’s Hammersmith Odeon. In March 1979, at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, Sylvester performed a memorable show that was later immortalized on his hit Living Proof live double album set and still stands as a testament to his galvanizing on-stage prowess.
In the early 1970s Sylvester fronted his own group, Sylvester and the Hot Band, performing bluesy soul and rock on two consecutive albums for Blue Thumb Records. By 1977 he signed to Fantasy Records and brought two plus-size background singers with heavenly voices on board: Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes of Two Tons o’ Fun.
That same year, Sylvester’s eponymous debut became an underground sleeper. But it was 1978’s Step II that produced the monstrous hit “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real”—it was the perfect showcase for Sylvester’s spine-tingling gospel scream and keyboardist Patrick Cowley’s innovative, arpeggiating synthesizers. After three more Fantasy Records albums, Sylvester signed to Megatone Records where he and Patrick Cowley again collaborated on the massive 1982 club anthem “Do You Wanna Funk,” a high-adrenalin stomper that inaugurated the hi-NRG sound and paved the way for future electro-pop. After a final release for Warner Brothers, Sylvester’s life was tragically cut short in 1988 when he passed away from AIDS at age forty-one.
In simply refusing to be anything other his authentic self, Sylvester helped mainstream gay culture and identity long before celebrated artists like K.D. Lang and Melissa Etheridge came out of the closet. By 1971, Sylvester had moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco and joined the mind-blowing drag-hippie troupe, The Cockettes. In the Bay Area, he embraced the gay-liberation movement and headlined queer events. Throughout the years, Sylvester’s annual performances at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade would become the stuff of legend.
By the late 1970s, Sylvester was arguably the first openly gay artist in disco music and he was one of the first and only openly gay artists in all of R&B, long before artists like Frank Ocean made headlines doing the same. Even today, at the time of this writing, there are few openly gay recording artists with mainstream careers. Yet in his heyday, Sylvester appeared on popular programs like American Bandstand, Soul Train, The Merv Griffin Show, Dinah Shore and BBC’s Top of the Pops. Dressed in drag, Sylvester was also unabashedly feminine, although totally comfortable in his masculinity. He refused to alter his androgynous image, even though he knew it made him less marketable to the masses. Subversive, sassy and irreverent, he was truly a magnanimous personality.
Sylvester was also a trailblazer in areas beyond sexuality. In 1982, he was one of the first black artists to have a video played on MTV. He was Joan Rivers' headline act on The Tonight Show’s New Year’s Eve special in 1986. And by the late 1980s, Sylvester was a galvanizing figure in the movement for tolerance and compassion for those living with AIDS. At a time when disclosure of the disease was still taboo, he courageously revealed his condition by being pushed down Market Street in a wheel chair at San Francisco's Gay Pride Day. He spoke openly about his condition to the press before figures like Magic Johnson and Arthur Ashe did the same.
Twenty-five years after his passing, Sylvester is still adored by legions of his worldwide fans, and the appeal of his music remains fresh. In 2004, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame. That same year, Sylvester's extraordinary life and music became the focus of "Sylvester: The Life and Work of a Musical Icon," a well-attended two-day conference at New York University’s Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music, featuring panel discussions, film screenings and concerts. In September 2005, Sylvester himself was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his unprecedented achievements and Joshua Gamson's authorized biography The Fabulous Sylvester was published to critical acclaim. Sylvester was also featured as a character in Gus Van Sant's 2009 Oscar-winning drama Milk. The subject of a popular 2011 episode of TV One’s “Unsung” R&B documentary series, Sylvester is regularly cited as an inspiration by today's queer and queer-friendly pop recording stars like Lady Gaga and Sam Sparro.
Sylvester is, arguably, the preeminent African-American gay entertainment icon of the 20th century. His life was a testimony that it is up to each of us, regardless of our sexual orientation or color, to live an authentic life: to be ourselves in the face of stigmas and shame, and to live honestly and openly about who we are. Indeed, more people around the world - gay, straight, black, white and beyond - should know the impressive and inspirational life story and musical legacy of this trailblazing artist and cultural hero.
-- Dr. Jason King, The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, New York University, 2013.