Sylvester by Michael Zagaris
via Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Join Dene and Sam in the Cheap Seats for one last time as we travel to San Francisco for a spoken-word tribute to Sylvester, the Queen of Disco.

Sylvester was an early founder of the black, cross-dressing and trans women group ‘The Discuotays’. Later, he joined the drag troupe ‘The Cockettes’ and went on to enjoy a successful solo singing career with the disco-hit (and JOY anthem!) ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ in 1978.  Sylvester died in 1988 at the age of 41.

In 2013 the San Francisco Public Library hosted a night of poetry and readings about disco, dance and love in tribute to Sylvester, marking the 25th anniversary of his death.  Our host is Oakland poet Marvin K White, and he is joined by Jaime Cortez, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano and Joel Barraquiel Tan, who is better known as Sister Baba Ganesh of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:57 — 22.0MB)