The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture From the Margins to the Mainstream
“The Secret Public is an astounding achievement.”
The Secret Public is a massive chronicle of the relationship between changes in urban gay culture in Great Britain and the United States and changes in popular music. Alternating chapters cover the rise of queer consciousness and politics and the influence of queer people (mostly men) on popular music from 1950s rock and roll to the death of disco in the late 1970s.
Jon Savage’s history is bookended by two queer Black performers, Little Richard in the mid-1950s and Sylvester in the late 1970s. The “pivot point” of the book is the moment in 1972 when David Bowie came out publicly, “I’m gay and always have been.” Bowie was really bisexual, but his openness was a crucial moment in pop music’s own liberation, an opening of the closet doors for queer performers. It could not have happened without two momentous social changes: the lifting of Draconian anti-gay legislation in Great Britain in 1967 and the gay political consciousness that followed the Stonewall Riots in New York in 1969.
The subtext of Savage’s history is the relationship of pop music and queerness with the politics of race in America. Little Richard’s ascent came with the rise of rock and roll, which had its roots in Black gospel and rhythm and blues. Its danger, for many at the time, was in its racial crossover. Add to that, the gay subtext of Little Richard’s persona and some of his lyrics. As Savage puts it: “honed in the dives and drag bars of the American South and informed by the sexual underground, Richard’s lyrics were a deliberate provocation.” So were his appearance and performing style: “It was the breakthrough sound of freedom, couched in extreme androgyny.”
At the same time, Johnny Ray, a mix of white and Native American genes, was offering cheering teenage girls a surfeit of histrionics with his hit song, “Cry.” Ray offered an emotionalism that rebelled against the macho restraint expected of men in the 1950s. Teenage girls on both sides of the Atlantic loved it, but Ray was brought down by the new power of the scandal magazines who reported on his drag appearance at a Detroit gay bar. Magazines like Confidential are important minor characters in Savage’s story. They were eager to expose any violations against conventional masculinity.
At the end of his saga, Savage compares the rise and fall of the Village People with the rise of openly gay, Black singer, Sylvester. Both had hits at the tail end of the disco era. Disco is an important chapter in Savage’s history as it moved from Black, Latino, and gay clubs into exclusive, celebrity-filled spaces like Studio 54. Ironically, disco, “a very popular music form shaped and consumed by gay people, one that had helped them develop a highly noticeable lifestyle,” had few records made by gay people. The Village People, created by a French producer and a Moroccan lyricist, were comprised of gay types of a period when macho styles were in fashion for gay men. The gay subtext of their songs—“Macho Man,” “YMCA,” “In the Navy”—weren’t very subtle. Somehow, The Village People became more popular with straight audiences (note Trump’s use of “YMCA” at his rallies). The most famous film of the disco era, Saturday Night Live, produced by gay Robert Stigwood, placed disco into “a prejudiced, white suburban context” and disavowed homosexuality.
Meanwhile Sylvester, who came up in gay groups like The Cockettes, was “one of the first artists in rock-era America to be honest about his sexuality. Earlier, David Bowie and others “played around with the possibilities of masculinity from a heterosexual or bisexual perspective.” Sylvester’s hit “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” was a celebration of gay sexual freedom and emotion.
Savage organizes his history around five particular moments in the history of queer people and pop music. The section on 1955 includes not only Little Richard and Johnny Ray, but also bisexual James Dean and heterosexual Elvis Presley, who was “a lightning rod for American fears about juvenile delinquency, race and deviant sexuality.”
Savage jumps to Great Britain in 1961, when “Johnny Remember Me,” sung by John Leyton, was at the top of the hit parade. Leyton was straight, but the sexual ambiguity of a man singing that lyric leads Savage into a discussion of how pop music in the 1960s was influenced by gay managers and producers like Robert Stigwood, Larry Parnes, and Brian Epstein. These men influenced the look and style of a number of successful performers.
The chapters on 1967 and 1973 focus on Andy Warhol, who bridged the worlds of pop art, film, and music. The 1970s were also the era of David Bowie and glam rock. Finally, Savage discusses the age of disco, the soundtrack of gay clubs.
Along the way, Savage offers a history of gay politics before and after Stonewall. Music is a crucial form of resistance against various forms of social repression, and backstage and onstage, gay people, particularly gay men play an important role. The only female performers who are discussed at length are Dusty Springfield, Jania Joplin, and Janis Ian.
At the intermission of a Chicago White Sox game on July 12, 1977, a crate holding 5,000 disco records was blown up center field, leading to 7,000 white young men rioting. The event was the apex of an anti-disco movement promoted by white disc jockeys who saw disco as feminine and gay and celebrated more masculine, straight rock music. At its core was homophobia. A few months later, 100,000 people participated in the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Savage ends his story there. One can only hope that there is a sequel that will bring us up to the present.
The Secret Public is an astounding achievement. Few volumes on queer history and culture have taken on as much as Savage has here. Savage has decades of first-hand knowledge and has supported it with an enormous amount of research. All this is made exciting by his love of his topic. Savage’s combination of solid history and sincere enthusiasm carry the reader through its 700-plus pages. For Savage, pop music is all about freedom. While that freedom for queer people has been an uphill struggle, it is worthy of celebration. The Secret Public is required reading for anyone interested in queer history and popular music.