Darryl W. Bullock

From the very beginning, the blues has had a close connection with the LGBTQ community. There is a long and decorated history of so-called 'dirty blues' songs, stretching back beyond the earliest attempts to capture the blues on record. The 1920s and 30s saw the release of dozens of raunchy, bawdy blues recordings aimed at a knowing LGBTQ audience. Queer Blues tells the story of the pioneering LGBTQ composers and entertainers that wrote, performed and recorded these wonderfully outlandish, life-affirming songs and chronicles, including: Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Josephine Baker to Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon and many more. This is the definitive account of the LGBTQ trailblazers of early blues and a fascinating consideration of the intersection between music and LGBTQ history, from the award-winning Darryl W. Bullock.

Author of the Penderyn Prize-winning The Velvet Mafia Fifty years on from Britain's first Pride march, the long road to LGBT equality continues. Through protest songs and gay club nights, street theatre activism and fundraising concerts, the performing arts have played an influential role in each great stride made. With new interviews with musicians and DJs, performers and activists, including Andy Bell, Jayne County, John Grant, Horse McDonald and Peter Tachell, Pride, Pop and Politics hears from those whose art has been influenced by the campaign for LGBT rights - and helped push it forward. This informative, eye-opening book is the first to focus on the relationship between gay nightlife and political activism in Britain.

‘Lovingly detailed and exhaustively researched – easily the most readable and comprehensive guide I've seen to this fascinating hidden history’ Tom Robinson, musician, broadcaster and long-time LGBT rights activist From Sia to Elton John, Dusty Springfield to Little Richard, LGBT voices have changed the course of modern music. But in a world before they gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who came after? Pulling back the curtain on the colourful world that shaped our musical and cultural landscape, Darryl W. Bullock reveals the inspiring and often heartbreaking stories of internationally renowned stars, as well as lesser-known names, who have led the revolution from all corners of the globe. David Bowie Made Me Gay is a treasure trove of moving and provocative stories that emphasise the right to be heard and the need to keep up the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Joe Meek. Wayward genius; the British Phil Spector, the first producer to treat the recording studio as an instrument; head of one of the earliest independent record labels; creator of some of the most incredibly influential pop music ever, including 'Telstar', the first American number one single by a British band; and a man tormented by mental health issues and financial battles. He was all these and more, as author Darryl W. Bullock reveals through numerous original interviews with friends and colleagues in his compelling biography of the legendary producer. Love and Fury takes readers on a guided tour of Meek's fabled Holloway Road studio, examines the recordings issued during his lifetime, looks at the wealth of unreleased material he left behind - the legendary Tea Chest tapes, rumoured to include recordings by David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Ray Davies of the Kinks and others - and examines that events which ultimately led to murder and suicide.

‘Lovingly detailed and exhaustively researched – easily the most readable and comprehensive guide I've seen to this fascinating hidden history’ Tom Robinson, musician, broadcaster and long-time LGBT rights activist From Sia to Elton John, Dusty Springfield to Little Richard, LGBT voices have changed the course of modern music. But in a world before they gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who came after? Pulling back the curtain on the colourful world that shaped our musical and cultural landscape, Darryl W. Bullock reveals the inspiring and often heartbreaking stories of internationally renowned stars, as well as lesser-known names, who have led the revolution from all corners of the globe. David Bowie Made Me Gay is a treasure trove of moving and provocative stories that emphasise the right to be heard and the need to keep up the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Winner of the prestigious Penderyn Music Book Prize 2022 In the fifties and sixties, in the period leading up to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality and the founding of the Gay Liberation movement, a group of gay men behind the scenes of rock'n'roll was changing pop, politics and society for good. Through a mix of new interviews and contemporary reports, Darryl W. Bullock shines a light on the lives of the so-called 'Velvet Mafia', including impresario Larry Parnes, Beatles manager Brian Epstein, songwriter Lionel Bart, record producer Joe Meek, and Bee Gees and Cream manager Robert Stigwood. Compelling and enlightening, The Velvet Mafia explores how the LGBT professionals at the heart of the music industry were working together and supporting each other at a time when being homosexual could mean the end of your career - or much worse.

From Sia to Elton John, from Billie Holiday to David Bowie, LGBT musicians have changed the course of modern music. But before their music--and the messages behind it--gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who would follow them? David Bowie Made Me Gay is the first book to cover the breadth of history of recorded music by and for the LGBT community.Darryl W. Bullock reveals the stories of both famous and lesser-known LGBT musicians, whose perseverance against the threat of persecution during decades of political and historical turmoil--including two world wars, Stonewall, and the AIDS crisis--has led to some of the most significant and soul-searching music of the last century. Bullock chronicles these struggles through new interviews and archival reports, dating from the birth of jazz in the red-light district of New Orleans, through the rock 'n' roll years, Swinging Sixties, and disco days of the '70s, right up to modern pop, electronica, and reggae. An entertaining treasure-trove of untold history for all music lovers, David Bowie Made Me Gay is an inspiring, nostalgic, and provocative story of right to be heard and the need to keep the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Raised in poverty on an Iowa farm, the Cherry Sisters had little education and no training. But they possessed a burning desire to take to the stage and show the world what they could do--and what they could do was awful. Their unique act was "so bad it was good." When the sisters took the stage, they were met with rotten fruit and vegetables, festering meat, dead cats… Riots often broke out after (and sometimes during) their concerts, but they carried on, changing attitudes--and laws--along the way. This book follows the five women through their forty-year career in vaudeville theaters across the U.S. Proud, fearless and fiercely independent in a time when women were treated as second-class citizens, the Cherry Sisters insisted that their voices be heard.

'Darryl Bullock's timely biography - delightfully cheering' Alexander McCall Smith, Guardian Madame Jenkins couldn't carry a tune in a bucket: despite that, in 1944 at the age of 76, she played Carnegie Hall to a capacity audience and had celebrity fans by the score. Her infamous 1940s recordings are still highly-prized today. In his well-researched and thoroughly entertaining biography, Darryl W. Bullock tells of Florence Foster Jenkins meteoric rise to success and the man who stood beside her, through every sharp note. Florence was ridiculed for her poor control of timing, pitch, and tone, and terrible pronunciation of foreign lyrics, but the sheer entertainment value of her caterwauling packed out theatres around the United States, with the 'singer' firmly convinced of her own talent, partly thanks to the devoted attention from her husband and manager St Clair Bayfield. Her story is one of triumph in the face of adversity, of courage, conviction and of the belief that with dedication and commitment a true artist can achieve anything. With a major Hollywood movie about her life out now (starring Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant and Simon Helberg), the genius of Florence Foster Jenkins is about to be discovered by a whole new audience. 'The first full biography of Foster Jenkins' Clemency Burton-Hill, BBC 'Listening to her pathetic bleating is something like eavesdropping on a padded cell inmate' Billboard magazine