Out Spotlight XXXX

Today's spotlight is singer, showman, Disco Drag Diva Sylvester.

Born Sylvester James, September 6, 1948, Sylvester is best known as disco and soul musician, and a gay drag performer. Best know for the one of the greatest dance songs and anthems You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) He performed under only his first name, Sylvester. Known for singing in falsetto (despite a rich baritone voice), he is also considered one of the first Hi-NRG artists. He was raised by his grandmother, the jazz singer Julia Morgan. Sylvester was the first 'male diva' of disco.

He lived in San Francisco in the 1960s, performing in a musical production called Women of the Blues, then joined a group of drag performance artists called The Cockettes in the early 1970s. Another member of The Cockettes was John Water's favorite muse and actress Divine. Both can be seen in a 2002 documentary about the group.

In 1972, Sylvester supplied two cuts to Lights Out San Francisco, an album compiled by the KSAN radio station and released on the Blue Thumb label. He released two rock-oriented albums on Blue Thumb (their self-titled debut was also known as 'Scratch My Flower', due to a gardenia-shaped scratch-and-sniff sticker adhered to the cover). He then signed as a solo act to Fantasy Records in 1977, working with legendary Motown producer Harvey Fuqua.

Sylvester soon met his frequent collaborator Patrick Cowley. Cowley's synthesiser and Sylvester's voice proved to be a magical combination, and pushed Sylvester's sound in an innovative new dance-oriented direction; his second solo album,Step II(1978), unleashed two disco classics: You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), and Dance (Disco Heat). By this time both his live shows and recordings also recognizably featured the back-up vocals of Two Tons O' Fun later known as the Weather Girls. In 1979 he had three Billboard awards and an appearance in the movie,The Rose, starring Bette Midler.

Sylvester and Cowley moved to Megatone Records in 1982, and hit with the classic with Do You Wanna Funk? His close friends inclduded other Megatone artists Linda Imperial and Jeanie Tracy and legendary Patti LaBelle.

With pressure pressure from the label to 'butch up' his image led him to attend meetings in full-on drag. A drag photo shoot, which he staged and presented to label heads as a gag (calling it his 'new album cover') would later grace the cover of Immortal after Sylvester died; it was the label's way of paying tribute to his spirit.

In 1985, one of his dreams came true as he was ask to sing back-up for Aretha Franklin on her Who's Zoomin' Who comeback album. Moving to Warner Bros. in the 80's, his only album for them Mutual Attraction with the single,Someone Like You, featured original cover art by Keith Haring.

Like so many others, including Patrick Cowley before him, Sylvester died of complications from AIDS in San Francisco on December 16, 1988. He was 40 years old.

On September 20, 2004 Sylvester's his anthem, You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame. A year later, on September 19, 2005, Sylvester was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his achievement as an artist.

The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The 70s in San Francisco, a biography by Joshua Gamson was published in 2005.

Sylvester's You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)



Sylstar Website

Video Dance(Disco Heat)

Video Do You Want to Funk (Remix)

Video Some One Like You (1986)