Episode Ep 642 June 9, 2024 34 min 4s

Jon Savage - Dusty’s wig, Bowie’s bombshell and how gay pop culture changed music

From Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

“I thought Dave Davies of the Kinks was a girl. When I discovered he was a boy, that’s when I got interested.” Jon’s an old friend of the podcast and the author of some highly regarded and influential books about pop and its repercussions, ‘England’s Dreaming’ and ‘1966: the Year The Decade Exploded’ among them. His latest is ‘The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955-1979’ which looks at five particular moments and the pivotal people in the mix at the time. We couldn’t recommend it more highly and cover seven decades in this conversation, stopping off at …

… how “homosexuality was a career-killer” until Bowie’s spectacular Melody Maker interview in 1972.

… new male identities - Valentino, Nureyev, Sinatra and the “subversive” stage act of Johnnie Ray.

… does pop drive change or reflect it?

… Andrew Loog Oldham, Kit Lambert, Simon Napier-Bell and the supposed “gay managers mafia” and how Oldham used camp as a weapon.

… Dusty Springfield and the Gateway Club.

… how Brian Epstein invented a new type of manager.

... Andy Warhol at the Factory, pop art, the launch of the Velvet Underground and his jukebox time-capsule of ‘60s gay pop taste.

… was Tom Robinson the first out gay British pop star?

… Mary Whitehouse v the Gay Times.

… the Clash (“hurt, vulnerable boys”), Siouxsie, Poly Styrene, the Slits, Vic Godard and punk’s other new stage identities.

Order ‘the Secret Public’ here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Public-Resistance-Popular-1955-1979/dp/0571358373