Research Catalog
Rocking the closet : how Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathis queered pop music
- Title
- Rocking the closet : how Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathis queered pop music / Vincent L. Stephens.
- Author
- Stephens, Vincent L.
- Publication
- Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2019]
- ©2019
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schomburg Center to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | Sc E 20-451 | Schomburg Center - Research & Reference |
Details
- Description
- xiv, 230 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.
- Summary
- The all-embracing, "whaddya got?" nature of rebellion in Fifties America included pop music's unlikely challenge to entrenched notions of masculinity. Within that upheaval, four prominent artists dared to behave in ways that let the public assume-but not see-their queerness. That these artists cultivated ambiguous sexual personas often reflected an understandable fear, but also a struggle to fulfill personal and professional expectations. Vincent L. Stephens confronts notions of the closet-both coming out and staying in-by analyzing the careers of Liberace, Johnny Mathis, Johnnie Ray, and Little Richard. Appealing to audiences hungry for novelty and exoticism, the four pop icons used performance and queering techniques that ran the gamut. Liberace's flamboyance shared a spectrum with Mathis's intimate sensitivity while Ray's overwrought displays as "Mr. Emotion" seemed worlds apart from Little Richard's raise-the-roof joyousness. As Stephens shows, the quartet not only thrived in an era of gray flannel manhood, they pioneered the ways generations of later musicians would consciously adopt sexual mystery as an appealing and proven route to success.
- Series Statement
- New perspectives on gender in music
- Uniform Title
- New perspectives on gender in music.
- Subjects
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-216), Discography: (pages 217-218) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction : queering post-World War II masculinity through music -- Visibly hidden : postwar disorientation, queer community, and queer ambivalence -- A freak deferred : Johnnie Ray navigates innovation and convention -- Spectacular vacillations : Little Richard charms and disarms America -- Fine and dandy : mapping Johnny Mathis's negotiations of race, sexuality, and affect -- Building an empire of illusion : Liberace and the art of queering -- Conclusion : disquieting and exciting : queering tools in popular music and queer becoming.
- Call Number
- Sc E 20-451
- ISBN
- 9780252042805
- 0252042808
- LCCN
- 2019013782
- OCLC
- 1090707914
- Author
- Stephens, Vincent L., author.
- Title
- Rocking the closet : how Little Richard, Johnnie Ray, Liberace, and Johnny Mathis queered pop music / Vincent L. Stephens.
- Publisher
- Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2019]
- Copyright Date
- ©2019
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- New perspectives on gender in musicNew perspectives on gender in music.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-216), Discography: (pages 217-218) and index.
- Research Call Number
- Sc E 20-451