[URBAN NOTE] "A brief history of queer music in Toronto"
blogTO's Benjamin Boles has a brief overview of the history of GLBT-themed popular music and musicians in Toronto. Rough Trade, it turns out, might have been early, but it was not the first.
Toronto's longstanding reputation as an uptight puritan town often overshadows our vibrant underground queer history. After all, how else would our massive Pride celebrations easily dwarf San Francisco's, if there weren't such a strong local queer community? Not surprisingly, evidence of that defiantly homo undercurrent has long run through Toronto's music scene, even if it wasn't always immediately recognized.
Toronto's earliest well known out musician was Jackie Shane, a talented R&B singer who'd relocated from Nashville to become one of the biggest names on the raucous 1960s Yonge Street strip. Shane attracted a lot of attention for his androgynous style, often wearing full makeup, sequins, and gloriously big hair. While this kind of flamboyance wasn't generally accepted, being an exceptionally charismatic entertainer seemed to allow Shane to get away with it.
He even had a local radio hit in 1963, when his version of "Any Other Way" reached number two on the CHUM chart. While most radio listeners likely didn't catch the way he twisted the meaning of the line "tell that I'm happy, tell her that I'm gay," anyone who caught him playing live would have quickly picked up on the subtext. Shane disappeared before his career could really take off, but in more recent years his recordings have been rediscovered by a new generation of soul music fans.
It wasn't long after Jackie Shane first pushed up against Toronto's homophobia that Carole Pope and Kevan Staples began testing the sexual boundaries even more. Performing under various names starting in 1968, in 1975 they finally settled on their most well known moniker: Rough Trade. If their name wasn't enough of a hint, Pope's habit of performing in bondage gear made their queerness more explicit, not to mention the lascivious lyrical content.
Toronto's longstanding reputation as an uptight puritan town often overshadows our vibrant underground queer history. After all, how else would our massive Pride celebrations easily dwarf San Francisco's, if there weren't such a strong local queer community? Not surprisingly, evidence of that defiantly homo undercurrent has long run through Toronto's music scene, even if it wasn't always immediately recognized.
Toronto's earliest well known out musician was Jackie Shane, a talented R&B singer who'd relocated from Nashville to become one of the biggest names on the raucous 1960s Yonge Street strip. Shane attracted a lot of attention for his androgynous style, often wearing full makeup, sequins, and gloriously big hair. While this kind of flamboyance wasn't generally accepted, being an exceptionally charismatic entertainer seemed to allow Shane to get away with it.
He even had a local radio hit in 1963, when his version of "Any Other Way" reached number two on the CHUM chart. While most radio listeners likely didn't catch the way he twisted the meaning of the line "tell that I'm happy, tell her that I'm gay," anyone who caught him playing live would have quickly picked up on the subtext. Shane disappeared before his career could really take off, but in more recent years his recordings have been rediscovered by a new generation of soul music fans.
It wasn't long after Jackie Shane first pushed up against Toronto's homophobia that Carole Pope and Kevan Staples began testing the sexual boundaries even more. Performing under various names starting in 1968, in 1975 they finally settled on their most well known moniker: Rough Trade. If their name wasn't enough of a hint, Pope's habit of performing in bondage gear made their queerness more explicit, not to mention the lascivious lyrical content.