Arts & Entertainment
Queen of everything
Boy George chats up his new album, tour and how he got his mojo back
Boy George says in some ways straight acts can experiment with gender more than gay artists. (Photo courtesy High Rise PR)
Boy George
Monday, April 21
9:30 Club
815 V St. N.W.
930.com
$35
Doors open at 7 p.m.
Boy George is the first to acknowledge a cliché.
Getting sober in 2008 and turning 50 two years ago are big “take stock” moments for many and no less so for him.
“It was a huge turning point for me,” he says of his milestone birthday. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to get my shit together, I’ve got to focus, this is important.’ I just felt I’d wasted a lot of time. I looked at myself and thought, ‘God, I’ve done nothing.’ I know I’ve done a lot, I’ve always worked. I’ve grafted and always made money, but a lot of it was pointless because no one knew what I was doing.”
This year, the world is seeing the fruit of those epiphanies. His new album “This Is What I Do” was out in the UK last fall and officially drops in the U.S. with three bonus cuts on March 25. The last several years have seen him release a spate of side projects of various scope, but this is his first full-fledged solo album since 1995’s “Cheapness and Beauty.” He starts a U.S. leg of his tour on April 18 in Philadelphia and plays D.C.’s 9:30 Club on April 21.
During a Saturday afternoon phone chat from his London home last weekend, George — in his ever-delightful, clipped British accent — was chatty, self deprecating, quick to laugh and balked or sidestepped no questions. His comments have been slightly edited for length.
WASHINGTON BLADE: I know you’ve been DJing a lot and working on various things, but how did it work out that you released a new album at this time? Why now?
BOY GEORGE: Well, you know, as you said, I’ve been DJing very happily for the last 25 years and I haven’t really had a record deal for a long time. I suppose I have thought about making records but, you know, I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it. You know, whether I was going to sign with a major label or do something more independent. I also changed management a couple of years ago and wanted to kind of start fresh with a bunch of people that perhaps could kind of see beyond what I was. I think when you’ve had a very, very successful career like I had in the ‘80s, people tend to kind of hope you’re going to try and repeat that. They’re always waiting for you to write the next “Karma Chameleon,” but it’s never going to happen (laughs). Everything I’ve ever done has been kind of instinctual and impulsive and spontaneous and I’ve never really been the kind of artist that can kind of just pull it out of a hat. I have to feel it. … I just felt it was the right time. We discussed the different ways I could go about making a record and I decided to be brave and pay for it myself and own it myself which is a new thing for me, kind of a grown up move. And so far, you know, it’s been the right choice.
BLADE: When was it recorded and how long did it take?
GEORGE: We started about March last year and we did it within about four months. Not solidly. We recorded and then somebody else mixed it. I would say about four to five months last year.
BLADE: How was the reception in the UK last fall?
GEORGE: We’ve had amazing reviews. Comeback of the year, Boy George has finally got his mojo back, you know, blah, blah, blah. Lots of compliments. I mean, much to my surprise really, because I wasn’t really sure what kind of reaction I would get. I wasn’t sure what to expect. So yeah, everything in the UK has been kind of another surprise. England tends to get much more excited about Beyonce than anything that comes from here. It’s like all America, America, hip-hop, Beyonce, Lady Gaga. Nobody cares about Boy George anymore (laughs). That’s why I’m relying on you guys in America.
BLADE: The first single “King of Everything” says “What is the word on the street? Have I lost my crown?” Have you?
GEORGE: Well, the song isn’t just about me, it’s about everyone. It’s about human frailty, people messing up, which is a very human thing, yet it is also about me but it’s about you, it’s about everyone. It’s not literal. The crown is a metaphor. If it was about me, I’d call it “Queen of Everything.”
BLADE: How did the UK tour go last fall?
GEORGE: It was amazing. Very small, very affectionate and the audiences were adorable. They were mostly the kind of hardcore fans, so they were really affectionate.
BLADE: About how long do you usually play?
GEORGE: It depends on the curfew. We do about an hour and a half, maybe two hours. Not quite Bruce Springsteen-length. But we play for as long as we can. When you’re doing a show, sometimes if the mood is right, you can keep it going, depending on the audience reaction, really. But obviously some venues have a curfew so you can’t play longer than a certain time.
BLADE: About how much of the new album do you work into the set list?
GEORGE: We kind of try and balance it with things people know, some things people haven’t heard, some new stuff, some old stuff. You know, I’ve been doing this a while and one thing I’ve continued to do is to play live. At the end, you have to figure out a way to reach the audience.
BLADE: How does the new stuff sit with the Culture Club hits? Is it hard to build a set list that flows?
GEORGE: No, I don’t think it’s difficult. With the things people know, you’re always in a very safe area. If you sing a song that’s been a hit, that’s very safe so no, I wouldn’t say it’s difficult. There are certain songs that I don’t do. Obviously with that kind of a back catalogue, there are some songs you grow into and some that you say, “OK, this doesn’t really speak to who I am anymore.” So you kind of try to mix it up and keep it interesting, not just for the audience but also for yourself. You don’t want it to be a kind of robotic show that’s the same every night. Myself and John, who plays guitar in my band, we have sections where we do acoustic stuff and we can do all sorts of things there and change things around and do new things. That helps keep the show exciting.
BLADE: Do you still have the goatee?
GEORGE: I do.
BLADE: Your look at present seems more kind of genderfuck than androgynous. Just a whim or do you feel more comfortable with mixing in masculine elements than you have in previous years?
GEORGE: I just had some time off and didn’t shave for a few days and kind of looked at myself and thought, “Oh, I quite like this look.” It’s not something I really sat down and thought about. I just kind of grew my beard when I was on break and other people seemed to like it and other people didn’t like it, which made me want to keep it more. I might get bored with it at some point but I’m loving it at the moment.
BLADE: Lots of pop stars have played around with androgynous looks — I’m thinking of David Bowie and Prince — and the public seems to accept them as straight. You were always pretty much out for the most part. Do you feel the public overall has pretty good gaydar?
GEORGE: I don’t know really. I think there are some audiences that don’t really want to know, depending on the artist. Sometimes people have this kind of spare-me-the-details kind of attitude. I think it’s more about what kind of artist you are and in what ways you want to affect the audience. That’s the starting point for me. It’s about what’s going to make you happy, do you know what I mean? How much of yourself you reveal. I think it’s much easier for somebody straight to play around with these boundaries because they’re not being defined by their sexuality. If you’re gay, then you’re gay and you have to strike a sort of balance so people don’t feel you’re flaunting it in their face or preaching, you know. I think as a gay artist, you have to walk a much finer line than, say, somebody who’s just having a flirtation with this. I mean, it’s much easier for someone straight like Macklemore to sing a song with the word gay in it. A few years ago I made an album called “Cheapness and Beauty” and there was a song called “Same Thing in Reverse” and I was told categorically this will never, ever get played on the radio because I used the phrase “kamikaze queer” in it. You can get away with more when you’re straight.
BLADE: You’ve talked about making a new album with Culture Club this year. Is that still in the cards?
GEORGE: Yes, we are looking at the possibility of recording some stuff this year but at the moment, we’re kind of still in the writing stages. We’ve had some great sessions and we really did enjoy ourselves and it was a really nice experience. Everybody came away feeling really good about it and, you know, we’re going to see what we can do next.
BLADE: It’s so great to see you looking so good, sounding so good and apparently really thriving. A few of your contemporaries who were also huge in the ‘80s haven’t fared as well. What did you think and feel when you heard Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston had died?
GEORGE: Oh my God, you know, I mean Michael Jackson. And I loved Whitney Houston like so much. I was just a massive, massive fan. I loved her voice. And Michael Jackson, you know, I was at home when it happened and I just remember thinking, “Oh my God, this is so sad.” You know, he was such an incredible artist. For the last few years of his life, I felt like there was so much pressure on him and he looked world-weary every time I saw him. I felt such sadness for him. I was just so sad when he died and Whitney, what a shame for both of them. They were great, great artists. I was a huge Michael Jackson fan and a huge Whitney Houston fan and I’m not ashamed to say I did cry. I thought it was really sad.
BLADE: Conversely does it make you happy when you see some of those artists still doing well today. Like Cyndi Lauper, for instance, just won a Tony.
GEORGE: I’m always happy when anyone does well. That’s a measure of maturity, I think. Cyndi’s a friend. I haven’t seen her for a while, but she’s a great girl and, you know, yeah, I think when you see your contemporaries doing well, it gives you hope. You think, “OK, anything’s possible.”
BLADE: You recognized early on that fame was fickle and I remember you telling Johnny Carson you knew staying at that level at the height of Culture Club was not sustainable and that you envisioned yourself eventually writing songs for other artists and doing other things. How has that played out differently than you thought it might have when you were 22?
GEORGE: Oh, I think when you’re 22 you really think you know it all, don’t you? (laughs) You listen back to the things you say and you think, “Oh my God, you really thought you knew it all.” And I think at that age, you’re still learning so much. I feel very fortunate to still be doing what I love.
BLADE: Yes, but it struck me as rather insightful that you realized even then that pop careers always ebb and flow.
GEORGE: It may be one of the reasons I’ve done other things. I’ve never wanted to just rest on my laurels. I don’t have the idea of trying to kind of repeat something. So in a way, DJing has been an incredible second career for me. When I first started it, my manager at the time thought it was a really bad idea and told me I shouldn’t do it. But again, I just followed my instincts and it was the right thing to do because it allowed me to avoid nostalgia. I’ve been able to be involved in a quite progressive industry and not have to worry about what I used to be or, you know, the ‘80s, and all that stuff. So I’m really happy that I made that decision. I like to work. I’m a worker and I’m always up for a new challenge.
BLADE: Back in the early ‘90s, the theme from “Crying Game” was this huge out-of-nowhere smash radio hit in the U.S. Do you still sing it live?
GEORGE: From time to time. Actually, maybe that’s a good one to put into the set in America. I’ll write that down.
BLADE: Is it harder to break a song in the U.S. now than it was years ago? Not even with yourself, necessarily, but just in general?
GEORGE: I don’t know what it’s like now because I’m not involved in that kind of trying to have hits, you know. I think past a certain age, you’re just kind of marginalized in the world anyway.
BLADE: Does that bring with it artistic freedom?
GEORGE: I think it does. Once you kind of get over the shock and the horror that certain radio stations won’t play your new stuff no matter how good you are, I mean that’s really the bonkers thing. I’m not sure it’s as bad in America as it is here, but certainly here, it’s just ridiculous. But it kind of remains to be seen. It’s a very different landscape now. Making records is very different and the way we promote ourselves is very different. In a way I’m kind of starting again, so I’ll let you know.
BLADE: How many of the players from the album do you tour with?
GEORGE: All of them.
BLADE: The album has such a lush sound — is that easy to duplicate on stage?
GEORGE: Well, we have a nine-piece band that we’re touring with at great expense so we probably won’t be making any money. But I think it’s really important to have a great band and we had a great time in the UK last year. We do England and Europe then we go to America. We’ll be steaming by the time we get to the states.
BLADE: How long have you been a vegan?
GEORGE: I’m not strictly a vegan but I’m very conscious about what I eat and I don’t eat a lot of dairy, though I do eat some cheeses. I’ve been on a very particular metabolic plan diet for two years that’s all about your hormonal reaction to certain foods so some of the stuff I don’t eat is very random — like pumpkin, kale, onion or lemon. It’s very individual and different for each person. It’s been sort of life changing for me but I don’t really call myself anything because then you eat a piece of cheese and everybody freaks out.
BLADE: And you run too?
GEORGE: Well, I exercise.
BLADE: Is the U.S. version of the album the same?
GEORGE: No, it’s got more songs. I wrote a song called “Turn On a Little Light For Me,” which I wrote especially for the American album and which I love. We were asked by the label to provide some more stuff and I had a couple covers — “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey and the Bob Dylan song “Make You Feel My Love,” but I didn’t just want covers as the bonus content so I wrote a new song too. It’s about hope. A lovely kind of little Dylan-esque kind of song.
BLADE: Thanks for your time.
GEORGE: Thank you.
Books
Historiography with heart
Pioneering author John D’Emilio continues to enlighten us in new book ‘Making Gay History’
‘Making Gay History, Memoir of a Scholar-Activist’
By John D’Emilio
Dukeupress.edu/making-gay-history
“Dear Dr. Kameny,” wrote the earnest graduate history student almost 50 years ago. “As you know, the academic community only rarely deemed the lives of gay men and women to be worthy of serious scholarly study. To my knowledge, no American history faculty at a major university has yet sponsored a dissertation that deals with gays historically.”
That student was a young man from the Bronx who would change all that. His name is John D’Emilio.
“I must be able to uncover ‘manuscript’ sources, that is unpublished and unique historical materials,” he explained to D.C. gay civil rights pioneer Dr. Franklin E. Kameny who lived in a house stacked to the ceiling with “unique historical materials.” In reality, these were piles of correspondence with government officials and politicians, legal filings, mimeograph copies, gay newspapers, press releases, Mattachine Society brochures and picket signs. Frank Kameny, a self-described “pack rat,” invited D’Emilio into his private world of papers and memorabilia to begin uncovering an erased and forgotten pre-Stonewall history. This was one of many such research forays into “basements, garages and overcrowded living rooms” across America conducted by John D’Emilio. He was a young man on fire to complete a Ph.D. dissertation at the frontier of a distant galaxy — writing a scholarly gay and lesbian history backed by original research where there had been none, only a void.
Reading D’Emilio’s memoir “Making Gay History” (2026, Duke University Press) one has the sense of watching an emerging galaxy spinning around a galactic core of New York scholars and their mentors, young activists, and community historians throbbing with the New York City energy celebrated by Walt Whitman a century before in his epic poem “Mannahatta”. Spinning out of the ‘60s anti-Vietnam War activism; Marxist historical analysis, the Stonewall riots and gay liberation, we can see it coalescing around this one history student’s search for a dissertation topic and himself piecing together a new history that “no one had yet written about … a pioneering work in this newly emerging field.” D’Emilio pitches his idea for a dissertation that “spanned the length of U.S. history, moving from the religious teachings that shaped law and social attitudes … to how the federal government dealt with the increasing visibility of a homosexual world in the twentieth century.” With the blessings of Columbia’s Department of History, he completed his dissertation leading to the publication of his groundbreaking history: “Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States” (1983). When he received his first copy of the bound book in the mail, he “cradled the book in my arm holding it close to my chest….It was as if I had fathered a child.”
More so, D’Emilio fathered a new history. Historiography is the story of how history gets written, conducting original research, uncovering the data and creating the narrative(s) — often a snoozing read of academic process. But not this historiography. “Making Gay History” is a historiography with heart.
“Nothing was going to stop me from giving everything I had to this effort at making change in society and myself,” he declares while connecting with others who share his “boundless excitement for the collection of documents.” There were many others in this spiral with D’Emilio who are mentioned and play important roles. In the spiral were Jonathan Ned Katz (“Gay American History”, 1976); Allan Berube (“Coming Our Under Fire” 1990), Martin Duberman (“Hidden from History”, 1989); Daughters of Bilitis activists Del Martin and Barbara Gittings; Civil War historian Eric Foner and author/activist Larry Kramer. No libertarians among them. Well, maybe the divine Bette Midler who was well known for performing uptown at the Continental Baths who makes an appearance at a Washington Square rally.
He craved his parents’ approval. Among the most riveting scenes in the memoir are a series of family dinners in the Bronx with his old-school parents who go into near shock when he tells them he is gay. How to evade this any longer, especially now that his dissertation is going to be on homosexuality? It is a moving and hilarious sequence. After he says it out loud, “I am gay”: “No. No. No!” his father gasps. “This can’t be true. It can’t be.” D’Emilio thinks, “Oh my God, he’s going to die. I’ve killed my father.”
The D’Emilios — Vincent and Sophie — so resemble the wonderful Castorinis in “Moonstruck,” I am thinking “Oh my God, this is Cher coming out to her parents Cosmo and Rose.” The young graduate student survives the family dramatics even more certain that this was not just his success but “a gay liberation success.” From the family dinner table to the streets, he writes how he marched in the 1973 Pride parade beneath a banner held high: “Gay Socialists.” This man is a born scholar-activist.
D’Emilio does not seem able to pull back. There are passages that veer into autobiographical minutia, detail about the grind to earn a living from the University of North Carolina Greensboro to the University of Illinois Chicago. He writes, ”I would be living on less than half my usual salary for the year, but with the small amount of royalties that I got for my three books, plus some occasional speaking gigs and dipping into savings…”. Much of this is gray matter compared to the galaxy John D’Emilio helped energize that even now brightens our sky.
Charles Francis is president of The Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C. and author of “Archive Activism: Memoir of a ‘Uniquely Nasty’ Journey” (University of North Texas, 2023)
Arts & Entertainment
How Dolly became a folk saint for Appalachian queers
Judging others is ‘God’s job, not a human responsibility or capacity’
American singer-songwriter and actress Dolly Parton died last month. Parton’s death was announced by the family with a tribute video in which her nephew Bryan Seaver noted that her final wish was to rest in a “beautiful bed of plush cotton” so that she could finally be comfortable after a lifetime of wearing rhinestones. Fans across the country and the Internet thanked her and took up the mantle — wearing rhinestones, cowgirl boots, and glittering hats to honor her legacy and hosted events incorporating her favorite colors (pink and yellow) alongside butterflies in celebration of her life.
Parton’s memorial has drawn an interestingly pan-generational crowd — from conservative elders to their queer and trans grandchildren and everyone in between who admired Parton not just for her music but also her commitment to putting books in the hands of children across the country to openly and defiantly expressing her love and affection for LGBTQ+ people, including her long-time driver and assistant who is a trans man. But for one group of folks, queer and trans Appalachians, Parton represented something special — the possibility of coexistence.
Along with being for some the first person who told queer and trans people she loved and affirmed them in her Tennessee drawl, Parton fiercely defended the fact that she and we could hold two things at once. For Parton, this meant being both a devout Christian and an out and proud advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, and for many queer and trans Appalachians, this meant the ability to be LGBTQ+ and people of faith, people from the country, people with accents who don’t have to give up their mountain heritage in order to join communities of affinity and solidarity.
Parton made clear that loving LGBTQ+ people was not a caveat to her faith, but it was directly the result of it. Parton was an LGBTQ+ ally because of how she was raised and what she believed. It was because she believed in a social justice gospel that she stood in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, even in the face of intense criticism (including after her death when eulogized by far right Christian leaders and public figures).
Dolly repeatedly shared her love for and faith in the LGBTQ+ community, most recently in the face of a Tennessee anti-trans law reported that sharing with The Hollywood Reporter: “I just want everybody to be treated good. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”
“I do not believe we should criticize and judge other people,” she said. “We should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children.” Judging, she believed, was “God’s job, not a human responsibility or capacity.
For many LGBTQ+ people raised in faith traditions that continue to deny our existence or who argue that we can be changed to fit a cisgender, heterosexual norm, Parton was the devout Christian “meemaw” who we all knew — for some of us, they knew and loved us as we were and are but for others, the people who spoke and speak with her Appalachian tongue hurt us and continue to do so in the name of faith, continue to shun and try to convert us in the name of the same God Dolly knew.
Dolly never tried to change who we were. She believed that we, just like her, were exactly who we were meant to be. She never spurned her LGBTQ+ friends, questioning if the rumors she was a lesbian were so bad and joking that “if I hadn’t been a woman, I would’ve been a drag queen.” Parton changed lives, I know, by being a proud Christian woman who continued to love and stand with LGBTQ+ people.
And unlike other LGBTQ+ allies in name only, Parton’s allyship was never performative. Parton co-owned Sandollar Productions, one of the companies that produced “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt,”the 1989 documentary about the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. She wrote the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” for the 2005 film “Transamerica,” and when a Dollywood visitor was asked to turn a shirt recognizing marriage equality inside out to cover the message, she publicly apologized, offered refunds, and reinforced that “all families are welcome” at the park.
Hers was a Christian faith that stood firmly on action (best seen in her support of marginalized communities across the country), and for queer and trans people, including The Skeptic Pastor, also known as Jeremy Steele, it was a ministry. Steele put it best when he described Dolly Parton as “a lifeline and honestly a minister to me.” “When I hear these things, when I see these videos, she’s talking to me, and especially growing up in the Deep South, closeted queer, this was everything.”
This was another critical part of Parton’s legacy. The 80-year-old was also fiercely open about and proud of her Tennessee heritage. Despite continued attacks on her appearance, her background, and the way that she spoke (something many people from the mountains experience), Parton did not try to cover up her humble beginnings and how they shaped not just her understanding of faith but her legacy of action.
For many LGBTQ+ people born and raised in Appalachia (along with the South and Midwest), we rarely see representation of our strong and mighty communities in the media. In all three regions, gay bars served as vital sanctuaries and community hubs in rural and blue-collar regions, although many are shuttering after the economic downtown during the COVID-19 pandemic and communities shifting increasingly online. From The Shamrock in Bluefield, W. Va., to The Jungle in Nashville, and The Mark III Tap Room in Muncie, Ind., these gay bars show us that LGBTQ+ people have always and will always live across the country.
While depictions of thriving queer communities on screen are largely contained to the East and West Coasts, the queer and trans people raised with accents and communities like Dolly’s know that there is a rich queer subculture at home, one that our ancestors created for us and we continue to nurture and celebrate. But largely because of continued trauma from far right religious pundits, of continued caricatures of “red necks,” and out of fear that people with our voices and our backgrounds will be bigoted and close-minded, we are hesitant to share who we are, to show up as ourselves in spaces of affinity and solidarity.
Parton’s legacy, as queer artist Grace Haley painted beautifully on a bright pink horse after the icon’s passing, was that “it’s okay to be gay in Tennessee.”
As someone who was incredibly hesitant joining queer spaces in Washington, D.C. because of growing up in the Midwest and going to school in the Rust Belt, I didn’t know if I’d fit in, but as soon as I walked up to the doors at the Adams-Morgan gay bar Pitchers and saw that cardboard cut out of Dolly Parton in the window, I realized I was welcome — not just the part of me that is queer but also the part of me that pronounces it “pee-can” pie.
Yes, Parton was and is controversial for many reasons. Some have argued that she could have been louder on some issues, especially the ongoing human rights crisis in Gaza, and some have pointed out that she died a millionaire. Although she gave away much of her money and established programs promoting literacy and healthcare in rural parts of the country, including in Tennessee where she grew up, some pointed out that she still contributes to a system of capitalist exploitation that extracted humanity out of her own community. Others have also criticized her involvement with the U.S. military.
But it’s important to remember that Parton was human. When people call her an angel, we all know what they mean, but it can sometimes make it hard for us to feel that we can ever be who she was or that we should even try.
Instead, people online are urging others to remember her instead as a folk hero, as a folk saint — complex and human but also someone that we can become, someone whose memory we can call on for strength and hope in times of struggle. As the LGBTQ+ community mourns her passing, I am heartened to see her recognized in this way, to see her canonized in the queer community as a folk saint of Appalachia, a folk saint of queer allies, and a folk saint of the Appalachian queers just like me.
The annual CAMP Rehoboth fundraiser, SUNFESTIVAL, was held over Labor Day weekend in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The festival included a massive dance party at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center on Sunday.
(Washington Blade photos by Daniel Truitt)
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