| Sylvester | |
|---|---|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Sylvester James |
| Born | September 6, 1947 |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | December 16, 1988 (aged 41) |
| Genres | Disco, soul, Hi-NRG, dance, Funk |
| Occupations | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1972–1987 |
| Labels | Fantasy, Megatone |
| Associated acts | The Cockettes The Hot Band The Weather Girls(Two Tons O' Fun) |
Sylvester James (September 6, 1947 – December 16, 1988), better known as Sylvester, was an American disco and soul singer, and a drag performer. Sylvester was sometimes known as the "Queen of Disco," although this moniker has also been bestowed on some of the women of the disco era (i.e. Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer).[1] His most significant works are the songs "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", "Dance (Disco Heat)" (both 1978) and "Do You Wanna Funk" (1982).
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Sylvester James was born in Los Angeles, California, into a low-income family, and he was raised by his mother, Letha. According to TV One's Unsung, he lived in a tiny two-room house, where he and his brother shared a bunk bed. He was the oldest of six children. His father was not in his family's life. Many of the facts of his early life are uncertain, and birth dates from 1944 to 1948 have surfaced. One thing is certain though: Sylvester was a child gospel star.
Encouraged to sing by his grandmother, the 1920s and 1930s jazz singer Julia Morgan, James' talent first surfaced at the Palm Lane Church of God in Christ in South Los Angeles, and soon he was making the rounds and stirring up audiences at churches around Southern California and beyond, sometimes billed as the "Child Wonder of Gospel."
Sylvester's home life disintegrated when he was a teenager. He clashed with his mother and stepfather, finally running away from home at age 16. For several years he lived on and around the streets of Los Angeles, but managed to finish high school and enroll at Leimert Beauty College. James moved to San Francisco in 1967 and, by his own account, his life began at that time.
In San Francisco, Sylvester performed in a musical production called Women of the Blues, with his repertoire of Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday songs in tow. In the early 1970s Sylvester joined a short-lived group of performance artists called The Cockettes, a psychedelic drag queen troupe founded by Hibiscus, aka George Harris.
| “ | My life started when I moved to San Francisco. | ” |
After leaving The Cockettes, Sylvester performed in San Francisco a number of different times as a solo act. One of his most famed shows, entitled "Jungle Sin," which reprised Sylvester’s greatest Cockette solo songs, took place at the San Francisco supper club Bimbo's, and was produced by the rock impresario David Ferguson in 1972. That same year, Sylvester performed at The Temple in San Francisco with the then-unknown Pointer Sisters, which was also produced by Ferguson. Sylvester can be seen in the Cockettes' outrageous short film Tricia's Wedding, lampooning the wedding of President Nixon's daughter Tricia, and in an eponymous 2002 documentary about the group (which at one time included Divine).
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.
In 1973, Sylvester & The Hot Band, featuring Bobby Blood on trumpet, Chris Mostert on sax, James Q. Smith on guitar, Travis Fullerton on drums, and Kerry Hatch on bass, 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).
In 1974, Sylvester met Horus Jack Tolsen (Keyboards), and together with Sylvester's drummer Amadeo Barrios (drums) and his brother Adrian Barrios (Bass), formed a trio which backed up Sylvester at a nightclub in San Francisco called Cabaret - After Dark. Shortly thereafter Horus was fired, and Amadeo brought in new players — Archie White (Keyboards), Angel Reyes (Guitar), background vocalist Bianca Thorton, Gerry Kirby and another vocalist named Debbie. This took Sylvester into a new musical direction. The band unofficially called themselves The Four A's and had finally thrown in the towel after several attempts to get signed by a major label. In 1975 The Brothers Barrios gave it one last shot before joining The Lenny Williams Band , and Sly Stone.
Sylvester signed a solo deal with Fantasy Records in 1977, working with the production talents of legendary Motown producer Harvey Fuqua, who produced his first five albums. Sylvester later alleged that Fuqua cheated him out of millions of dollars. Sylvester soon met his frequent collaborator Patrick Cowley. Cowley's synthesizer and Sylvester's voice proved to be a magical combination, and pushed Sylvester's sound in an increasingly dance-oriented direction; his second solo album, Step II (1978), unleashed two disco classics: "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," and "Dance (Disco Heat)". These two songs charted together on the American dance chart, and spent six weeks at #1 on this chart in August and September 1978. By this time both his live shows and recordings also recognizably featured the back-up vocals of Two Tons O' Fun: future Weather Girls Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes. 1979 brought three Billboard awards and an appearance in the movie, The Rose, starring Bette Midler. He sang "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" live for The Castro Street Fair, thanks to future first openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk.
Moving to Megatone Records in 1982, Sylvester quickly landed a Hi-NRG classic with "Do Ya Wanna Funk", which was featured in the 1983 film Trading Places. He was close friends with other Megatone artists Linda Imperial and Jeanie Tracy
Sylvester was also very close to Patti LaBelle and Sarah Dash for whom he recorded background vocals for her dance hit "Lucky Tonight".
Later pressure from the label to "butch up" his image would result in him attending 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 asked to sing back-up for Aretha Franklin on her Who's Zoomin' Who? comeback album. His sole Warner Bros. Records album was Mutual Attraction in 1986; a single from the album Someone Like You became Sylvester's third #1 hit on the U.S. dance chart, and featured original cover art by Keith Haring.
In early 1987, Sylvester stated -
| “ | I don't believe that AIDS is the wrath of God. People have a tendency to blame everything on God. | ” |
Sylvester died of complications from AIDS in San Francisco on December 16, 1988. He was 41 years old. His good friend, Jeanie Tracy took care of him before he died.
On September 20, 2004, Sylvester's anthem record, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)", was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame. A year later, on September 19, 2005, Sylvester himself was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his achievement as an artist.
| Releases | ||
|---|---|---|
| ↙Studio albums | 11 | |
| ↙Live albums | 1 | |
| ↙Compilation albums | 3 | |
| ↙Singles | 41 | |
| Year | Title | Chart positions | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [3] |
US R&B [3] |
IT | ||
| 1973 | Sylvester and the Hot Band (performed by Sylvester & the Hot band)
|
– | – | – |
Bazaar (performed by Sylvester & the Hot band)
|
– | – | – | |
| 1977 | Sylvester
|
– | – | – |
| 1978 | Step II
|
28 | 7 | 6 |
| 1979 | Stars
|
63 | 27 | 15 |
| 1980 | Sell My Soul
|
147 | 44 | – |
| 1981 | Too Hot To Sleep
|
156 | 51 | – |
| 1982 | All I Need (later re-released as Do Ya Wanna Funk)
|
168 | 35 | 23 |
| 1983 | Call Me
|
– | – | – |
| 1984 | M-1015 (later re-released as Rock the Box)
|
– | – | – |
| 1986 | Mutual Attraction
|
164 | 46 | – |
| Year | Title | Chart positions | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [3] |
US R&B [3] |
IT | ||
| 1979 | Living Proof
|
123 | 45 | – |
| Year | Title | Album | Chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US [5] |
US Dance [5] |
US R&B [5] |
UK [4] |
|||
| 1973 | "Southern Man" (performed by Sylvester & the Hot Band) |
Sylvester and The Hot Band | ||||
| "Down On Your Knees" (performed by Sylvester & the Hot Band) |
Bazaar | |||||
| 1977 | "Down, Down, Down" | Sylvester | ||||
| "Over and Over" | ||||||
| 1978 | "Dance (Disco Heat)" | Step II | 19 | 1 | 4 | 29 |
| "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" (additionally charted in Italy #24) |
36 | 1 | 20 | 8 | ||
| 1979 | "I (Who Have Nothing)" | Stars | 40 | 4 | 27 | 46 |
| "Stars" | 47 | |||||
| "Can't Stop Dancing" | Living Proof | 2 | 43 | |||
| 1980 | "You Are My Friend" | 30 | ||||
| "I Need You" | Sell My Soul | 6 | ||||
| "Sell My Soul" | 6 | |||||
| 1981 | "Here Is My Love" | Too Hot To Sleep | 44 | |||
| "Ooo Baby Baby" | ||||||
| "Give It Up (Don't Make Me Wait)" | ||||||
| "Magic Number" (performed by Herbie Hancock featuring Sylvester) |
— | 9[6] | 59[6] | |||
| 1982 | "Do Ya Wanna Funk" (Patrick Cowley featuring Sylvester) (additionally charted in Norway #8, Switzerland #12, Netherlands #17) |
— | 4 | 32[7] | ||
| "Don't Stop" | All I Need | 77 | ||||
| "Tell Me" | ||||||
| "Be With You" | ||||||
| "All I Need" | 67 | |||||
| 1983 | "Hard Up" | |||||
| "Band of Gold" | Call Me | 18 | 67 | |||
| "Too Late" | 16 | 68 | ||||
| "One Night Only" | ||||||
| "Trouble In Paradise" | ||||||
| 1984 | "Stargazing" (performed by Earlene Bentley featuring Sylvester; UK-only release) |
— | ||||
| "Good Feelin'" (Germany-only release) |
Call Me | |||||
| "Call Me" | ||||||
| "Menergy" | — | |||||
| "Rock the Box" | M-1015 | 25 | 88 | |||
| 1985 | "Take Me To Heaven" | 6 | 100 | |||
| "Sex" | 6 | |||||
| "Takin' Love Into My Own Hands" (Mexico-only release) |
||||||
| "Lovin Is Really My Game" | ||||||
| 1986 | "Living for the City" | Mutual Attraction | 2 | |||
| "Someone Like You" | 1 | |||||
| 1987 | "Mutual Attraction" | 10 | ||||
| "Sooner Or Later" | ||||||
Sylvester: Mighty Real, the official feature length documentary on the life and career of Sylvester, is currently in production. The film features interviews with members of Sylvester's family and other artists and musicians who have been inspired by, and worked with Sylvester through the years. There is currently no release date available for the film.
A film is currently being developed on the life of Sylvester, based upon the book The Fabulous Sylvester by Joshua Gamson. There is no release date as of yet. Alan Poul is said to be directing the film.