Maxine Feldman

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Maxine Feldman
Born (1945-12-26)26 December 1945
Brooklyn, New York City
Died 17 August 2007(2007-08-17) (aged 61)
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Nationality American
Alma mater El Camino College
Occupation Singer-songwriter
Known for Womyn's music
Religion Judaism

Maxine Feldman (December 26, 1945 – August 17, 2007) was an American folk singer-songwriter and pioneer of women's music. In 1969 she performed what was perhaps the first out lesbian song, "Angry Atthis." She described herself as a "big loud Jewish butch lesbian".[1]

Maxine Adele Feldman was born on December 26, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York. She had a stutter and asked her parents for lessons in acting when she was young. She had a bit part as a Girl Scout Brownie on the The Goldbergs. She was accepted at the High School of Performing Arts and performed in children's theater productions.[2]

Following high school, Feldman moved to Boston to attend Emerson College and study theater arts. School officials asked her to leave the college after they learned she was lesbian and told her she could come back after a year of psychiatric treatment. Her parents sent her to a doctor who used electroshock therapy and she refused to follow through with the treatments. She worked and performed in the Boston area from 1963 until 1966, emceeing at the Oasis Coffeehouse and other venues, at one point introducing a then-unknown José Feliciano.[2]

"Angry Atthis", of course, is a play on words. I was "angry at this" lesbian oppression. My brainy girl side wanted to call my piece "Sappho's Song", but then I read that Atthis was the name of one of Sappho's lovers. And "Atthis" began to appear to me as a better statement of all I felt. The song just spewed out of me.

M. Feldman

In 1968, Feldman moved to Manhattan and then to Los Angeles where she attended El Camino College.[3] At El Camino she helped to found a campus women's center.[2] Feldman wrote the consciousness raising song "Angry Atthis" in May 1969, prior to the Stonewall Riots. The debut of the song in Los Angeles has been credited as the first performance of a lesbian song.[4]

During the 1970–1971, she met the feminist comedy duo Harrison and Tyler, who had come to perform at the college. After hearing her perform "Angry Atthis", Patty Harrison and Robin Tyler invited Feldman to open for them during their tour of the United States.[2] She joined them, performing for colleges and once at a state penitentiary, the California Institute for Women. During one show at Ventura College, Feldman was introduced as a lesbian performer. The stage manager insisted that the audience be informed that Feldman was not invited by the college.[3]

A record of "Angry Atthis" was produced by Harrison & Tyler Productions in January 1972.[5]

She worked off and on at Alice's Restaurant for her friend Alice M. Brock.[2]

The National Review, covering a 1974 show at the Town Hall in New York, was called Feldman "Jonathan Winters in drag".[2]

Feldman performed at the first Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in 1976. She would return to the festival 14 times. Her womyn's anthem, "Amazon", is traditionally performed during the opening festivities of the Michigan festival.[6] In 1986, Feldman gave the rights for the song to the Festival owners.[7] She recorded the album Closet Sale in 1979.

While for much of her life, Feldman was butch, later in his life he identified as transgender, and would use masculine and feminine pronouns interchangeably.

Feldman didn't have health insurance and became ill in 1994. He died on August 17, 2007 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.[8] S/he was recognized in Dee Mosbacher's 2002 documentary film, Radical Harmonies.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Anderson, Jamie (2008). "Maxine Feldman Folk Musician, Lesbian Activist 1945 – 2007". Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine. Jewish Women's Archive. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Cullen, Frank (2007). "Maxine Feldman". Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America. New York [u.a.]: Routledge. pp. 372–375. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Morgan, Stacey (January 1973). "Angry Atthis". Lesbian Tide. 
  4. ↑ Mockus, Martha (2000). "Music, Women's". Lesbian Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1. New York: Garland. p. 522. ISBN 978-0-8153-1920-7. 
  5. ↑ St. John, Martin (April 11, 1973). "Liberation music, angry and proud, enters gay life". Advocate. 
  6. ↑ Hayes, Eileen M. (2010). Songs in Black and Lavender: Race, Sexual Politics, and Women's Music. University of Illinois Press. pp. 51–52. ISBN 978-0-252-09149-0. 
  7. ↑ Kendall, Laurie J. (2008). The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: An Amazon Matrix of Meaning. Baltimore, MD: Spiral Womyn's Press. pp. 91–94. ISBN 978-0-615-20065-1. 
  8. ↑ Kiritsy, Laura (August 30, 2007). "Lesbian trail blazer Maxine Feldman dies". Edge Providence. 

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