Music & Concerts
Lighting the way: an interview with singer Janis Ian
Veteran performer embarking on final tour
By my count, queer singer/songwriter Janis Ian has had four distinct chapters in her musical career. The first began when she was in her teens with the release of her groundbreaking single “Society’s Child,” and the albums on Verve Records that followed in the late 1960s. By the mid-1970s, for the second chapter, Ian signed to Columbia Records, resulting in the biggest hit single of her career, the Grammy Award-winning classic “At Seventeen.” She remained on Columbia into the early 1980s, even collaborating with Giorgio Moroder on the song “Fly Too High.” The third chapter occurred in the early 1990s. Bette Midler recorded Ian’s song “Some People’s Lives,” the title track of Bette’s Grammy-winning 1991 album. Ian herself recorded the song for her marvelous 1993 comeback album, the aptly titled “Breaking Silence.”
Ian has not been sitting idle since that time, mind you. She’s released a few more albums, including some on her own Rude Girl Records label. She also published her memoir “Society’s Child: My Autobiography” in 2008 and won her second Grammy for the audiobook. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Janis in 1994, 2004, 2008, and in 2022, and it is always a revelatory experience. She was kind enough to answer a few questions in advance of the release of her flawless new album “The Light at the End of the Line” (Rude Girl).
BLADE: I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with the best way to say this, and I keep returning the fact that with The Light at the End of the Line, your extraordinary last solo studio album, you are going out with a bang.
JANIS IAN: [Laughs] better a bang than a whimper!
BLADE: What was involved in the decision to make this your final studio recording?
IAN: I think hitting 70 was a big part of it. Having the last 15 years to put together songs and wanting to make something that was better than anything I’d done before was involved. Mostly, the timing really worked out. I went into lockdown right around when I needed or wanted to start thinking about this. I had no plans until I looked up at my write board and realized I had 15 songs I was pleased with, and one unfinished. I started listening to what Randy Leago had done with “Resist,” and I began working with Viktor Krauss on “Better Times…” I had originally intended to do an all-solo acoustic album, but it became clear that I really wanted a blend of it to serve the songs. There wasn’t a sudden, “Gee, I’ll make an album now” decision. There was more a talking to people and seeing where Randy and Viktor’s schedules were. Seeing where John Whelan was. Whether we could get Nuala Kennedy to do her parts from Ireland. Finding a studio where I live, which is near Bradenton, so there’s not a huge amount of studios available. Then just winnowing down the songs and going, “Well, I think this is actually an album.”
BLADE: Among the many aspects that make The Light at the End of the Line exceptional is that for the 12 songs, you draw on the many influences spanning your five-decade career, beginning with “I’m Still Standing,” which is as personal as, say, “At Seventeen.”
IAN: I would say so. That was part of my goal for the entire album, and part of the winnowing down of songs, was to make sure that the songs I picked were as universal as possible, and also songs that would hopefully stand the test of time. I mean it’s incredible that “At Seventeen” was released in 1975. It’s 45 years later and it’s still getting lots of airplay. Lots of people still sing it. People are still affected by it, young people, not people anywhere close to my age. So, to make an album that would reach as many people as possible emotionally, and at the same time have songs that were as well-written as I’m capable of doing after almost 60 years as a songwriter; that was the challenge, really. So, I’m glad to hear you say that.
BLADE: The social consciousness of your music extends all the way back to “Society’s Child” and continues today with songs such as “Stranger” and “Resist.” Please say a few words about the role of social commentary in your music.
IAN: I was raised in a very political family. I grew up stuffing envelopes and going to marches. My parents were both politically aware. My mom did things like attend the Civil Rights Congress. My parents were under watch by the FBI. So, it was a natural part of my life. Everyone we knew was involved, in one way or another, in politics and social issues, because I would regard feminism as much as a social issue as a political one. Although the line between the two is pretty blurred these days as I’m sure you know. “Stranger” just came out of nowhere one night. I had an off night and I never write on the road, ever. I think I’ve written two songs in my life while I was touring. But I was changing guitar strings and came up with that little pattern and the song just fell out in the course of the evening. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because my own grandfather had to come into America on a cousin’s passport. None of us found out his real name or the story until we were in our 20s and 30s. So I started thinking with all these people saying “illegals should be deported, even if they grew up here, even if they were born here, even if they’ve lived here 40 years, where does that leave me? Should I be sent back to Poland or Russia or the Ukraine?
BLADE: It truly resonates and it’s an ongoing issue. That leads me to the next question, which is about the anthemic single “Resist,” which is one of the album’s most powerful statements, with its “I will not disappear” and titular chants. Are you ever shocked that you still find yourself having to write and perform a song such as this?
IAN: I’m shocked that it hasn’t been fixed by now [laughs], and that it seems to be getting worse. I think that in some ways my generation underestimated the determination of the powers that be to stay in power. We knew about the FBI and the CIA, but it would never have occurred to us that there would still be genital mutilation. That women would still be burned on pyres. That there would be revenge rape. It’s a shock that these things still need to be addressed, but it’s not shocking that they need to be written about. I also think that music cuts through the noise in a way that very few other things can. Politics becomes just noise. Social media becomes just noise. Music has the ability to touch people’s hearts directly in a way that none of those things can. I didn’t set out with “Resist” and think, “Oh, I’m going to write a protest song about this.” But I was plenty annoyed when I wrote it.
BLADE: That definitely comes through.
IAN: It’s a fine line for me because my voice only carries so far. I can’t do what certain singers can do with their voices. I have a relatively light voice. That’s one of the great things about Randy Leago, and what he did with it. Because he managed to leave all that space for the vocal while surrounding it with…oh, I think I had asked for angry drums. So, the first thing you hear is that thud of the bass drum, which to me is like a footstep coming into the room. Lines like “I cannot be your virgin and I will not be your whore” came out of my own experience.
BLADE: It really is an incredible song. “Nina” is a breathtaking tribute to Nina Simone. It made me think about her performance in Questlove’s 2021 documentary Summer of Soul, and how she’s being reintroduced to new generations. Have you seen the doc?
IAN: I have not seen that, but I did see the Liz Garbus documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? (from 2015) because she’s singing my song in it.
BLADE: What do you think she’d think of your song about her?
IAN: [Big laugh] I would not begin to wonder what Nina would think about anything. I wouldn’t go there for $1,000,000. Well, maybe for $1,000,000, but I would be pretty unsure of myself. Nina was monumentally easy and monumentally difficult to love. That’s what I tried to capture in the song. She was biologically ill, mentally ill, I would say, but I’m not sure what the correct phrase is these days. But there was such a big biological aspect to it and by the time that was really beginning to be understood and treated, she had already burned so many bridges and made so many people angry. I feel like I saw Nina at her best and her worst. Her best was so much better than any other performer I’ve ever watched. And her worst was pretty scary.
BLADE: As a gay man, I have always loved the story about Nina’s correspondence with Langston Hughes.
IAN: She and (James) Baldwin (were friends), too. We had lunch at my mother’s one day and she showed up with James Baldwin in tow. I don’t think she cared about that at all because artists tend not. It doesn’t really matter, it’s like skin color. Who cares as long as you’re doing great work. It’s the world that surrounds us that becomes the problem.
BLADE: That is very true! Album closer “Better Times Will Come” is the kind of uplifting number we all need at this time. I was delighted by Diane Schuur’s scat…
IAN: Isn’t she great? Deedles!
BLADE: Her “Shayna maidel” shout-out elevates the song to a different level.
IAN: We probably talk every couple of weeks or more often. We’re good buddies. She’s great.
BLADE: Was that song as much fun to record as it is to listen to?
IAN: It began out of the Better Times project that I started when lockdown began — bettertimeswillcome.com. That involved, in the end, 187 artists all doing their own versions of the song. We’ve got 13 versions still to put up! Everything from Japanese sign language interpretation to a Dutch version to a Mandarin Chinese version to banjo or guitar or flatfooting. When it came time to record it, I wanted to close the album with it, but do something completely different from what I’d done already. My version that everybody worked off for the project was just me singing the song immediately after I finished it into my phone, no guitar, no nothing. You can go to bettertimeswillcome.com and watch all those videos, see all those versions, listen to them, download them. It was a great way to promote other artists who had projects coming out and suddenly couldn’t tour or make book appearances, all of that through my Facebook page. The Facebook people were wonderfully generous. I didn’t want to repeat that or reuse it, so it became question of how I do this so that it’s totally different from anything on the album and it maintains that spirit of inclusivity. I reached out to Viktor and we literally both sat down with our phone books and went, “OK, this person would be great. That person would be great. Are they available?” Vince Gill wasn’t available because he’s out with the Eagles. We told Vince we had a two-month window and he literally turned it in three days before we went to mix. With Deedles (Schuur), she’d been in lockdown for a while. There was no nearby studio. It was working with her manager to find a studio and then coordinating it with her so that she felt safe, and she could do it in her own time, in her own way. For all the musicians, it became a question of me saying, “This is a step-out moment. Treated it like you’re in the (Tommy) Dorsey bands in the old days and he suddenly points to you and says “You take your solo. No preparation, no leading up to it, no ramping up. You just start max.” I was really pleased with it. John Cowan singing a verse to start off with. That’s not something I’ve ever been able to do, and I’ve always wanted John to sing one of my songs. The harmonies are great. People like Andrea Zonn, who’s normally out with James Taylor, because of COVID they were available. It worked for the piece. Viktor and Jared (Anderson), the young engineer he found, worked at assembling. We spent a lot of time on it. It felt like we just needed something to give us all a bit of hope, and yet to recognize COVID, which is why the ending is what it is. Because we keep thinking we’re good and then we’re not and we think we’re good and then we’re not. Trying to speak to that, as well.
BLADE: As a songwriter, you have a long history of having your songs recorded by other performers. If you had to choose one song from The Light at the End of the Line to be covered by another artist, what song would it be and who would want to hear sing it?
IAN: Oh, man, that’s pretty easy! I would have P!nk record “Resist.” I think she would slay that; I think she would just kill that song.
BLADE: Not only is The Light at the End of the Line your last studio recording but the multi-city tour on which you will be embarking throughout most of 2022 is your final North American tour. What will you miss the most and the least about touring?
IAN: The thing you miss about touring when you’re not touring is the audience. I have really good audiences. Everything from the male or female seven-year-old would-be guitarist whose parent or grandparent thinks “You should see a really good acoustic guitarist” to the 80-year-old person who’s been following me since “Society’s Child.” It’s a really broad range. I meant it when I said (in the album art) that “this album is a love song” because when I wrote (the song) “The Light at the End of the Line” I looked at it as what I was saying to my fans. One of the difficult possibilities that artists face in these days of social media and easy advertising is making sure that you consider your supporters. A word I prefer to fans, because “fans” has other connotations. The people who have always supported me — I go back to Facebook as an example – there’s a social media everybody said you can’t make money from. And yet, one year when we held the sale for our Pearl Foundation, 70% of the money came from Facebook followers. I have to believe that if you do as I’ve done; if you don’t accept advertising on your page, if you don’t bother people, if you just present yourself and have a good time, they stay with you. I have more than half a million followers to attest to that. There are a lot of potential pitfalls that I try to avoid because I really respect the people who support my work. That’s an absurd cliché, Gregg, but it’s true. I respect those people. I have a lot of gratitude toward those people.
BLADE: Do you have a feeling that they know that?
IAN: Absolutely! When I was staying after every show and signing, which I did for 30 years, I would hear that. That was very direct. The Light at the End of the Line also becomes a way for me to say, “You stuck with me when I was not a great writer. You stuck with me when I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I grew up in this fishbowl. Here’s our payoff. I am now a really good writer and singer, and here’s a love song for you.
BLADE: The last couple of years have been brutal, to say the least, and we lost many great friends and artists, including Nanci Griffith and John Prine. Would you mind saying a few words about Nanci and John?
IAN: Nanci was a very under-recognized songwriter, like Dolly Parton. And a great interpreter. She called me one day and said, “Janis, I need a Janis Ian folk song.” [Laughs] “I don’t know what that means” and she said, “Just let it roll around.” I called my friend Jon Vezner and I said, “Nanci Griffith wants a Janis Ian folk song and I have this idea for something that’ll begin ‘This old town should have burned down in 1929’,” and he said, “Fantastic! I’ll be over tomorrow morning.” That’s how Nanci operated. She left you to do what you do. John’s death really took me aback. It hit me very hard. It’s not that we were that close, but I had known John since we’re both in our early 20s. We had seen each other at the Cambridge Folk Festival a little short while before, or it felt like a short while before. “Better Times Will Come” literally grew out of that. I was in our house, in the garage doing laundry, thinking about John. “Better times will come” started running through my head. I wrote it, basically, because John died. I’m not sure what I would have written without that. Somebody once said to me, “You will never be able to write a three-chord song.” Gregg, this is literally the only three-chord song I have written in my life. I have to think that on some level, without getting weird about it, John was out there encouraging it. He was the king of simplicity. John was simple and direct in a way that very few of us ever get to be. (He’s) sorely missed.
Music & Concerts
Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry plan fall releases
A Fleetwood Mac live album, more Joni archives among vintage options
Paris Hilton released her “Infinite Icon” album on Sept. 6. It’s just the second effort following a massive hiatus — her debut album “Paris” was released way back in 2006. Sia produces. This summer’s “I’m Free” was the first single. A tour is planned. Hilton promised a “heavily gay-leaning release.”
Miranda Lambert’s “Postcards from Texas” is slated to drop today. Lambert’s 10th studio album was preceded by the May release of single “Wranglers,” which stalled in the lower 30s on country radio. Lambert calls the album a musical ode to her home state. She co-produces with Jon Randall and either wrote or co-wrote 10 of the project’s 14 cuts.
Katy Perry’s “143” is set for a Sept. 20 release. It will be her seventh studio album. Its title refers to what she says is her symbolic angel number. Perry is aiming for a dance party feel working with producers Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Stargate, Vaughn Oliver and Rocco Did It Again! The proceedings are not off to a strong start. First single “Woman’s World” stalled at No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100. Follow-up “Lifetimes” failed to crack the Hot 100 at all.
Fleetwood Mac releases “Mirage Tour ’82” on Sept. 20. It includes six tracks previously unreleased including “Don’t Stop,” “Dreams,” “Never Going Back Again,” “Sara” and more. Available on double CD, triple vinyl and digitally.
Volume four of Joni Mitchell’s “Archives” series dubbed “The Asylum Years: 1976-1980” releases Oct. 4. It’s being offered in six-CD or four-LP (highlights) configurations. It will feature unreleased studio sessions, alternate versions, live recordings, rarities and a 36-page book with new photos and an extensive conversation between Mitchell and filmmaker/uberfan Cameron Crowe.
Sophie B. Hawkins releases her “Whaler Re-Emerging” album (a re-recording of her landmark 1994 album) on Oct. 15. Order through her site and the first 250 copies will be signed. Hawkins (who identifies as omnisexual) says it surpasses the original.
Joe Jonas’s “Music for People Who Believe in Love” and Shawn Mendes’s “Shawn” are both set for Oct. 18 releases. Jonas’s album (his first solo effort since 2011’s “Fastlife”) will feature songwriting he says is of a more personal nature. Billboard called it “unvarnished” but with a shimmery pop sound aglow with garage rock and alt-pop influences. First single “Work It Out” was released over the summer and failed to chart.
“Shawn” will be Mendes’s first album since 2020’s “Wonder,” the tour of which he cancelled citing mental health. Two singles — “Why Why Why” and “Isn’t That Enough” — have been released. The former stalled at no. 84 on the Hot 100. He has called the album his “most musically intimate and lyrically honest work to date.”
Lana Del Rey’s “Lasso” is expected for a possible fall release, although some sources say it’s been bumped to early 2025. No date had been announced as of yet. She’s apparently going the Beyonce route and releasing a straight-up country album.
Dolly Parton plans a Nov. 15 release for “Smoky Mountain DNA — Family, Faith & Fables.” Parton recruited family to help her on the 37 (!)-track collection, which will also encompass a four-part docuseries tracing Parton’s familial roots. One song (“A Rose Won’t Fix It”) is an outtake from the feverish writing sessions that led to her solid (but underrated) 1998 album “Hungry Again.” An extremely limited-edition triple vinyl release is also planned.
Release dates shift and many more releases will be announced later. Pitchfork keeps a great running tab at pitchfork.com/news/new-album-releases. Also check your local record store for Black Friday special editions available on Friday, Nov. 29. Release info was scant as of this writing.
(Joey DiGuglielmo was variously the Washington Blade’s news and features editor from 2006-2020.)
Music & Concerts
Kylie Minogue makes hearts go PADAM at WeHo Pride OUTLOUD
Pop singing sensation Kylie Minogue delivered a string of her biggest hits at the WeHo Pride OUTLOUD Music Festival on Sunday
By Paulo Murillo | WEST HOLLYWOOD – Pop singing sensation Kylie Minogue delivered a string of her biggest hits at the WeHo Pride OUTLOUD Music Festival on Sunday, June 2, 2024. The highly anticipated concert included songs like “Come Into My World,” “Spinning Around,” “All the Lovers,” “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” and “Padam-Padam” to name a few.
The Australian pop goddess also debuted a new song, a duet with fringed-mask-wearing country singer Orville Peck, called “Midnight Ride,” produced by Diplo, who also joined the duet on stage.
The performance, part of the LGBTQ+ concert event, captivated the audience and has since garnered attention online, with a clip of their duet circulating widely. “Midnight Ride” is now available for pre-order on all music download platforms.
According to reports Minogue is teaming up again with Lostboy, the producer behind her hit “Padam Padam.” Lostboy, whose real name is Peter Rycroft, hinted at their new material, suggesting it could be part of a follow-up to Minogue’s 2023 album, “Tension.”
“Padam was its own thing, it’s lived its own life. The new stuff is so fun as well in its own way. I don’t know when it will be out,” Rycroft told The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column.
Orville Peck and Diplo are no strangers to the WeHo Pride OUTLOUD Music Festival in West Hollywood. Diplo did a DJ set on Sunday night right before Kylie hit the stage for her own performance, and Orville was a main headliner at last year’s WeHo Pride music event.
The crowd was massive and could be heard singing along to all the classic tunes. Kylie had two outfit changes. The set was tight, and there was no encore performance. Sources report that she had a plane to catch right after the show.
During Kylie’s set, West Hollywood Mayor John Erickson, Vice Mayor Chelsea Byers, and Council Member Sepi Shyne joined the singer on stage to inform her and the crowd that the City of West Hollywood has declared June 2nd as Kylie Minogue Day. They also presented her with a Kylie Minogue Way street sign to commemorate the day. She showed off her sign to the crowd and thanked the council for the welcome.
Kylie’s performance was the wrap-up for WeHo Pride 2024.
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Paulo Murillo is Editor in Chief and Publisher of WEHO TIMES. He brings over 20 years of experience as a columnist, reporter, and photo journalist. Murillo began his professional writing career as the author of “Love Ya, Mean It,” an irreverent and sometimes controversial West Hollywood lifestyle column for FAB! newspaper. His work has appea
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The preceding article was previously published by WeHo Times and is republished with permission.
Music & Concerts
The Voice crowns its very first LGBTQ winner with Asher HaVon
After 25 seasons, The Voice has crowned Asher HaVon. Asher is more than a voice, he is the spiritual representation of equality itself
HOLLYWOOD – So, the LGBTQ pundits and culture watchers were… wrong. Or at the very least, anticipating “history” way before its time. After frustration over American Idol’s inability to crown an LGBTQ winner, they held high hopes for a new competing star-making vehicle, The Voice.
In 2011, The Advocate burst with excitement saying “There’s no need to wait on NBC’s new vocal competition, The Voice. The show boasts four gay contestants — two men and two women — heading into the battle round, where they will be coached by the likes of Blake Shelton, Cee Lo, Christina Aguilera, and Adam Levine. And while a couple of them might be eliminated in the next few weeks (in the battle round, teams of eight are whittled down to four when teammates face each other in a sing-off), chances that there will be a lesbian or gay singer competing to become the first “Voice” are strong.”
Well. Not so strong. All of the LGBTQ contenders were eliminated. As were others over the years that even included a young transman singing with his father as one of the show’s few duet contestants. American Idol did end up crowning an LGBTQ winner in its 18th season.
That was then… and this is now. After 25 seasons, The Voice has crowned Asher HaVon its winner. It is no wonder, as Asher’s vocal tone is hypnotic, rich, and blows through your auditory senses. Listening to him hit certain notes in his vocal runs can bring you to a flood of emotional tears. At least, it did for me.
It did for coach Reba McIntire as well.
The significance of Asher HaVon’s win goes beyond just a queer identity. It is adorned with a depth of representation and visibility. When Asher stepped on stage, he brought culture, diversity, history, and identity.
Like many incredible vocalists, he comes from a church foundation. Reba McEntire was a wise coach choice, relating to a broad reach of American sensibilities. She is one of the rare entertainers who is beloved by fans across the broad political spectrum. She is traditional, but an ally.
In a bit of irony, there is a segment of his hometown that still are keeping his LGBTQ status in the closet. The Selma Times Journal brags about his “historic win”, but when they write about it, they are referring to the fact that he is the first winner from Alabama. They do not mention his LGBTQ identity at all.
Not sure how they could miss it. Asher presents in full-beat makeup with gorgeous nails to diva quality eye makeup and lashes. His costuming was never anything less than fabulous. His song choices placed him in a pantheon of LGBTQ-worshipped goddesses that included Adele, Beyonce, Whiney Houston, Patti LaBelle, Toni Braxton, Tina Turner, and Donna Summer. He was not only courageous to take on their groundbreaking hits, but did so with the talent to impress with his own versions of them.
As Asher stands on stage, he also represents a proud black man living in the spirit of America’s civil rights movement. He truly does represent Selma Alabama, and its fight for equality significance is part of his DNA and his history. In 2015, when President Barack Obama visited the city, Asher sang for him in front of a crowd of 200,000 at the famed Selma Bridge crossing.
While the significance of that event is not lost on him, Asher calls it one that he “will never forget”, he tells the Montgomery Advertiser that The Voice “is different because it is the Asher HaVon that most people never got a chance to see. I am free. I am walking in the authenticity of who I am, while sharing my gift. That means so much more to me than any other experience than I’ve ever had in life.”
While Asher carried his legacy, the history he represented, and his authenticity into every performance he gave over the show’s run, it was his pure talent that put him on top. It was so impressive that it even broke through the show’s premise of four celebrity coaches battling it out for a win. Under that guise, each of the coaches pleads with America to vote for their protégés.
Asher had most of them pleading for him instead. He initially received three “chair turns” at the outset where Chance the Rapper, Dan & Shay, and Reba were the celebrities campaigning for him to pick them. John Legend was the hold-out. Asher, ever the diva connoisseur, had already picked Reba in his mind and would have picked her no matter what anyone else had said.
Legend, later in the season, shared that he received a phone call from his dad who declared not only that he was rooting for Asher, but that Asher was “THE” voice of the season. Both Legend and Chance declared Asher to be “the best vocalist on the show” several times in their feedback statements.
While Asher’s win and authenticity should bring a source of joy to LGBTQ fans, it also is a big boost for his coach and main champion, Reba McEntire. While the show has put a full-throttle on Reba as the “queen of country” and showered her with adoration, she has had some difficulty in wowing many of the auditioning singers onto her team. Asher represents a significant win for her, as well as her being also the coach for first runner-up Josh Sanders, when she starts the next season against Gwen Stefani, Michael Bubble, and Snoop Dogg. The latter two are newcomers and Stefani boasts only one previous win years ago, but a loss in her one previous match-up against McEntire.
For the future Voice contestants, Reba has some serious creds to play.
For the rest of us, in the LGBTQ community, in the dance clubs, and in the hearts of ones needing a new diva to love, Asher has arrived.
Related:
Asher HaVon and Coach Reba perform Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald’s “On My Own” during The Voice finale.
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Music & Concerts
Here is the Earth Day anthem we forgot we needed
Singer/songwriter Anne Stotts releases Water to Blood as our collective call to action as we mark Earth Day
HOLLYWOOD – The evolution of Earth Day, from its inception in 1970 to the global movement it is today, has been accelerated by dire and extreme climate change events that do not seem to have garnered the political attention they deserve. Cataclysmic events have underscored the reality of global warming in the face of industries and populists who want to deny it.
Earth Day 2024 is a day that united millions in the past and continues to inspire action towards environmental sustainability and conservation today.
As glaciers melt and weather systems buckle, we need a call-to-action anthem. Just as We Are the World unified hearts and minds against famine and starvation, we need to blast the climate change cause to reach souls where other agendas may be keeping their minds in the dark. Music transcends barriers, connecting with people on an emotional level and inspiring change in ways that statistics and reports cannot.
Anne Stott’s Water to Blood is the anthem we need this Earth Day. It strives to inspire us all, and the powers that be, to address the climate crisis NOW.
You can squeeze the earth til it’s dry and the people til they’re weak, build a wall so high you can’t hear the screams, but so far we’ve had fires, floods and now the plague. This empire’s dying cause it can’t face change. The time’s here now, it’s not coming… it’s come. Water to Blood
Incisive. Vibrant. Dramatic. Anne Stott is a singer/songwriter of cinematic alt-rock, an actor, and an apolitical rabble-rouser. Her “bad girl to the good girls and good girl to the bad girls” energy infuses her music and live performances with edgy compassion while her elastic style embraces eighties pop and nineties grunge infused with a modern moody atmosphere.
Produced by Blondie/Rufus Wainwright producer Barb Morrison, the Water to Blood anthem smashes the psyche to its core, leaving the listener energized, motivated, and with a sense of urgency that too much time has passed to ignore our collective environmental crisis any longer.
“The Right Wing is so GOOD at spinning,” Anne Stott tells me when we sat down for the Rated LGBT Radio podcast. “My hope for this song is that it will motivate people who haven’t been engaged in climate change to get more active and it will be a comfort and it will help rejuvenate and energize those who have been devoting their lives to make change. I think the production of the song combined with the lyrics creates a nice synergy of political takedown and an optimistic, motivational vibe. And I definitely have both of those sides. I am always deeply moved by people standing up for what is right and if this song can contribute to people’s struggle to protect our future on this planet that would make me really happy”
As a quirky queer singer-songwriter and film actress that splits her time between Cape Cod and New York City, Anne wields a unique worldview as someone who was formed by growing up internationally.
Born in Philadelphia, she grew up in Luxembourg and moved to the UK, then Minnesota and New York City. She moved to Provincetown in 2007 for a writing retreat for a few months and ended up staying. She busked in the street outside of the town hall and got discovered by director David Drake, who cast her in a play at the local art house.
She was involved in political activism (she was a member of the Lesbian Avengers) but “hit a wall” because she wanted to do something more creative. She has released two albums of original music, Love Never Dies and Pennsylvania.
Who does she see as the biggest villains against a climate change solution? Big Plastics, and Big Oil. “The plastics industry and the oil industry are going to hold on to their propaganda until they can milk every penny they can from the planet,” she says.
Being in New York City when wildfires in the east clouded the sky, Anne was impacted. “It was like something out of a horror movie,” she recalls. “We HAVE to stop calling these things anomalies. The anomalies are no longer ‘anomalies’. I have to stop myself from calling these ‘distinct events’, no, this is the normal now and it is really scary, and it is really hard to own that.”
Is there hope? “I am very inspired by the youth movements around climate change. They are not as big in the news right now, but there is a lot of engagement with people in their 20s and their teens, and that is very inspiring.”
“I think of the government coming together for the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. We need that level of commitment, drive, and expertise to come together to look at this from all angles. People want to do more, but we have shaped this culture around convenience, and it is hard to walk that back individually,” she adds.
When she is not saving the world, Anne and her music is a bewitching synergy between Joni Mitchell and Chrissie Hynde, performing sincere and engaging personal songs as well as those about social change and political takedown.
The Water to Blood climate change track launches today to coincide with Earth Day. It will be also on her upcoming album Watershed Synapse Experience which comes out in September. (Also produced by Barb Morrison).
In the meantime, she will be releasing more singles from thought-provokers on racism, to a hot dance track. While you wait, download Water to Blood, turn up the volume and wake up everyone in listening distance.
Literally and figuratively – because the crisis isn’t coming, it’s come.
Watch:
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Related:
Music & Concerts
Raw & resolute, Damez brings the intersectional image we need
He showcases his talents & versatility through an eclectic catalog of self-penned songs, choreography-heavy visuals & performances
ATLANTA, Ga. – In ancient times, to refine gold, a craftsman would sit next to a hot fire with molten gold in a crucible, and he would skim out the dross that rose to the top of the molten metal. Like that fine, purified precious substance, hip hop star Damez is ready for the trial by fire to end, and the golden life to begin.
He says as much in his new album Hell Now, Heaven Later. Over the course of the 17 tracks, in a cavalcade of street poetry, Damez empties his closet of tragedy, racism, homophobia and struggles he has experienced in his young life.
“I am intentional on everything I do,” he tells me on the podcast Rated LGBT Radio. “Life was putting me through things I couldn’t ignore, I needed the record to serve … I needed to address the issues, the pain the trauma head on.”
At times raw, at times resolute, at times angry, the album stuns in its honesty. It is a testament to both being defeated, and also resolving to moving ahead with hope. Thus, the name Hell now, Heaven later.
His family moved to Atlanta when he was 6, born in Mississippi. Life was great, and his childhood was perfect. He was the kid with a thousand questions and wanted to know everything. He already adored Destiny’s Child even at that age– “I was a music kid,” he says.
His parents were divorced when he was in high school, but as difficult as that was, it was nothing compared to the horror coming. When Damez was a senior in high school, his brother, Ryan, close to him in age, and his best friend, was murdered. “They were back-to-back traumatic experiences that did a lot of damage to my soul, my happiness and my confidence.”
He describes his brother to me. “He was just the coolest, most down to earth, precious soul. He made you feel like you belonged, he had your back. It is a void I have been trying to fill for 12 years. No one knows you like your big brother does. No one has your back. That kind of loss changes the chemistry in your brain.”
His greatest champion was gone, but music was still there for him, however, as it always had been. He came out sexually to his family, which was not met at first with great acceptance. Depressed, lonely and defeated, he pulled through by creating songs. He loaded his closet, now that he was out of it, with studio equipment, and the rest, as he says, “was history.”
He is now a rapper, singer, dancer, songwriter, editor, creative director, and a rising star in music. With a focus on rap and R&B, he showcases his talents and versatility through an eclectic catalog of self-penned songs and choreography-heavy visuals and performances.
His world has been exploding with possibilities ever since.
He was named the “New Face of Atlanta’s Music Scene” by Out Magazine’s Pride edition in 2020, as well as Atlanta Magazine.
Photo of Damez by Alex D. Rogers
Out Magazine, in fact, put him on their cover.
In 2022, MTV News said Damez was ready to take the throne. He was featured on Billboard.com twice, as part of their ‘Billboard Pride’ playlist for his 2019 singles “Pull Up” and “Big Mood.” He’s performed for Atlanta’s Black Pride Festival in 2019, 2021, & 2022, as well as other notable performances such as 2021’s MOBI Fest, Human Rights Campaign’s HBCU Summit in 2019, and opening for original Dreamgirl Jennifer Holliday during NAESM’s 2020 Leadership Conference.
An advocate for equal rights and healthcare, he has participated in numerous campaigns for The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Gilead’s Truvada for PrEP Medication, among others.
More recently, he was featured in a 2022 campaign alongside Tina Knowes-Lawson and others for British multinational pharmaceutical ViiV Healthcare’s HIV campaign, ‘Me in You, You in Me’ to end HIV stigma and raise awareness on preventive medication.
His earliest work, that gained great popularity and play time in clubs, was full of tough talk, attitude and made him untouchable. It was, he now says, an armor that he has become willing to drop. “Today, that is not who I am and what I want my music to reflect.”
The album also does not hide his queerness, he is autobiographically vivid in who he is. “I had to analyze and accept that I was very different from my brothers at a young age. I could not go through life being someone I am not, but I did know it would not be easy.” He depicts the evolvement of his family accepting him from within an African American community that often did not.
He met with a lot of pushback in the Hip Hop world by being open about who he was. “I was told ‘no’, and certain artists would not work with me. Performance opportunities were being withheld even though I had better numbers than those on the bill. It was not something new. I had met these challenges before—in school and dealing with my family, so I knew I would be told ‘no’ a lot. Then there was the flip side. People are writing from all over the world. Kids are being inspired. Kids from different countries in Africa.”
“In the LGBTQ space, I am bringing Hip Hop—which is a widely multi-dimensional genre, and a lot of people don’t look at it that way, and don’t know it to be that.”
When Out Magazine put him on its cover, he was both thrilled, and scared being so revealed. “It came at an important moment for me, “ he says now. “I was struggling mentally at the time, and that cover was encouraging and gave me drive. My work was not in vain. It was a sign to not give up. I got right back in the studio, and my next EP was called COVER BOY. I suddenly realized that I had more influence than I thought I had. It all became bigger than me.”
“In the LGBTQ space, I am bringing Hip Hop—which is a widely multi-dimensional genre, and a lot of people don’t look at it that way, and don’t know it to be that. They have not heard enough Hip Hop in their lives to know how expansive it can really be. So that is another aspect I wanted to bring, the music I grew up with, introducing , exposing and showcasing the nuanced many different kinds of Hip Hop, the kinds that are embedded in my soul. There are so many different facets.”
As he brings Hip Hop to an audience that may feel the industry behind that genre doesn’t even like them, he is also introducing his R&B talents to the world. One cut, Stay Afloat, on the Hell Now album is Damez delivering sweet soulful melody.
It provides the silver lining to the fights depicted throughout the rest of the album. It is a song of vulnerability, and hope.
There is a point in the purification process where the fire has done its job. The imperfections are removed and the gold stand pure, shiny, glorious and ready to crown a regal head.
With all the power and good will Damez is generating, the bridges he is building, and all the new projects that are coming (“Things I can’t even talk about,” he tells me.), we can only hope that the hell he has experienced is slipping away and over.
Heaven does not have to wait, and if the inspiration from the album is an indication, it is not later.
It has arrived.
Related:
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Music & Concerts
Bold and beautiful, R&B’s Idman gives us a risk we want to take
Idman’s newest release, the EP Risk, and the extended Risk-Reloaded version, is about the complexities and codependence of relationships
HOLLYWOOD – Idman, the gorgeous R&B toned singer/songwriter from Toronto, knows that the ability to be a safely out LGBTQ person is a privilege.
In a recent Los Angeles Blade opinion piece, they cautioned those progressives who are cavalier about the outing process. They became a spokesperson for those who are susceptible to its dangers. “I wish we told queer and trans youth more often that there is no standard within which to measure the authenticity of one’s identity, and that they’re valid whether they decide to come out or not. That the world’s reactions to their truths are not their fault, and that they are no less valid in their identities for deciding to withhold it from those they believe cannot honor them,” they write, fully conscious that teens coming out can spark abuse, depression and in some cases homelessness. They observe, “Statistics show that LGBTQ+ youth, especially those of color, are disproportionately affected by homelessness… It’s crucial to challenge the idea that queer and trans people owe intimate details of their lives to others.”
The risk of coming out is one that they, themselves, have been willing to take however, and they do so in a new EP aptly titled “Risk.”
“I know that I get to live in a world and have an experience where I have the privilege of figuring that out for myself… I have the opportunity to explore. I think I have more of a sadness now in me for my parents and for my relatives in the fact that I know that there are parts of them that they might not ever get to explore in this lifetime, and I know that it’s not their fault.” Idman tells me on the Rated LGBT Radio podcast.
Born in Toronto within a very close-knit Somali immigrant community, Idman seems an unlikely candidate to stand courageously as a non-binary sexually fluid musician. They were raised fluent in their parents’ mother tongue . “They really instilled a love for my culture. I was really prideful for my heritage… we come from a religious Muslim community, but my parents were super unorthodox and open minded.” Their mother was a wedding planner and part of that gig was to have the house constantly filled with musicians, leaving an aesthetic impact on the talented Idman.
Even though musically, Idman was initially exposed to the “love is forever” style wedding music, their relationship-oriented songs exhibit a deeper complexity. The songs do not depict a heroine and a villain, but rather two humans trying to figure things out. “When I was challenged to write about love, I was confronted with the fact that the R&B space was really in this energy of toxicity, that we are in an era of ‘ghosting’ and that you need to leave before you are left. I found this genre could only be done through honesty and I wanted my music to be the place where people can tap into the depth where it is not always black and white, and the other person isn’t always in the wrong.”
Idman leapt into the music scene in 2020 with their debut single Down for It. Right from the get, they seemed to signal that they were prepared for the challenges, confrontations and potential fight for individuality that lay ahead. “Feel like I was born for this (this), feel like it was calling me
Never been down for the comfortable, that’s just impossible Never walked the road that was paved for Me,” they sing. The song also projects Idman’s attitude towards those who are trans- and homo- phobic. “Have you ever met a hater, If you know (one) play this loud as hell, I can not hate you for not seeing for me what you can not see for yourself And I cannot hate me,
blessed highly favored while you sit o’ there by ya self.” It is an attitude that they also reflect in their Blade article when they say, “It’s a shame, it’s a stain and it should be the regret of a lifetime for someone to deny themselves the love of a queer or trans person because they can’t see beyond their own projection. What a flop. It is always their loss. I promise.”
Idman’s newest release, the EP Risk, and the extended Risk-Reloaded version, is about the complexities and codependence of relationships. From the prominent track Hate, which is an ode to hating one’s own feeling of longing for the object of one’s desire, to In My Feels, which laments the inability to let go, Idman examines the layers that could bring emotions in any Romeo and Juliet style romance gone afoul.
It is in the songs and videos for the tracks Beach and Still where Idman takes their own “risk” by truly revealing themselves. The object of affection in Beach is spelled out in the first line of the song. “I know you’re somebody’s girlfriend but I know you ain’t innocent, I can tell by how you lookin’ That you’re likin’ what you’re seein’ I can show you something better baby all you gotta do is say when.” Idman realized that when that song came out, they had essentially outed themselves as being LGBTQ. Their article that appears in the Blade was meant to be a letter to accompany that event, and to fully underscore what she was saying, and why.
The video for Still took things to a whole new level of representation. The video and song depict a fighting couple who are clearly not straight cisgender. It could be, in fact, a musical video first, showing a song featuring two trans people in a relationship, fighting emotions and attachment just as any other couple might.
I asked Idman if they felt brave in making the video. “I was scared. I tried to back out of it a couple times like the week before I called the director and was like actually can we switch? If you switch the lead out with my trainer, he’s 6’4…” but they did not switch. “I wanted to use it as an opportunity to show some love on the screen in a different way. I think it is often depicted in a really hyper sexualized way, and I wanted to show the romantic nature of this love, that there are arguments and break ups hurt as much as anyone else’s…I have this opportunity to show that we are here. I’ll take this shot for all the younger kids who need to see themselves in that.”
In 2022, Idman released the single Look at What I’m Doing to You, an ode to the heartbroken who turn tables and choose happiness instead. In it, she coyly teases us, “Look at what I’m doing to you. Told you that I’m trouble times two. It is what it is. So influential. It’s my effect on you.”
It is perfect instruction for those who are listening and vibing on all music Idman. From the self-talking “Down for It” through to the going for it “Risk”, Idman dares us to look at what they are doing to us.
They are pushing our consciousness on gender identity, and releasing our need to label and judge. They bathe this principle in rich rhythmic music and Somali poetic cadence, which speaks to our hearts and our souls.They are indeed “trouble times two”.
The effect, if you listen and absorb, is that Idman is “so influential.” We can only hope that influence explodes, and inspires strength for the vulnerable who need its confidence.
If that happens, the Risk will have been worth it, and that will be Idman’s legacy:
The ultimate effect on us.
Related:
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Music & Concerts
Tyler Childers’ sweet gay love story: 5+ GRAMMY nominations
“For all the ugliness that it’s going to bring out, that just can’t be helped. This is going to make real conversations possible”
HOLLYWOOD – Tyler Childers has been at this rodeo before. He is not unaccustomed to receiving ire from the Bud Lite boycotting crowd. He caught hell in September 2020 with his album Long Violent History which revolved around the themes of racism, civil unrest and police brutality.
This time, the controversy is around a song on his hit album Rustin’ In The Rain. Rustin’ leads with a hit song titled In Your Love. In should be safe from controversy on its face. The lyrics, written by poet laureate Silas House, and are deeply romantic about a love both fought for, and lost, with no regrets.
Had the team of Childers and House stopped there, the cheap beer guzzling neanderthal crowd would have been happy.
They didn’t. Instead, they created a gorgeously acted, poignant music video about two gay miners in Kentucky. In the video, one of of the lovers is taken down with black lung disease, a common and undiscussed killer. The video was written by, and creatively directed by House. He stated bluntly about the project, “These are human stories, not political stories.”
The concept was Childers’s idea. He sought to tell the world about his LGBTQ family members’ life experiences. He had been particularly impacted by his gay cousin who fled Kentucky and never came back. Childers was particularly bothered that his cousin had never seen any kind of country music video that spoke to him.
Now one does. The video stars openly gay stars Colton Haynes and James Scully. The couple fall in love in the coal mines and move on to become sustenance farmers. Along the way, they encounter violent homophobia, but stand strong and go to parties, host loved ones, and work their land to establish a simple life. Their romance comes to a tragic end when one dies from coal miners’ pneumoconiosis, and his widower stays alone for the rest of his life.
“I wasn’t expecting to come here and bawl my eyes out but here we are. So beautiful and so sad all at the same time,” fan Trey Tackett writes on YouTube. Trey was not alone. The video has brought together many people from various walks of life who are reacting to the pure humanity of the story, and to the specifics of Appalachian life, rarely depicted.
From scared mothers like Monica Carmon, “I just heard this on the way home from work and immediately searched for it because of the way it touched me. Sitting outside in my car sobbing watching the video. This hits so close to home. My youngest son is openly gay and my greatest fear as a mother is that someone full of hate will harm him. Love is love. Please never forget that,” to another fan who has lived life without the inspiration that Childers has given, “I can’t properly quantify what a difference it would’ve made if people like you stood up for people like me when I was a kid. I’m so grateful younger people now have you. Thank you and the actors, team for a beautiful video,” he says.
Others have shared how the fight for love, even when ill-fated, is worth it. K C Geno stated, “This hits home. I lost my soulmate of 42 years to leukemia in November of 2019. Thank you so much for going out on a limb to recognize the beauty of love.”
The universality of the song even reached those who were not particularly moved by the fight against homophobia, “Dude I don’t care about the two men in love! This song is a beautiful testament of finding true love and the inevitability of having to watch it leave you! This life whether gay or straight we all face this! Beautiful song and video! Tyler thank you so much for this song! We all need this kind of love in our lives to prove it wasn’t all for nothing!” stated “Dark Fanged Sword”.
Some shared how much this dramatic depiction has been lived by them in real life. Arnold Tucker related, “This is a great video, it shows what some of us have had to live daily… the hate and non acceptance. I am now a retired police officer and my Partner was a EMS Paramedic for the Texas County we lived in. My Jim died August 5th, 2000, and it still a hard thing to deal with. The Love we shared was wonderful, and I [will] probably never have that feeling again. Thank You Tyler for showing this side of life that most still hide and deal with.”
Another man named Jeffrey found the song timely, as he was in the throws of losing his husband. Just after his husband died, Jeffrey posted, “My husband just passed and this song is my song to him. I put my phone to his ear so he could hear it. In my darkest time this young man’s music is getting me through it.”
No one seems to care much about the haters. Childers was ready for it at the outset. “For all the ugliness that it’s going to bring out, that just can’t be helped. This video is going to make real conversations possible.”
As for his fans, they welcome the adversity from the close minded. Their attitude is “Don’t let the concert venue doors slap you in the ass on the way out.” The new Childers’s fans are more than eager to buy up any concert tickets that haters want to leave behind.
The GRAMMY awards seem equally unfazed by the “anti-wokers.” They showered Childers with five 2024 nominations. He is up for Best Country Solo Performance for In Your Love, Best Country Song for In Your Love, Best Country Album for Rustin’ in the Rain, and Best Music Video for In Your Love. House is nominated for one, Best Music Video for In Your Love.
The fans agree. Per “mmjsstav”, “Wow. Video had me absolutely in tears. And what a terrific, incredibly well written and composed song. The Grammy nominations are so well deserved!! Hadn’t heard of you before this, but now I”m a huge fan and will be buying your records.”
Now, we have to wait until early next year to see if Childers and House win, as many think they should. Fan after fan declare the video not just to be great, but to be the “best video they have ever seen.”
It actually does not matter what happens for Childers and House February 4th at the Crypto.com Arena.
For all the conversations they have started, the real life stories that they inspired to be told, for lovers motivated, and tears shed….
In the most consequential ways, they have already won.
Related:
Tyler Childers – In Your Love (Official Video):
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Music & Concerts
Gay Country artist & sibling win Vocal Duo at 57th CMA awards
In addition to the Brothers Osborne winning Vocal Duo of the Year, Country singer Lainey Wilson took home 3 of the top awards of the night
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The biggest names in Country music gathered Wednesday evening at Music City’s Bridgestone Arena for the 57th Annual Country Music Association Awards, hosted again this year by Country star Luke Bryan alongside former NFL star Peyton Manning.
Walking away with Vocal Duo of the Year were sibling musicians John and TJ Osborne.
The Brothers Osborne as they are known by, in previous years have won in this category, this year making it their sixth win.
T.J. Osborne, lead singer of the country duo, came out as gay in an exclusive interview with Time Magazine, which was published February 3, 2021.
While other ostensibly country artists are openly LGBTQ (such as Orville Peck, Brandi Carlile, Lil Nas X, Chely Wright and Billy Gilman, Osborne’s revelation makes him the first – and so far, only – openly gay musical artist signed to a major country label.
John and TJ Osborne grew up in the small Chesapeake Bay bayside town of Deale, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, writing and playing songs for friends and family in their father’s shed. T.J. with his brother John formed the Brothers Osborne duo in 2012. Signed with EMI Records Nashville, they’ve released seven country Top 40 singles and three studio albums, to date. Their platinum hit “Stay a Little Longer,” was a crossover to mainstream radio.
The siblings took home their first GRAMMY in 2022, winning Best Country Duo/Group Performance for their song “Younger Me,” inspired by TJ’s coming out. The band has been nominated for 10 GRAMMYs in total, standing as a now six-time CMA Vocal Duo of the Year, and are three-time ACM Duo of the Year.
Overall, they have collected six CMA awards, six ACM trophies and received the ASCAP Vanguard Award in 2019. Their critically acclaimed hit songs have tallied multiple RIAA Gold and Platinum certifications, while surpassing more than 2.5 Billion global streams.
In addition to the Brothers Osborne winning Vocal Duo of the Year, Country singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson took home three of the top awards of the night, including the coveted entertainer of the year award, as well as female vocalist of the year and album of the year.
This is also the first time in CMA history that two women have been nominated for Entertainer of the Year in four consecutive years.
Complete list of winners and nominees:
| Entertainer of the Year | Album of the Year |
| Lainey Wilson (Winner) Luke Combs Chris Stapleton Carrie Underwood Morgan Wallen (Nominees) | Bell Bottom Country — Lainey Wilson (Winner) Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville — Ashley McBryde Gettin’ Old — Luke Combs One Thing at a Time — Morgan Wallen Rolling Up the Welcome Mat — Kelsea Ballerini (Nominees) |
| Male Vocalist of the Year | Female Vocalist of the Year |
| Chris Stapleton (Winner) Luke Combs Jelly Roll Cody Johnson Morgan Wallen (Nominees) | Lainey Wilson (Winner) Kelsea Ballerini Miranda Lambert Ashley McBryde Carly Pearce (Nominees) |
| Vocal Group of the Year | Vocal Duo of the Year |
| Old Dominion (Winner) Lady A Little Big Town Midland Zac Brown Band (Nominees) | Brothers Osborne (Winner) Brooks & Dunn Dan + Shay Maddie & Tae The War and Treaty (Nominees) |
| Single of the Year | Song of the Year |
| “Fast Car” — Luke Combs (Winner) “Heart Like a Truck” — Lainey Wilson “Need a Favor” — Jelly Roll “Next Thing You Know” — Jordan Davis “Wait in the Truck” — HARDY (feat. Lainey Wilson) (Nominees) | “Fast Car” — Tracy Chapman (Winner) “Heart Like a Truck” — Trannie Anderson, Dallas Wilson and Lainey Wilson “Next Thing You Know” — Jordan Davis, Greylan James, Chase McGill and Josh Osborne “Tennessee Orange” — David Fanning, Paul Jenkins, Megan Moroney and Ben Williams “Wait in the Truck” — Renee Blair, Michael Hardy, Hunter Phelps and Jordan Schmidt (Nominees) |
| New Artist of the Year | Musician of the Year |
| Jelly Roll (Winner) Zach Bryan Parker McCollum Megan Moroney Hailey Whitters (Nominees) | Jenee Fleenor (Winner) Paul Franklin Rob McNelley Derek Wells Charlie Worsham (Nominees) |
| Music Video of the Year | Musical Event of the Year |
| “Wait in the Truck” — HARDY (feat. Lainey Wilson) (Winner) “Light On in the Kitchen” — Ashley McBryde “Memory Lane” — Old Dominion “Need a Favor” — Jelly Roll “Next Thing You Know” — Jordan Davis (Nominees) | “Wait in the Truck” — HARDY (feat. Lainey Wilson) (Winner) “Save Me” — Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson “She Had Me at Heads Carolina (Remix)” —Cole Swindell and Jo Dee Messina “Thank God” — Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown “We Don’t Fight Anymore” (feat. Carly Pearce) (Nominees) |
Music & Concerts
Alis Vibe delivers self-enlightenment with an infectious pop beat
Your newest pop princess has arrived with a message infused inside an infectious pop beat and her new EP is called Reborn
HOLLYWOOD – Your newest pop princess has arrived with a message infused inside an infectious pop beat. Her name is Alis Vibe and her new EP is called Reborn.
Vibe’s work is exciting. She originally hails from a small village outside of Milan, Italy. After getting some recognition in her native Italy, she made a spontaneous move to American music hub, Nashville.
Do not look for her to be channeling any country music queens, however. That is not Vibe’s vibe. Her music is decidedly danceable pop with folk, soul and blues undertones. She claims as her influences artists ranging from Etta James, to Freddie Mercury, to Lady Gaga to Dua Lipa. Still, her anthems would be right at home in a Kylie Minogue playlist.
“I would do an album tomorrow with Etta James, if she were alive,” Alis confides.
While her pop music layers are seductive and full of pulse-pounding rhythm, her lyrics weave in non-specific eastern spiritual traditional concepts. She projects a theme of reincarnation, even as she launches debuts into the public mainstream. “All the songs in this project are reflections of what I went through in this past year when I wrote these songs. I literally feel ‘reborn’ after pouring all my emotions into this. I feel reborn, and that is why this is the name for my first EP project,” she says.
While many in the pop sphere sing of current and past romantic entanglements, Alis’s music is more about her beliefs and life perspective. She feels the way trans and non-binary teens are treated is horrible and is happy to provide spiritual guidance on paths of self-determination. She highlights the idea of life’s preciousness. She wants to inspire freedom of expression, universal love, self-confidence, divine timing, and self-belief. Her songs are meant to speak to the hearts of those who respect and seek their own spiritual paths, promoting a sense of community and shared understanding.
Reborn, her first EP, introduces her music with an ethereal chant of self-empowerment, “Shakti the mother, universal power, prana, vital force, moon, planets, trees and flowers, energy, divine guidance, embracing changes, manifesting deep dreams, attracting abundance… releasing fears and rising again, stronger and wiser” she intones before the song Surfing the Light invites us into spiritual expansion.
Vibe sat down with me on Rated LGBT Radio and talked about her journey. She credits a yoga discipline as waking an intentionality in her, that she then integrated into her music. “It is amazing to see the outcome after that,” she tells me. “I realized who I wanted to be in my life.’
Amongst the anthems on the album, the song Ecstasy stands out as a more introspective ballad. “It is a song about the purest love you can experience,” she tells me. The song pre-dates the others. “It was on my USB drive for three years,” she says, but felt it was a perfect companion to the new material.
The pop nature of Vibe’s music is familiar, and its message can be bold, inspiring and affirming. For a young audience craving self-love, acceptance and a spiritualty they can trust, Vibe offers escape and warmth.
Vibe is assertive in her admiration for other pop stars. Gaga’s Joanne album is a favorite, and Miley Cyrus is a role model.
I asked her what it was about Miley that she admired, and Vibe told me it was because Cyrus “does what she wants when she wants to do it.” Vibe apparently reflects this herself and does what she wants, when she wants to do it. We are all the better for it.
Best of all, she wants you to do, and be, your unique you, and dance to her music while you are doing it.
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
Music & Concerts
Sophie B. Hawkins’ new anthems- exactly what LGBTQ youth need
The woman who stunned audiences in the 90’s with her fresh music & fresh take on sexuality, has released her first new music in a decade
HOLLYWOOD – Sophie B. Hawkins is back. Renowned as a singer-songwriter, musician, painter and a unique voice of social consciousness, she achieved critical and commercial success with her first two albums, Tongues and Tails (1992) and Whaler (1994), producing a string of single hits including “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover“, “Right Beside You“, and “As I Lay Me Down“.
Her musical sound is unique with a blend of rock, pop, jazz and soul delivered with her distinctive vocal growl and heartfelt lyrics – ones that often herald a fluid sexuality.
Aside from GRAMMY award nominations, New York Music awards, the ASCAP award for longest running single, for starring on stage as Janis Joplin, paintings appearing in galleries around the world and her songs being featured on shows such as Stranger Things, Euphoria and Ozark, she is often thought of for her candid and outspoken take on sexuality and gender expression.
(Photo: Sophie B. Hawkins opposite the USS Intrepid (CV-11) in New York Harbor.)
Long before Ron DeSantis was whining about “wokeness” and mental health experts saw the importance to embrace the concepts of fluid identities, Sophie self-identified as an “omni-sexual” in the 90s. While others scratched their heads at the term, she embraced concepts that are just now being understood and lived. Her new album, Free Myself, underscores the theme of authenticity and taking the freedom to be yourself as you are, and want to be seen.
We talked about her coming out moment, the one she defines as “the most important one of her career.” “It always makes me laugh when you talk about it, and smile,” she commented to me on my Rated LGBT Radio podcast:
“It was a moment of enlightenment for me to be faced with John Pareles of the New York Times in this diner in downtown Manhattan … prefaced by Columbia (Sony) that this was the most important interview and you had to get everything right. They did trust me to give an intelligent interview and did not give me any media training whatsoever. So I showed up and he asked me a bunch of questions about my upbringing and my musical influences, and then he just said ‘Are you a lesbian?’ At that moment, I thought, well, I have to tell the truth.”
She continued, “For me, telling the truth is telling the accurate truth. I knew my history was sort of diverse. I had never had a moment where I said ‘I am a lesbian’ or ‘I am a heterosexual’, in fact, there were moments of growing awareness at 9 years old when I thought ‘I love Paul Anacomb’ who was on the beach in Long Island one summer, he was older than me, I love him so much and had a crush on him, and then I literally looked at his mother and went ‘but I love her too.’ Then I said to myself ‘I have the LIBERTY and the great pleasure to love anyone I want. I can love both of them, and I do not have to choose. It was a great feeling—I was so young.
“Years later, I had an amazing affair with a man who was my teacher, my mentor, that lasted ten years. Then at some point, a woman seduced me, and I thought that was the most amazing thing too. It opened me up a lot emotionally… it opened up my song writing intuition… took me deeper. But when I was looking at John Pareles, I could not tell him all of that. So I took the word “omni” which means all, also ‘one’ and sexual, and said ‘I’m omnisexual’. He said, ‘What does THAT mean??’, I said, well John, it means my sexuality is not limited by my gender, or your gender…my sexuality is my creativity, my spirituality, my consciousness –it’s tied to me, my soul.”
Pareles had written a review of Sophie’s debut album, Tongues and Tails, in 1992, and the interview was a follow up in 1993. He said of her, “Sophie B. Hawkins is a pop singer with a rock-and-roll attitude, a jazz singer’s improvisational skills and a blues singer’s soul. She’s also a songwriter with a knack for melodies that are both catchy and complex.” Sophie was the first musician to come out as omnisexual in the mainstream media, and Pareles’ interview with her was groundbreaking for its time.
Thirty years later, her son’s friends are freely identifying as “omnisexual” without an inkling that she was the one who first coined the term.
“Don’t care what people think, You know you are on the brink, Of breaking the chain…baby love yourself, ain’t nobody else gonna carry your soul.” Lyrics from Love Yourself, from the album Free Myself
Since the start of her musical journey, Sophie has shown an uncompromising devotion to her singular truth, endlessly transcending boundaries and offering up new ways of experiencing the world around us. Her truth is the roots of Free Myself and Sophie’s raw yet poetic lyrics as well as her captivatingly distinctive vocals.
Free Myself features some of her most emotionally powerful material to date and contains anthems that LGBTQ youth need especially now. Tapping into the same passion-filled storytelling and colorful eclecticism that inspired her previous work, Sophie embarks on a new creative chapter of independence and positivity in Free Myself.
Certainly, LGBTQ youth working to express their uniqueness and self-definition will hear themselves in the lyrics of the album’s title track and its nascent omnisexuality:
“I want to free myself with you. Let my soul fly. I can’t lift these feelings, too big for me to carry. Why does it matter what we’re born. Aren’t we supposed to become mind, soul and body, who we love and who we want to marry?”
As Sophie talks to television personalities, she gets reductive questions such as “how has your music evolved?” The truth is, her music has not been on a path of development, but rather, has entered a new era. It is an era where society has caught up with her. It is an era where she has lived life. It is an era where she folds in decades of life experience that includes motherhood, oppressive relationships, codependency, deconstruction of dreams to their experienced reality and the ability to be guided by and appreciate, a hero.
“I wanted this to be a new beginning for me, for my family and my fans,” she says. The song Love Yourself is a confession. Sophie had been to a party and drank red wine and ate cake. Later as she lay in bed, she wanted to berate herself for such indulgences. She wanted to lament, “I hate myself for that.” But she didn’t. Instead the words to her incubating song filled her mind, “Baby, love yourself.” That had never happened, the allowance to love herself, before. Her unconscious mental health work had suddenly taken hold and was now carrying her.
For the Miley Cyrus Flowers generation, there is the Sophie B. Hawkins Better Off Without You. “You got what you planned for, but I got so much more,” she sings.
Of the song, she shared with me:
“When I perform that song, I tell the audience that there is nothing better than ‘breaking up’—it can be so freeing, that you can weather and endure, and that it makes you feel more alive. If you can relate to the story in this song, then you are going to have the triumph when I sing it, and if you can’t relate to it, you haven’t lived enough yet. It is release from the fear that you cannot survive without this relationship, or this person superstructure. Whether we are gas-lighted or whether we are in a position of unknowingly controlling someone, whatever your story is, when you are released from it … you can go, ‘wow, I have my whole life to begin again.’ The story behind the song was really painful, and I was trying to survive the lies and the way that it happened. However, if it had not happened that way, I don’t think I would have left it behind. It had to be that painful for me to really take a look.”
She adds, “Betrayal is common and human. This is actually the story of redemption.” Whether the listener is a person ending a toxic relationship, or whether it is a young LGBTQ person getting away from a toxic web of a hostile community or family relationships, the song speaks to self-actualizing introspection and hope.
Besides her fans, Sophie inspired and gave permission to a whole new generation of artists. On my last Rated LGBT Radio podcast, Andrea Walker from Glitterfox, the singer/song writer band from Portland that was recently named one of the Best New Bands of Oregon, commented about my conversation with Sophie, “You said Sophie B. Hawkins was your guest last week? I wish you could have seen my face when you said that. My jaw dropped to the floor. I was remembering being in the 90s listening to Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover. That song specifically was the one that helped me to come out as gay. Honestly, I owe such a huge debt to Sophie B. Hawkins. I really mean it.”
The Sophie B. Hawkins album Free Myself concludes with a song called You are My Balloon. It speaks to a spirit that is a “shoulder on a cloud, between the sun and moon, climbing very high, acting very proud.”
It turns quickly into a plea, “Above a sea of dreams, my lantern in the night, making up a tune, on your own jet stream, in and out of sight. And I love looking at you more than anything, I hope you’ll always stay my dancer on a string. I will hold your hand and carry you as far as I can. You won’t need me long but I’ll hold on ‘Cause you are my balloon.”
The song makes me think of Sophie B. Hawkins herself. The Lantern in the night who made up her tunes and created her own “omnisexual” jest stream definition. It was a definition that today’s LGBTQ youth have embraced, lived and given us all insight about, even as a conservative establishment attacks them.
Sophie B. Hawkins has delivered to them a package of anthems, one to remind them that they carry their own definitions, and they need no one else’s permission or approval. Just as a lone singer once carried the message to the biggest newspaper in the country as she sat in a New York diner, it has now grown to be the understanding of a generation.
So, with that message in hand, we carry Sophie as far as we can, and hope she always stays our personal dancer on a string.
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Rob Watson is the host of the popular Hollywood-based radio/podcast show RATED LGBT RADIO.
He is an established LGBTQ columnist and blogger having written for many top online publications including The Los Angeles Blade, The Washington Blade, Parents Magazine, the Huffington Post, LGBTQ Nation, Gay Star News, the New Civil Rights Movement, and more.
He served as Executive Editor for The Good Man Project, has appeared on MSNBC and been quoted in Business Week and Forbes Magazine.
He is CEO of Watson Writes, a marketing communications agency, and can be reached at [email protected]
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