Sylvester was fierce.
Not necessarily combative or mercurial, although the flashy performer could certainly be those things, but fierce in the singular way that an unabashedly saucy, openly gay black diva has to be, and can only be.
Best remembered for a handful of disco warhorses, including "Dance (Disco Heat)," "Do Ya Wanna Funk," and especially "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)," Sylvester was a singer, drag performer, and a natural-born partyer.
Born Sylvester James Jr. in 1940s South Central Los Angeles, he was reborn in 1970s San Francisco, at the gaudy dawn of the modern gay rights movement. Dead more than 16 years, he remains one of that era's most enduring icons.
"The Fabulous Sylvester," Joshua Gamson's affectionate biography of the late entertainer, is almost as engaging as the times it so energetically resurrects. Filled with interviews from Sylvester's friends, family, fellow musicians, and admirers, Gamson vibrantly reconstructs pre-AIDS San Francisco -- the baths and bars, the dizzying sense of personal freedom, and the tragedies that followed when the drugs-and-discofueled bacchanal came crashing down.
Growing up, Sylvester always stood apart from other children. While his brothers played baseball and marbles, Sylvester preferred dressing up in his mother's jewels and shoes and his grandmother's furs and hats.
And, he could sing. By the time he was 6, folks at the Pentecostal church had him standing on a milk crate belting out songs in an impossibly high, clear voice that would leave the congregation shouting.
Still, as he neared his teenage years, "his effeminacy was now hard to write off as child's play, and Dooni [Sylvester's childhood nickname] wasn't working very hard to be like the other boys."
Unlike other biographies of notable gay figures, there's no handwringing, no teeth-gnashing about sexual identity. Sylvester's homosexuality may have been an issue for others, especially his mother, yet he was always matterof- fact about his attraction to men and affinity for women's clothing.
"When I was little I used to dress up, right? And my mother said, 'You can't dress up, you can't dress up,' " Sylvester once explained. " 'You've gotta wear these pants and these shoes, and you have to like, drink beer and play football.' And I said, 'No, I don't,' and she said, 'You're very strange,' and I said, 'That's okay.' "
