Love Is A Drag

"I want to try something I've never had. Never had no kissin' -- Oh, what I been missin'. Lover man, oh where can you be?"

That lyric, from the standard "Lover Man," means something entirely different when it's sung, with perfect candor, by a male vocalist. These days, with openly gay recording artists willing and able to put their work out on the market, singing about love and out and loss with respect to same-sex relationships, this might not be such a novelty... but would you believe an LP of torchy, yearning standards was recorded by an uncredited male crooner in 1962?

Such is the case with the album "Love is a Drag," which boasts the subtitles "For Adult Listeners Only" and "Sultry Stylings by a Most Unusual Vocalist."

The album's twelve tracks could easily have been taken in a campy direction -- after all, what more ready-made laugh lines than a guy singing of his same-sex lover, "He's funny that way?" There's not a trace of that here, though there is plenty of rue in tunes like "My Man" and "Jim" and wistfulness in "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Bewitched," and "Bill."

It's not all unfulfilled desire on this disc: "The Man I Love" is given a peppy, spirited reading, and "Mad About the Boy" enjoys a drifting-along-on-your-tiptoes mood.

"Love Is A Drag" is presented with crystalline audio clarity and revelatory liner notes written by gay music historian JD Doyle, who championed the LP on his "Queer Music Heritage" show for years before being tipped off as to who produced the album, and why. (Also among the liners notes' surprises: The identity of the singer, the fact that everyone involved in recording these tracks was straight, and the way that macho stars like Sinatra and Bob Hope loved the album, which sold well before sinking into obscurity.)

The sound fidelity underscores the limitations and blunting effects of the analogue recording technology used in 1962, but the period style lives and breathes in the fine orchestra work -- which is performed, we're told, by "the cream of Los Angeles session musicians." Audiophiles who prefer their music on vinyl will rejoice, too, because this re-release also comes in a Gold Vinyl edition.

The original liners notes and album artwork are reproduced here, and there's an almost painful air of strained lightness (and a little bit of double entendre) around those original liner notes. What a difference half a century makes.

But the great music of yesterday isn't the only thing coming back into style. So is the not-so-great habit of thought that tried to relegate American LGBTs to criminal status. It might be the case over the next few years that gay Americans are going to come under pressure to retreat back into the closet. We won't go back, of course, because we are modern people and do not believe in regression. What's more, we believe in ourselves -- unlike eras past when we were force-fed messages of hate that we allowed to become self-loathing. No more.

This CD -- so visionary, and so perfectly in earnest -- might just be a better soundtrack to our coming battles than all the "We Are The World" groupthink pop anthems and hard-core hop-hop defiance in the world. After all, while out detractors have been eager to talk about us in terms of sex and sexual deviation, our singularly consistent message has always been about love in all its stickily complicated, infinitely complex glory.

"Love Is A Drag: For Adult Listeners Only - Sultry Stylings by a Most Unusual Vocalist"
CD
$14.98
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