Ray Bourbon was a pioneering drag comedian, friend of Mae West and an early independent recording artist.   Ray was a deliberately enigmatic pop cult figure who may, or may not, have had a sex change operation in 1956.   Ray’s comedy was, at once, highbrow and lowbrow, overtly Gay and covertly subversive. Despite his influence on Gays, he remained vague about his own sexuality.

Throughout the 50’s and 60’s Bourbon entertained at hundreds of clubs throughout the US and released dozens of albums, certainly the most prolific female impersonator to have done the latter. Despite his knack for publicity (such as faking a sex change in 1956), by the late 1960’s Bourbon had fallen on hard times. In 1968 while traveling through Texas with trailer containing over 70 dogs, his car burst into flames and he was forced to lodge the animals with kennel keeper A. D. Blount. He eventually found work at the Jewel Box Revue in Kansas City, but by then Blount had sold the dogs to a research facility since Bourbon was unable to pay for their keep. Bourbon hired two young men ­ ­to work Blount over, but they panicked and killed the kennel-keeper. The men and Bourbon were all convicted as murder conspirators; as the mastermind, the 78 year old Bourbon was given a 99 year sentence. He died a short time later, on January 19, 1971 in the Howard County Texas prison.

(10 votes, average: 2.70 out of 5)

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Unfortunately, not a common scene for African Americans.

(9 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)

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Maria’s early exposure to music and her brother’s influence prompted her, in the early 1970’s, to take up writing album reviews for her local weekly.

“Horses is a great record not only because Patti Smith stands alone, but because her uniqueness is lent resonance by the past.” (Maria’s review of Horses in Scene Magazine)

(8 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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This is NOT a Jewish family.   They look too quiet.   No one is eating.   There’s no plastic on the good furniture.

To make it even odder the record was made in Argentina. (Didn’t Nazi’s hide there?)

(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)

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“Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. And start all over again.” This was one of my stepfather’s records and I pulled it out of his small collection when I was about 14 (maybe the cover piqued my pubescent interest).   Anita O’Day remains maybe my favorite female jazz vocalist. When I first moved to New York, I hitchhiked to see her at a small club in New Jersey and sat and spoke with her for about an hour.

Cover photo by the great Herman Leonard. Buddy Bregman arranges and conducts.

Anita O’Day, the last surviving member of the pantheon of great jazz singers (whose ranks also include Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan), passed away Thanksgiving morning at the age of 87. Born in Chicago, O’Day gained national attention as the girl singer with drummer Gene Krupa’s orchestra on the hit record “Let Me Off Uptown.” After two tenures with Krupa and one, inbetween, with Stan Kenton and his Orchestra, O’Day became a solo star and, along with Fitzgerald and Vaughan, a founding fore-mother ofmodern jazz vocals. Known for her inventive scatting as well as her touching balladeering, O’Day recorded several dozen classic albums, mostly for the Verve label in the 1950s. Ms. O’Day was often as flamboyant visually as she was innovative vocally, evidence of which can be found in the films “The Gene Krupa Story” and “Jazz On A Summer’s Day. A survivor of both heroin and alcohol addiction, she was also the author of one of the great jazz memoirs, “Hard Times, High Times” and the subject of a full-length documentary film, ‘Anita O’Day – The Life of A Jazz Singer’ which is currently in the final stages of completion. –Will Friedwald November 23, 2006

(13 votes, average: 4.46 out of 5)

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Cover design by Reid Miles. Photo by Francis Wolff. Recording by Rudy Van Gelder. Notes by Robert Levin. Blue Note 1577. (1957)   Coltrane’s only date as a leader for Blue Note and after A Love Supreme his best selling record.   A highlight in Blue Note’s amazing catalog and for sure a “desert island disc”!

Lee Morgan (T), Curtis Fuller (Tb), John Coltrane (TS), Kenny Drew (P), Paul Chambers (B), “Philly” Joe Jones (D)

Side One: Blue Train, Moment’s Notice Side Two: Locomotion, I’m Old Fashioned, Lazy Bird

(43 votes, average: 4.81 out of 5)

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Howdy Doody’s Christmas Party with Buffalo Bob and Clarabell the clown.

(17 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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