Sylvester

A pioneering soul singer whose powerful falsetto and distinctively gender-fluid style made him stand out among the disco crowd, Sylvester was a true original in American pop history. Born in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1947, Sylvester James Jr. discovered his love of music at a young age but left home as a teen due to a fractured home life; his subsequent homelessness helped divine his career path. In his teens, he performed with a Los Angeles group of trans women and cross-dressers named the Disquotays; when he was 22 he moved to San Francisco and began performing with the drag outfit The Cockettes. Sylvester’s gospel-inspired singing and heightened-femme style established him as a force on the West Coast during the ’70s—David Bowie noted his gender-bending charisma when he shared a bill with Sylvester’s onetime backing group The Hot Band—and in 1977 he released his first solo album, Sylvester, which blended then-trendy disco sounds with ideals borrowed from the soul music of his youth. Step II followed in 1978, bearing two of Sylvester’s biggest hits: the delirious dance-floor-as-church romp “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and the minimalistic, stretched-out vocal showcase “Dance (Disco Heat).” Sylvester became a gay icon around the world, and when disco fell out of favor in the ’80s, he asserted creative control over his music and responded to the trends overtaking dance floors, like New Wave, electro, and rap, releasing music until shortly before his death in late 1988.