The Retro Blog

Thanks to this blog post I’ve learned about a whole 1940s and 50s subculture I was totally unaware of before: R&B drag clubs. This article from a 1948 Ebony magazine talks about one such club in Chicago. Here’s Jackie Shane, a man in drag with a fabulous voice performing “Walking the dog”

Singers like Shane were known as “tent queens” as they often performed wild shows in tents. The most famous singer to come come out of the movement was Little Richard, who got his start performing in drag, singing while balancing a chair on his chin. His big hit, “Tuttie Frutti,” initially very much reflected the humor and outrageousness of these shows. It’s hard to imagine lines like “Tutti Frutti, good booty / If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy” getting anybody famous in the 50s, so Little Richard toned things down a bit. Here he is performing the cleaned up version:

[via bedazzled]