Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Macho Man The Era and Gay America's Coming Out by Randy Jones The Tragic Real-Life Story Of The . Of all the disco groups that exploded onto the pop culture radar in the late 1970s, there was none more fun and more recognizable than the Village People. Only truly popular for less than two years, the Village People made their time at the top count, churning out a string of catchy, witty, danceable hits, imploring the world to enlist "," be a "Macho Man," and stay at the "Y.M.C.A." Even 40 years later, any or all of those songs are almost guaranteed to be played at any big party or wedding reception. Beyond their hooky songs, the Village People came with an irresistible hook — its members were known by their personalities and backgrounds as expressed through their clothes, many of which were archetypes of American manliness. Among its ranks were a cowboy, a construction worker, a leather-clad biker, a Native American warrior, a police officer, and a soldier. The Village People made some of the happiest music on record. But out of the costumes, and off the stage, the members of the iconic disco vocal group suffered greatly. Here's a look into the tragic life stories of the people behind the Village People. Original member has sued the group more than once. Victor Willis wasn't only the lead singer of the Village People during its 1970s hit parade, he was also one of its songwriters. Along with group's architects and , Willis wrote more than a dozen Village People songs, including "In the Navy," "Go West," and "Y.M.C.A." As such, he owned one-third of the copyrights (and its ensuing royalties) on those songs for years. That might have been exactly true, however — in 2011 Willis sued to get 50 percent credit, alleging that the copyright deals he'd signed back in the 1970s were legally suspect or invalid. Willis emerged as the victor in that suit in 2015, striking Belolo's name from the credits of 13 of the Village People's most well-known and profitable songs and increasing Willis' cut of the proceeds. In 2017, Willis won another lawsuit with his former group — the courts granted the singer the rights to the name of the band that he'd left decades earlier. "I got back something that belonged to me," Willis told the Chicago Tribune . At that time, a version of the group was still occasionally playing gigs around the world, but when Willis took charge, he put a stop to that. He fired every person then-singing in the Village People, including original group member and Ray Simpson, who took over for Willis as the policeman after his departure. The Village People's movie was a catastrophic failure. The Village People had something that few other disco acts did — a visual element, with its members' stage outfits. It was almost a foregone conclusion that somebody would make a Village People movie. That film, Can't Stop the Music, was a loose retelling of the Village People's formation. Future star Steve Guttenberg plays songwriter Jack Morell, an Americanized version of Village People crafter Jacques Morali, who frantically races around on roller skates hoping to be discovered until he forms a group instead. Can't Stop the Music couldn't lure an audience. It earned just $2 million at the box office. That might have been because it was released in 1980, when disco and the Village People were increasingly passé. It might also have something to do with how the movie was a universally acknowledged disaster. Producers hired Nancy Walker to direct, who was best known for playing Ida Morgenstern on the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda and who had never helmed a theatrical film before. Another prominent newbie — newly minted Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn Jenner) gave acting a try with his role as an uptight businessman. How bad was Can't Stop the Music ? It inspired John Wilson to create the Razzie Awards, handed out annually to the worst in film. At the inaugural ceremony, the movie won in two of the seven categories for which it was nominated — Worst Screenplay and Worst Picture of the Year. The Village People couldn't survive the post-disco era. With disco dead by the early 1980s, and the Village People's status as pop stars greatly endangered by the abysmal failure of Can't Stop the Music , the group whose last charting song was the minor 1979 hit "Ready for the '80s" had to prove that it could adapt to changing times and tastes. In 1981, the Village People released their seventh album, Renaissance . By that point, New Wave — rock n' roll stripped down to its core, punchier elements, and sometimes with the addition of keyboards — had replaced disco as the hottest thing in music, and the Village People gave it a try on songs like "Do You Wanna Spend the Night" and "Food Fight." The band also reinvented itself visually, dropping their signature stage costumes for sleeker, very '80s look of tight pants, vests, and heavy makeup. The noble attempt to evolve was thoroughly rejected by the public — Renaissance yielded no hit singles and stalled at #138 on the Billboard album chart, rendering the Village People relics of the '70s. 's brother died in the 9/11 attacks. The Village People are part of history, formed by denizens of the Big Apple's thriving, underground gay club scene of the 1970s. Among its many archetypal masculine characters was a G.I., dressed in camouflage fatigues, embodied by singer Alex Briley, who sometimes wore a naval uniform after the success of the single "In the Navy." Beyond the Village People, Briley is tragically and ultimately connected to another moment in New York history, one of the many stories born out of the darkest days on record. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which terrorists hijacked planes in American airspace and directed two of them into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, resulted in numerous shocking, hard-to-fathom images, including one picture captured by photographer Richard Drew of a man falling to his death from one of the besieged Twin Towers, mid-descent. The photo, known as "Falling Man," was published by many news outlets and became a part of the cultural fabric as the world processed the events of 9/11. The identity of the subject was difficult to ascertain, and in 2016, Esquire writer Tom Junod solved the mystery — Jonathan Briley, an employee of Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the WTC. His brother was Alex Briley of the Village People. Glenn Hughes dies of lung cancer. Not as many people know the name "Glenn Hughes" as they do the label of the persona he delivered for years as a member of the Village People — "leatherman" or "the biker." Hughes rocked a leather outfit that covered his entire body (except for his bare chest), topped with a jaunty hat and accessorized with one of the most impressive 70s mustaches this side of Burt Reynolds. Hughes' look was one of the group's many nods to New York's gay community, which flew right over the heads of millions of fans in the 70s, when homosexuality was not widely acknowledged, discussed, or accepted. Village People mastermind Jacques Morali based the character on patrons of a New York leather bar and sex club called the Mineshaft, which Hughes frequented. Hughes remained with the Village People long past its disco heyday, performing as the biker in smaller venues and on the nostalgia circuit until 1996, when he struck out on his own and became a regular on New York's cabaret scene, according to the New York Times . That reinvention and second act unfortunately didn't last long for Hughes. In March 2001, Hughes passed away at his home in Manhattan after a battle with lung cancer. He was 50 years old. One of the group's creative forces died of AIDS. Jacques Morali wasn't technically a member of the Village People, but he's probably the most important person in the group's storied history. The French-Moroccan songwriter and producer moved to the in the early 1970s to make it in the music business, and shortly after he scored a hit with "Brazil" by The Ritchie Family, a group he helped assemble. He saw Felipe Rose dancing in traditional Native American clothing at a New York club and decided to form a group around him, placing newspaper ads seeking "gay singers and dancers, very good-looking and with mustaches." As this was the relatively more conservative 1970s, homosexuality wasn't much discussed or acknowledged. Morali built a group out of New York's gay community and club scene and wrote and produced songs laced with gay issues that millions of naive listeners at the time didn't even notice. (For example, "Y.M.C.A." alludes to a particular Y.M.C.A. where young gay men could secretly couple up.) According to Morali's creative partner, Henri Belolo, this was a form of advocacy. "We were keen of doing something for [LGBT culture] because Jacques was gay, and I was feeling that an injustice was done to the gay community," he told Red Bull Music Academy. That community was also a flashpoint in the early HIV/AIDS crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s, and sadly, it took Morali. The Village People founder succumbed to the disease in 1991 at age 44. The Village People's producer died suddenly. Jacques Morali is widely credited as the man who created the Village People, putting out an ad in the 1970s looking for singers that he could then assemble into a vocal group that would perform his compositions. Henri Belolo, Morali's creative partner, helped form the Village People, constructing its multi-character vibe and also nailing down its celebratory disco-pop sound. According to Billboard , Morali and Belolo, both Moroccan natives, met in the U.S. in 1973 and soon after started working together, co- producing "Brazil," the 1975 disco smash by The Ritchie Family. That song helped establish many disco tropes, particularly the strings-and-horns- heavy sound, and also served as a warm-up for the Village People, as The Ritchie Family was similarly a group put together by Morali and Belolo. The latter went on to co-create many of the Village People's best-known songs and biggest hits, including "Y.M.C.A.," "In the Navy," and "Macho Man." After the disco craze subsided, Belolo continued to work as a dance music producer, until his unexpected death in August 2019 at age 82. There's been some in-fighting amongst the Village People. It's always sad when former bandmates fight. It can be disheartening to learn that two people who were once young friends who connected on a deep and artistic level who made millions of people happy with their music grew up to turn on one another, particularly when it's because of the trappings of the fame and fortune they achieved together. Playboy Ivan Wilzig throws a big bash each summer at his 15,000-square-foot castle in the exclusive Hamptons area of New York, and in 2015, according to Page Six , the party was set to be a Studio 54-themed affair. Guests invited to the disco-oriented gala were told to dress like any one of the Village People, who'd be represented by Randy Jones — Wilzig had invited the group's cowboy to perform at the shindig. But then he also invited Felipe Rose, the Village People's Native American member. Rose didn't want to share the spotlight with Jones, according to a source close to the situation, and told Wilzig that he'd have to choose between him and the cowboy. Wilzig chose the cowboy. That could've been the end of it, but Jones dismissed Rose's actions with some remarks that crudely alluded to his former colleague's heritage. "If through any miscommunication Felipe's feathers have been ruffled from one of his gorgeous headdresses, I'm sure we could find a time and place to have a powwow and pass around the peace pipe," he said. Cowboy Reminisces About Village People Career. It’s been 40 years since the Village People began their meteoric rise up the disco charts, ultimately earning a permanent place in American pop culture history. Randy Jones was the cowboy in the colorful group that included singers dressed as a biker, construction worker, American Indian, soldier and cop. Together, they recorded chart-topping hits “Macho Man,” “Go West,” “In the Navy” and, of course, “Y.M.C.A.,” songs that remain popular with gay and straight audiences alike. Jones will sing many of the band’s iconic hits, along with tracks from his solo albums, and greet fans at Florida Supercon, July 27 – 30 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. “I was the only person in the Village People who lived in the (Greenwich) Village, and I still do,” said Jones in a telephone phone interview. He created the character of the “cowboy,” but it really wasn’t acting, Jones said. The North Carolina native wore blue jeans and boots on the streets of New York City during the post-Stonewall era when many gay men began reclaiming the masculine image and dressing in leather, jeans and cut-off shirts. “We didn’t call it cosplay then,” Jones chuckled, referencing the popularity of costumes and roleplaying at comic and sci-fi conventions such as Florida Supercon. Even though there was an intended gay subtext to their characters—not all the band members were gay—the hints were often lost on fans in middle America. “I don’t want to say it was genius, but part of the well-crafted plan was that we appealed to these various audiences and they felt like we were representing them,” Jones said. “The American cowboy image is the most solid, dependable, most representative of America…Everybody loves cowboys. I was raised on Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, ‘Wagon Train.’ I realized the cowboy was the safest, most irresistible image.” For three years during the height of the disco era, the Village People appeared on national television nearly once a week, performing for millions of fans across the country. The group also was featured on the covers of “16,” “Super Teen” and “Teen Beat” magazines, alongside teen heartthrobs Shaun Cassidy and Rex Smith. Jones and his colleagues became overnight sensations—and inspired many secret crushes. “Those magazines were intended for little girls, but I’m telling you, the little gay boys read them, too,” he said. “Those were great days. There was an appeal of sexuality. We were young in our twenties, cute, had smiles and we were alive.” Jones frequently meets gay fans who harbored those secret crushes. They tell him of the Village People posters that hung on their doors and some even got their hands on a playful, homoerotic “Playgirl” magazine spread. The singer would eventually perform theatrically on stage and record several solo albums, including “Hard Times,” which is available now on iTunes and other digital retailers. He’s appeared in film—he particularly loves the horror genre—and has a new book, “Macho Man: The Disco Era and Gay America’s Coming Out.” Looking back on his busy career, Jones said, “I have no regrets and I’ve never been bored a day in my life. I always have a calendar and a schedule and, if I find myself with some time to myself, I adore using that time to write my thoughts or do things with myself. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been able to entertain myself and I think that’s helped me become an artist that can entertain other people.” Cowboy Reminisces About Village People Career. It's been 40 years since the Village People began their meteoric rise up the disco charts, ultimately earning a permanent place in American pop culture history. Randy Jones was the cowboy in the colorful group that included singers dressed as a biker, construction worker, American Indian, soldier and cop. Together, they recorded chart-topping hits "Macho Man," "Go West," "In the Navy" and, of course, "Y.M.C.A.," songs that remain popular with gay and straight audiences alike. Jones will sing many of the band's iconic hits, along with tracks from his solo albums, and greet fans at Florida Supercon, July 27 - 30 at the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. "I was the only person in the Village People who lived in the (Greenwich) Village, and I still do," said Jones in a telephone phone interview. He created the character of the "cowboy," but it really wasn't acting, Jones said. The North Carolina native wore blue jeans and boots on the streets of New York City during the post-Stonewall era when many gay men began reclaiming the masculine image and dressing in leather, jeans and cut-off shirts. "We didn't call it cosplay then," Jones chuckled, referencing the popularity of costumes and roleplaying at comic and sci-fi conventions such as Florida Supercon. Even though there was an intended gay subtext to their characters-not all the band members were gay-the hints were often lost on fans in middle America. "I don't want to say it was genius, but part of the well-crafted plan was that we appealed to these various audiences and they felt like we were representing them," Jones said. "The American cowboy image is the most solid, dependable, most representative of America. Everybody loves cowboys. I was raised on Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, 'Wagon Train.' I realized the cowboy was the safest, most irresistible image." For three years during the height of the disco era, the Village People appeared on national television nearly once a week, performing for millions of fans across the country. The group also was featured on the covers of "16," "Super Teen" and "Teen Beat" magazines, alongside teen heartthrobs Shaun Cassidy and Rex Smith. Jones and his colleagues became overnight sensations-and inspired many secret crushes. "Those magazines were intended for little girls, but I'm telling you, the little gay boys read them, too," he said. "Those were great days. There was an appeal of sexuality. We were young in our twenties, cute, had smiles and we were alive." Jones frequently meets gay fans who harbored those secret crushes. They tell him of the Village People posters that hung on their doors and some even got their hands on a playful, homoerotic "Playgirl" magazine spread. The singer would eventually perform theatrically on stage and record several solo albums, including "Hard Times," which is available now on iTunes and other digital retailers. He's appeared in film-he particularly loves the horror genre-and has a new book, "Macho Man: The Disco Era and Gay America's Coming Out." Looking back on his busy career, Jones said, "I have no regrets and I've never been bored a day in my life. I always have a calendar and a schedule and, if I find myself with some time to myself, I adore using that time to write my thoughts or do things with myself. Ever since I was a child, I've been able to entertain myself and I think that's helped me become an artist that can entertain other people." Macho Man : The Disco Era and Gay America's "coming Out" The Vietnam War was over and America seemed in the midst of a nationwide party. The self-proclaimed Me generation was flocking to discotheques, recreational drug use was high, and sexual taboos were being shattered nationwide. Then The Village People appeared on the music scene. Never before had gay sexuality been as up-front and in the face of America. The Village People struck a cultural nerve and fueled a craze that had them playing to sold-out crowds at Madison Square Garden. Even today, few adults could not at least hum the tunes to Y.M.C.A. and Macho Man . Because of the unique role they played in the United States of the late 1970s, The Village People are able to provide a powerful lens through which to view the emergence and development of gay culture in America. In Macho Man , readers can travel back with one of the first gay icons in popular music, and a top pop culture biographer, as they describe this complicated process of change. In these pages, Randy Jones, the original cowboy in the band, takes us inside the time period, the , and the new musical style that was in many ways unprecedented in giving a voice to a previously closeted gay culture. Assisted by Mark Bego, one of the most popular and prolific pop culture authors working today, Jones shows how the fast-lane rise, fall, and rebirth of this novel band paralleled activities across the last 40 years within the gay culture and gay rights movement. The work concludes with a gayography -- a listing of openly gay musicians and performers in the United States before and since The Village People - along with a discography and filmography. This work will interest pop culture and music enthusiasts, in addition to scholars in gay studies. Interview: Randy Jones. No doubt one of the nicest people in the entertainment industry, as well as talented, handsome, funny, and brilliant. he's got all of the right stuff for 50 years of being "Mr. Right". Randy Jones the original "Village People" cowboy, is celebrating 50 years in the business, his brand new album release, "Mr. Right", his new show, "Glory Day, Disco Nights", his 2nd season's series, "Child of the 70's", and his new film, "Tales of Poe". So I had no idea in life that you have been in the entertainment business for 50 years! Yeah, since 1966. Do you recall your very first gig? Yes, I do. It was in "The Music Man", I think I played Tommy Djilas, the dancing boyfriend of the Mayor's daughter. I was 14, I think, maybe I just turned 15. So really, you did acting before music. I'm an actor. I would say that before singing or anything, I'm an actor. That's how I really do approach every song, from the point of view of an actor. Most pop songs that I consider a real songs, are a verse and a chorus, a verse and a chorus,and tell a story. It's kind of like a play in 3 or 4 minutes, where you have a beginning, a middle and an end, with a certain ark of drama. My mentor who totally revitalized my interest in singing, and also gave me the best perspective I believe, that helped me crystallize my thoughts as a singer, and an actor, was Julie Wilson. In a coaching session with her, it was a master class, early on, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, she went around the room and asked, in our opinion, what the most important part of a song was. To me a song has 2 parts, the music and the words. She said that to her the most important part of a song is definitely the words. She said that when you were in front of the audience, whether it be a big concert hall, a cabaret, or when you're just singing it to someone at a dinner table, the words are what you use to tell the story with. You've got to be able to engage that audience with what the story is that you're telling. You've got to get them involved from the beginning to the end. She said if you don't know the words or if you aren't annunciating and getting the words out clearly, and communicating with the audience what the experience is, you may as well either be humming or whistling. And she's right. She helped me understand that as an actor the words are really the most important part of a song. What makes up the most brilliant songs I believe, would have a wonderful melody and a wonderful lyric. For me, I choose songs because of in some way they help illustrate a story I want to tell. That's how I've always approached songs and singing, from an actor's point of view. It's also the reason I think that I take such great inspiration from what I call real singers and vocalists, that I was raised up on, like, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald. One of the reasons I think Frank Sinatra to me, has such resinous is because when he is speaking, he's talking to you. Sometimes he will get a few bars into a song before you realize that he started to sing. The quality of his voice, sounds the same when he sings as when he speaks. I think a lot of pop singers today may have one voice when they speak, then like Justin Timberlake, they have a voice that sounds like a man when speaking, but when he sings it sounds like another kind of human being with maybe grapes or raisins as testicles. How did you feel the first time you ever heard your song on the radio? I had heard "Macho Man" just a little bit. The first time I ever got out of the car was with my sister. I was in North Carolina, seeing my family. I remember when "YMCA" came on, it was on a local radio station in Raleigh North Carolina. We stopped the car, and we jumped out, and ran around it three times, like a Chinese fire drill. It was just that exciting! "Macho Man was the first song that got radio play, but not to the extent of "YMCA". It was on everybody's list and played all the time. It was a pretty remarkable feeling. If I were to look at YouTube, it's approaching 100 million views. just "YMCA." It's the most famous song in the world. All of the stuff that I did with "Village People" all of the stuff I've done as a solo artist, I have close to 400 million views on YouTube, which is approaching half a billion. That's a lot! And YouTube hasn't been around that long. If you think about the times on television, YouTube, radio, over 50 years I've been. I don't think about it a lot, only when I'm asked or prompted, there are millions and millions and millions, if not billions of eyeballs and ears that I have had the blessing and the luxury of performing for. I am very grateful at this wonderful ripe old age of 64, I'm still able to do that, and enjoy doing that, and have the balls to put out a CD called "Mr. Right", where I am sitting in a chair on the cover with no damn pants What is your proudest moment in your career? In reflecting on my dad, he passed away 12 years last Saturday, so I've been thinking about that. He was a great guy. He was really a wonderful man. I feel that he lived on in me every day, and every day I think of him, and I'm reminded of him. In light of that, it's nice to play for the Queen of England, it's nice to perform for Presidents at Inaugural Balls, it's nice to do outdoor concerts with a quarter of a million people, it's nice when the helicopter picks you up on the roof of the hotel and flies over the crowd, like in the movie "The Rose", it's nice to do stuff like that, and it's nice to make a movie with Bruce Jenner, and Paul Sands, and all those great people, but I think one of the proudest times I ever had, was on a tour where we did 56 shows in 70 days. But I remember when we played Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina, an hour and a half from the town I was born in. My family booked 4 buses of family and friends that came to that concert. They were in the audience with posters, and they had big blowups of me, when I was three is years old, dressed as a cowboy, and I remember my mom and dad, and brother and sister and grandparents were there, that was a very proud moment. Specially in light of thinking about my dad, because they all were alive and they got to see me do something that no one else in our family had ever done. They had been watching the whole thing of me rising to stardom, being on television, Dick Clark, Bob Hope, Don Kirshner, and even Hugh Hafner on a playboy special. They got to see me in an audience of about 20,000 people. They got to say, "That's their boy, that's their grandchild". When you think of The Village People, you think of gay, but not really. It's not the first thing people think of. The first thing people think of is the smile. It is the most wonderful blessing to have because when people think of the body of work in the career and I hope they think of me because my sense of humor begins with myself, is that it's fun. I'm so blessed to have people perceive me as they do in this half a century career. Most of the time I'm still welcomed at the parties, and I'm amazed. Let's talk about your brand new album for a minute. How did you choose the songs on it? I chose them because of how we started our conversation, about how what's so important for me is the words, and the story. Everyone of those songs tells the story that I can relate to, and that I feel that I have the ability to relate to an audience. One thing you notice about my vocal style, is that you understand every word I say. First of all, all of these songs strike me, and I love them. Some of them you might be familiar with, and some you might not. You might not be familiar with, "Candy", or "Forever and a Day". I know people are familiar with "On the Street Where You Live", and "Rock the Boat" and "Emotion". Some younger folks might not remember Que Sera Sera". It won an Academy award in 1957., for "The Man Who Knew Too Much", an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Doris Day sung it as a lullaby to her little boy in the movie. I remember it when I was a little kid. So I thought let's do it in a different way. "Alfie", everyone from the 60s knows that song from the movie "Alfie". I do that song in my show. I talk about the fact that I don't have children, and i never had children, and I never really wanted children because I didn't think I had the time to dedicate the overwhelmingly important responsibility of raising a child. But, ever since I was a kid and saw the movie, I thought that Alfie was a cute name. I thought if I ever got a dog I would call it Alfie. But I never had a dog or a cat because once again I don't have the time that I think it takes to really dedicate to a dog or a cat. The way I introduce it in my show, is that I always liked the name, but I never had a kid, but if I did have a little boy and I called him Alfie, I know that there would come a time he would be 12 or 13, and he'd come to me, and he 'd had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and his girlfriend or boyfriend has broken up with him and has broken his little heart. Now listen to the words of "Alfie", and it's a whole different take on that song. If you lead your life with your heart, you'll find love every single day. I want people to hear the songs in a way that they've never heard them before. I love "Emotion", it's a wonderful song. It was a BeeGee's song, they wrote it. A man has never recorded it before. I chose those songs because I like them. "Forever and A Day", is: we said we'd never last, a week , a month, a year. They said kiss and run. it's like everybody told you, you'd never last, and yet, here we are. The song is not about me though, the songs about "you" and me, it's about"us", we'd never last. That's heavy. Well it's the song, the words, it's the story. It's the words, the emotion, the story. Now you can't always get that at 1am at The Monster, and the DJ is playing a song with echoes and all of that. But professionally when I go in and record a song, it has a story, and it has to have something that resonates within me, it has to resonate an experience that I feel and can communicate to an audience. That's the only reason I pick a song to record. I don't pick stuff because a record label tells me to, or because a manager tells me to, I don't pick a song because I'm trying to craft what I think is going to be the biggest top ten hit. First of all I've had all of that, and that's not what I'm about. I'm about staying true and authentic to whatever Voice I want to utilized in the story I want to tell. What is unique about the CD is I have seven cuts that I was able to work with young produces, DJs and remix artists. I was taught that lesson when I was with Cher and Tina Turner. Cher was on our label, "Casablanca" back in the 70's. I would see her and have conversations through the years. The same thing with Tina, she used to tour in the same shows with us.in the late 70's, early 80's in Europe, I believe both of them at different points, twice in Tina's and more than twice now in Cher's, they had reached a time when they weren't quite so popular anymore. All of a sudden they started getting interest from 22, 24 year olds. DJs that wanted to be producers, but they were also big fans. They would either come up with new songs, new material or new remix of stuff, They had a youthful ideas. Tina had "What's Love Got to do With It", and Private Dancer", that all came from young producers. They had grown up listening to Tina Turner and had jumped at the chance to work with her. She would have never had that second chance in her career. So I try to stay in touch with people who are younger, a newer generation, and I try to listen to what people are doing. That's exactly what I've done with this record. So these younger people went in and did the songs as they heard them, and that's what the second half of the album is. I've got 4 different interpretations of "Emotion", I've got 2 different interpretations of "Candy", 2 of "Rock The Boat", I've got 3 of "Forever and a Day", and 2 of "Que Sera Sera". You also have a new film coming out. My new film is coming out October 11th, "Tales of Poe", it's a horror movie. What was it like doing a horror film? Oh, I love it. I love the genre. I was raised up in the 50's and 60's when TV was young. Universal and RKO would allow the movies to be played on television. So I saw the werewolf movies, all the Dracula movies, the Frankenstein movies, all on television. "Tales of Poe" is an anthology of three different stories, I'm in the middle one called, "The Cask of Amontillado". On October 11th, Wild Eye is releasing it, and it will be available on Amazon, Netflix, and the DVD will be sold at Target and Walmart. Do you know how to ride a horse? I do know how to ride a horse. I was an unofficial technical consultant on 'Brokeback Mountain". That's the way I put it. One night when Jake and Heath had a hard day , those boys as far as I know we're both straight, they had a tough day trying to do those scenes in the tent, about the anal sex, and all that stuff, somehow they got my phone number. I got this late night call asking me about "how do you do this, and hoe do you do that". First of all, honestly I'm just not that gay. I did have a couple words of advice. " Cowboys: it takes a lot to take your hat of, but I can tell you one thing, don't take your boots off. you're gonna need 'em for traction". That was such a ground breaking film. To have that happen 9 years ago. it's just astounding that a wonderful film like that was done, as well as a lot of the work that's been done since then. In light of that, the progress that's been made, not only in my lifetime, certainly within the 50 years of a career, is just amazing to me. You are probably one of the most "liked" man in the industry. Thank you for saying that. I so appreciate that, I honor that, and I truly look at that as a blessing. I think that there are a lot of people that are very generous towards me.i would never want to do anything to denigrate that, or to harm it or to diminish it, because you can't buy that kind of thing. I want to thank you for this amazing interview. Any last words? Wait, I got a little bit more. I was in the cast of "Child of the 70's" , a series I was in last season and this up coming season. It's got great people in it. It's on YouTube, and in 8 countries overseas. I play a character called Travis. It's about a gay guy who starts out as an assistant for a has been TV star, and I play the boyfriend that comes from the past. It's funny, it's like a soap opera. Also I debut my headliner show the 29th of October out in Oklahoma City. It's called: " Glory Days, Disco Nights". It's an evening with me, I tell stories and sing songs. It's about my hey day experiences and highlights of 50 years. It's with my live band and my backup singers and dancers. it's a fun show! We are traveling around the country. Glory Days, Disco Nights is also the name of my memoir that we've gotten signed, that comes out in 2019. And next year I shoot another horror film in Europe called: "Puncture". We are doing part of it in New York. It's my idea and the story is mine. And of course there is my book: "Macho Man". It's the third one I've written. It's "Macho Man", "The Disco Era" and "The Coming Out of Gay America".