MUSIC LZ LOVE CONTINUED FROM P.50 as the Cockettes used the port city as a stag- Records then, and they dropped him and ing ground for outrageous performances, picked up the Pointer Sisters. bedecked in makeup, vintage dresses, feath- “Sylvester had many bands, including the ers, glitter, and whatever geegaws they wore Hot Band. Then he left and went to Europe, that sparkled. where he did the Billie Holiday thing. That From the Cockettes emerged Sylvester was a tough time for him. He’d opened for James, but he only used one name. the Stones and David Bowie, so he wasn’t Sylvester radiated black-is-beautiful majesty. just a disco diva, a glitter queen. He was a Handsome as a man, more attractive in drag, rock star first. Then he fell from grace. It he could also sing both in an elastic tenor was tough times, and I watched him go from and a strong falsetto. He was unflappable, all that experience to having to play smaller unstoppable, and for a time, on the blitz rooms. It wasn’t the Stones anymore.” track to unique success that included open- ing for the Rolling Stones, a role in Bette Turn On Your Love Light Midler’s The Rose, three Billboard Awards, In the wake of flagging success, Sylvester and high-charting disco hits that defined revamped his band, dropping two female sing- their era, including “You Make Me Feel ART/COURTESY OF LZ LOVE ers with powerful voices, and asked 16-year- H (Mighty Real),” “Dance (Disco Heat),” and old Arnold Elzy to join his act. The deposed the Patrick Cowley-produced “Do Ya Wanna vocalists – Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes DWARD Funk.” More than Gloria Gaynor, Thelma E – shortly found fame as the Weather Girls Houston, and Donna Summer, Sylvester singing “It’s Raining Men.” Without the cush- literally stood head and shoulders above the ion of big voices, the teenager declined to join PHOTO BY other disco queens. up with the flamboyant Sylvester, who died of LZ Love performing with disco goddess Sylvester at a San Francisco street fair in the early 1980s complications from AIDS in 1988. LZ Love in Love describes her life afterward as “living in wanted to talk about it, because I felt people School can be difficult for a teen strug- transition the middle,” trying life as a woman and pursuing needed to know me for me and my music. My gling with gender issues and gigging with her singing career. Transsexual? Transgender? music is just as important as my gender. the likes of Sylvester, but Arnold Elzy fin- “Same thing,” she explains. “Transsexual “I was outed before I came here, by Joel ished correspondence school through mail. is a person who feels they were born in the Selvin in the San Francisco Chronicle. It said A boyfriend of Florida’s loaned him money wrong body. I felt that way as kid, like my my original name, Arnold Elzy, which was to take the courses, a kindness Love took school photo when I was 8 and wearing hair right; I switched my name around. But my the time to acknowledge. grease on my lips for lip gloss. The way my gender wasn’t an issue when I was in a room “When I told my mother it was time for me sisters acted, that’s how I felt. I felt like I full of dancing and raving. I was in the room to start living full time, she took me in her should be over there, a feeling of being mis- with gay, straight, transsexual, bi, whatever. room with her beautiful dresser and jewelry placed. Your feelings inside aren’t the same So if anyone thought it was about gender, it and perfumes and all that. She said: ‘Here’s as your outer image. In my case, it was how wasn’t when I was singing my butt off.” all my stuff. You’re welcome to use anything I looked and how I felt, because I’ve always I have.’” been androgynous. In 1994, LZ Love rushed home from Europe. “My female hormones have always been “Many people in Her single “See the Light“ rocked at No. 3 on more dominant. Austin don’t know I am the dance charts in England, but “my beauti- “I’ve had all the surgery I’m comfortable ful mother with her platinum blonde hair with. That’s how I discuss what’s inside my transsexual. Anyone who – Cajun, Native American, African-American, g-string. People that know anything else about ever approached me or Southern – from Monroe, Louisiana,” had me are those I have shared my bed with. And fallen ill. that’s not many. heard rumors, I always The family banded together to look after “I always tell men when they’re about told them, but I wanted to Florida, paying her insurance and other living to hug me or touch me, that you must expenses when all her state earnings went to know one thing about me and that’s that talk about it because I felt the care facility. Love was with Florida in her I’m transsexual. Some tranny girls lie and last days, her mother’s death opening a new “Sylvester would walk in as a beautiful people needed to know me don’t tell their men until it’s time to take chapter in her life. gay man with his drag and start painting the g-string off. That’s a danger zone, and I for me and my music. My “Living in San Francisco gave me the free- his face, transforming before your eyes,” don’t have to go there anymore. I always left dom I needed to express myself,” acknowl- remembers Love. “And when Miss Thing music is just as important it up to my men to tell their families. In a lot edges Love. “It allowed me to start building was finished, she was a radiant, outrageous, of cases they didn’t know. These men were as my gender.” my life and collect the things I needed to gorgeous black goddess. At Winterland, either bi or straight. live my life as a woman. Get my wardrobe, Sylvester would wear wings and fly to the “I don’t go recruiting straight men. I don’t dress, and go out and see how people react, stage. Watching Sylvester gave me the tools go recruiting anyone. get used to being me. It was a great place to as a young teenager to put myself together. I’ll Always Love My Mama “I didn’t have long-term relationships until discover myself. “I got my first break with Sylvester when I There’s a joke that behind every gay man is I became transsexual. Even though I was “I want to tell parents, ‘Love your children was 16 years old. I was already experiment- a woman, and for LZ Love, that woman was young, living in the middle, in that other life, for who they are so they can love themselves ing with my androgyny, but Sylvester was her mother, Florida. Florida raised six children when I really started living full time, that’s for that.’ My mother always knew who I was. one of the world’s greatest drag queens ever, without their father around and still found when companions came in my life: men that I came to her at the age of 16 and said: ‘I feel and I got to learn from the source. RuPaul, I time to offer much-needed support when cared about me, men that I lived with, men I’m different. I don’t know if I’m gay or what, love you, but Sylvester was the queen. And Arnold was called “punk” or “faggot” by some who took me home to their families. Because but I am different.’ I love Lady Gaga doing disco, but Sylvester of his sisters. I’m so passable, which I am grateful for, it “She said: ‘You’ve always been different, started all that. The Pointer Sisters were “Some of that stuff still hurts,” Love made it easy for them to take me there and but honey, there’s nothing wrong with being little girls singing in their father’s church, agrees thoughtfully. “But my mother not not explain. different. Whatever you do, be the best.’ then started singing backup for Sylvester. only breathed life in me, she told me to live “Many people in Austin don’t know I am Before my father passed, he knew I was dif- They would open the shows and tear the my life. She was comfortable with me being transsexual. Anyone who ever approached me ferent, and he said, ‘Whatever you do, hold house down. Sylvester was on Blue Thumb who I was because she knew who I was or heard rumors, I always told them, but I before I did.” your head up.’

52 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E JUNE 4, 2010 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m