Jon Savageâs mammoth new book skilfully navigates, across more than 700 pages, key moments in music and entertainment history and maps their significance for the advancement and acceptance of queer culture. The Secret Public takes its name from that duality of the public and private self and early chapters describe the brutal dangers and difficulties, before the legalisation of homosexuality, encountered by singers and artists in the UK and US who were not able to fully be themselves. Often, he points out, they had public personas and identities at odds with their private selves, operating as some of them were âin the claustrophobic sexual and gendered atmosphere of America in the early 1950sâ where âany perceived deviancy was automatically suspectâ. The book tells the story of how we have arrived at our modern moment, with LGBTQ+ artists more fully, if not entirely, accepted, while also serving as a prescient warning about not slipping back.
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As you would expect, Savage can really write about music, its poetry and cadences. Early on, he examines the opening refrain of Little Richardâs Tutti Frutti, digging deep into each syllable of that opening âfirst eruptionâ, describing how the final two syllables of âAwopbopaloobop alopbamboomâ have the âforce of a fist, a blow, an explosion â a caption in a superhero comicâ. And by choosing a condensed period of time, just 24 years, he is able to revel in details, both the seismic and the sidelined. He brings new life to Bowie, Dusty Springfield and⦠Rock Hudson who, when it was thought his ânatural speaking voice was too high-pitched for his macho imageâ, was forced to scream when he had a cold in order to permanently alter the tone, making it deeper and supposedly âmore seductiveâ. With Bowie, Savage gives us not just the better-known story of the evolution of the stage persona, but the backstage and managerial minutiae of his rise as well.
This is a meticulously researched tome, as evidenced by more than 50 pages of notes and references, but Savageâs central achievement is to wear all his knowledge lightly, to tell us these stories as easily and engagingly as if we were stood in line with him, waiting to go into a gig. This is a tricky book to pull off, in that it is both academic and has a broad appeal. Savage is knowledgable and has a wide range of reference, bringing his experience of previous books on the Sex Pistols (Englandâs Dreaming) and screenplays for film documentaries such as 2007âs Joy Division to the page, so that you alway feels he is in command of his subject.
The Secret Public is constantly in motion, spinning outwards from its glimpses of individual stars and managers into the collective story of entire nations, not just of LGBTQ+ people. Readers who come for the insights into certain schools of music, or particular singers, will also find a book that is brilliant on shifting ideas of postwar masculinity in the UK and US, and the wider cultural consumption of the era (mainly driven by women, âwho were at the forefront of consumerism in the postwar yearsâ, and whose participation in âmassed fandomâ brought âpublic attention to the power of teenage girlsâ¦â ).
Savage writes of the shifting tides of history with the pinpoint distillation of the line of a song; he notes that âthe relationship between gay pop and politicsâ was âcomplex and vexedâ, and itâs this bookâs achievement that it gives us that entanglement in intimate snapshots.
A first cousin, though different in style and focused on the decades directly after The Secret Public, is David Franceâs classic How to Survive a Plague and itâs impossible to read the final sentence of Savageâs book without shuddering. He leaves us with a glimpse of the cover of Sylvesterâs 1979 album Living Proof and its fold-out sleeve, describing the singer at the centre, âpouring champagne into a glassâ, as âthe perfect party hostâ. âAround him, on the steps up to a nightclub, framed by the marquee roof, are upwards of 35 celebrants: a mixture of ages, genders and races⦠Packed tight together, they are all smiling with pleasure and anticipation.â
The author ends with a plea to âleave them thereâ, while they are âfrozen in their fabulousness, with no thought of what is to comeâ. Less than 10 years later, Sylvester would die of an Aids-related illness. We can only hope this book might herald a sequel in which Savage can turn his rigorous depth and tenderness to what did happen next.