SARAH   S.  KILBORNE 

The Lavender Blues is a showcase of queer music before World War II.  It is music history. It is queer history. It is women's history. It is entertainment. It is life.

 

"Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot.

Now we don't know who is who or even what's what!"  

(Gwen Farrar, 1926)

                                                 

With The Lavender Blues, performance artist Sarah Kilborne brings to light for the first time the quiet, yet powerful emergence between the world wars of songs that spoke about what it was like to be queer or "in the life."

 

Women performers were at the forefront of this quiet revolution in song, which coincided with the birth of the recording industry, ensuring that this music would last. Men, too, played pivotal roles as producers, accompanists and songwriters, and the stories behind the songs are every bit as powerful as their lyrics. 

 

Featuring music from vaudeville, the blues, early jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and more, The Lavender Blues takes us on a musical journey that illuminates a courageous and colorful time in America's past when pioneering artists sang boldly about sexual and gender fluidity, brave even for today - and as deliciously fun and inspiring as ever.