‘Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music, 1969-2000’
By Barry Walters
c.2026, Viking
$35/496 pages

Step, step, tap, back step.

Shimmy in a circle, left hand waving over your head, shake your tail feathers, repeat to the beat. Once there was a time when you could do any dance in your sleep, but it’s been a while. So read “Mighty Real” by Barry Walters, and see if your toes don’t tap.

Fifty-seven years after Stonewall, and here we are: LGBTQ musicians still face scrutiny for their sexuality because, says Walters, music isn’t created for gay listeners. No problem: LGBTQ artists and writers have often penned lyrics carefully in order to say what can’t be said, “coding” songs for gay audiences that straight (and ignorant) listeners can dance to and enjoy with apparent obliviousness.

Walters offers “just a few” examples.

Lou Reed sang about trans people in the late ‘60s and offered a rallying song for the Gay Liberation Front in 1972, the latter of which felt like a message to a then-11-year-old Walters. Janis Joplin claimed she was straight, but she had several girlfriends. Motown singers often offered sometimes-ambiguous lyrics.

John Lennon’s hand placement on the back cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band made Walters begin to understand that he was different from other boys.

David Bowie is on his list, of course, as is Bette Midler, Elton John, Donna Summer, and Queen. You’ll find Judas Priest here, Green Day, and punk music. The Village People are included in this book, also Grace Jones, Duran Duran, and Cher, Whitney, Melissa, Latifah, and the lyrics from several blockbuster movies.

Two of Prince’s band members were lesbians, and they heavily influenced his albums. Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” cemented her position in LGBTQ culture, and Michael Jackson’s inclusion here takes much careful consideration.

Read about Olivia Newton-John and the B52s. And then there’s Sylvester, for whom Walters has a soft spot in his heart. Sylvester’s death still makes Walters cry.

In his preface, author and music writer Barry Walters points out that music is what you make it and that it’s interpreted differently by each individual. To that end, this book naturally consists of preferential history and personal opinions about singers, bands, albums, and songs.

Agree or disagree. That’s where much of the appeal lies in “Mighty Real.”

Here, Walters wraps his memories around his choices, giving readers room for their own views, memories, and list making. Music-loving readers might also be surprised to note who’s not on Walters’ list – there aren’t many country performers here, for example, and the overall list focuses entirely on music from roughly 1968 to the year 2000, mostly on the kinds of songs you’ll want at the club or party. Again, discuss, and curate your own playlist.

This is a hefty book, but the chapters are browse-able and generally short enough to read in under five minutes. It’s nostalgic, yet also serious in the history it presents. This is the kind of book you want to leave near your album collection, or wherever you get your tunes. But finding “Mighty Real” is your first step.

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The Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington performed the annual Pride show at Lincoln Theatre. The “Soul Divas” show featured songs popularized by Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, Whitney Houston and more. For information on tickets and showtimes, visit gmcw.org.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

‘The Song of Sakuntala’
IN Series
In Washington and Baltimore
Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St., N.E.
(Selected dates June 6-14)
Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St., Baltimore
(June 19-21)
$25-35
Inseries.org

As the artistic director of IN Series, Timothy Nelson rarely blows his own horn, but for the world premiere of his own opera “The Song of Sakuntala,” he’ll make an exception. 

During a recent interview squeezed in between afternoon and evenings rehearsals, Nelson took time to talk about his opera (while nearby his “blessing of a husband” prepared a giant dinner for the entire cast and crew). 

As smart and gracious as ever, Nelson explains that he wrote the opera a decade ago at a low point in his life: He was divorcing and wanted to immerse himself into something musical, all-consuming, a project tantamount to writing a thick novel. 

At the time, Nelson’s mentor, the influential American stage and opera director Peter Sellers, pushed him to write again. Nelson recalls, “I hadn’t composed for some time. I wanted to see if I could do it, and I wanted to revisit Indian classical music.”  

He adds, “There was never any anticipation of it being produced. It was a way of processing and dealing with life in a healthy way.” 

Adapted from Kālidāsa’s 5th-century dramatic masterpiece, “The Song of Sakuntala” brings together Western baroque and Indian classical musical traditions into a story of “love, loss, memory, and redemption.” His libretto, a reflection of South Asian storytelling, includes the words of the great Indian poets Tagore, Naidu, and Vidyapati.

The story follows “a prince and a woman of the forest who fall in love and wed in secret. He departs, and she later seeks him out, only to have him deny all recognition of her. She disappears in sorrow; he spends the rest of his life searching. At the end, in the same forest where they first met, they find each other again and are transfigured.”

At 90 minutes, the uninterrupted piece features three singers (Aryssa Leigh Burrs, Teresa Ferrara, Marvin Wayne Allen) accompanied by an instrumental ensemble led by acclaimed sitarist Rajib Karmakar, who specializes in bridging Indian and Western classical traditions, and conducted by Nelson who also joins the music making on drone and harmonium.

Burrs plays the prince. Originally written for a countertenor, Nelson imagined a man singing the role but ultimately cast a woman to play the part.

Because the piece is “fiendishly difficult in almost unnecessary ways,” Nelson explains with a wicked chuckle, he knew that Burrs had the talent and sharp brain required for the role.

The prince is cruel without explanation. Despite that, 40-something Nelson admits to relating to the opera’s prince: “In midlife, you reflect on your mistakes. At least for now that’s how I feel. I might have felt different earlier and it could change later on.”

Nelson lived in India for nine months, backpacking and studying in different places, absorbing different musical styles and playing pieces as varied and complex as any Western music.

And while based in D.C., IN Series performs in both Washington and Baltimore using various borrowed venues. “The Song of Sakuntala” is playing at both the Atlas Performing Center in D.C. (6/6-6/14) and Baltimore’s beloved Baltimore Theatre Project (6/19-6/21) with its terrific acoustics.

In a past conversation, Nelson who lives in Adams Morgan, shared that all audiences bring something specific to the table. Baltimore tends to attract more risk taking while D.C. audiences often lean into the intellectual side of what the company does.

At the helm of IN Series for eight years, Nelson has relished reimagining opera and musical theater, but only recently did he decide to program his latest work. The way in which “The Song of Sakuntala” blends Western and non-Western music is very much a part of the IN Series music brand, so it seemed the perfect selection to close the season.

“I do this humbly with great hesitancy. And I know it feels a little unseemly to cheer on your own work, but I will say, it’s a piece that is successful in sitting in both places (Western and South Asia) and the Indian musicians on board are responding to it.”