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An unbreakable bond with Janet

Jackson poised for Rock Hall, thanks partly to gay mega fan

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Janet Jackson, gay news, Washington Blade
Janet Jackson, gay news, Washington Blade

Janet Jackson has a No. 1 album, sold out world tour and first-time nomination to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

If Janet Jackson is voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame next month, it will be — at least in some small part — due to the efforts of mega fan Mike Litherland.

Jackson, who ranks #7 on Billboard’s new list of biggest acts of all time, has been passed over for the Rock Hall honor since she was first eligible in 2007. But after a decade in the musical wilderness following her infamous Super Bowl performance, Jackson is back in a big way with a No. 1 album “Unbreakable” (her seventh, making her only the third artist after Springsteen and Streisand to score No. 1 albums in each of the past four decades), a sold-out world tour and her first Rock Hall nomination.

Litherland has worked since 2012 to get Jackson into the Hall. He started a Facebook page that year titled, “Induct Janet Jackson into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” which has more than 80,000 followers.

“People are really behind Janet again,” Litherland told the Blade. “It was the cool thing to do to bash Janet Jackson after the Super Bowl and her fans took a beating. But it’s all changed and everybody wants to see her succeed again. This induction would be the icing on the cake.”

There’s been a lot of speculation about the perceived Jackson snub, with many assuming the Super Bowl fallout ruined her chances for Rock Hall induction. But Litherland says her long absence from the music scene is likely to blame and the critical and commercial success of “Unbreakable” reminded Rock Hall voters that she’s still a force in the industry.

“She hadn’t had a new album in quite a while,” Litherland said, adding that her close association with producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis led some to question her contributions. “She doesn’t get the credit she’s due but Janet is no puppet. If you look at Janet and Madonna’s careers, they are very similar; if Madonna’s in, Janet should be too.”

Litherland, 44, lives with his partner of nearly 20 years in Atlanta and works as a digital marketing manager for AT&T. He’s attended each of Jackson’s world tours, usually multiple times, and says her 1989 “Rhythm Nation” album changed his life. He was a senior in high school.

“My friends were into the punk/alt music but, for me, Janet was an escape,” he recalls. “She was just empowering and powerful and the message was so strong that you couldn’t ignore it. … It was so different and it blew me away and I was obsessed. Once I saw her live, I was mesmerized.”

Jackson even pulled Litherland from the audience to dance on stage with her during her 1994 “janet.” tour stop in Chicago. “I like to think she recognizes me; my partner and I follow her around on tour and she makes eye contact and waves but who knows?”

Litherland says Jackson’s diva persona and club hits made her popular with gay fans but that the messages in her lyrics are what really appeal to him. He cites her No. 1 single “Together Again” as among his favorites; the song raised money for AIDS research and was dedicated to friends she lost to the disease.

“It wasn’t a downer song, it’s very uplifting, a love song to those no longer with us,” he said. “It still resonates today.”

Those uplifting messages draw fans from all walks of life.

“What I love about her audience — it’s everyone from young kids to grandparents, white, black, straight, gay — it says a lot about her name and brand, she attracts everybody,” Litherland says.

Apart from his stint on stage with her years ago, Litherland has never met Jackson. And what would he say to her if he could?

“I would just thank her for providing a soundtrack to my life,” he says. “She’s been there through every major point of my life, from childhood to adolescence to college to adulthood. I can relate to just about every album. I would definitely thank her for that and for loving her fans. And I’d try not to gush too much.”

He’s already seen the new tour a few times, including opening night in August and raves about the “Unbreakable” album. “I like every track,” he says. “It’s mellower, she’s 49 but she has a lot to say. Unbreakable is dedicated to her fans and she truly feels the bond with us is unbreakable.”

With all her new success, critics and fans alike are confident that this is Jackson’s year to enter the Rock Hall. And don’t just take Litherland’s word for it; Jackson has some high-profile supporters this time around, including Rock Hall CEO Greg Harris.

“One could say if Madonna is in, Janet Jackson should be in,” Harris told Cleveland.com. “She dominated that era and has been such an inspiration to today’s stars.”

Jackson is among 15 nominees to the Hall this year, including Chic, the Smiths and N.W.A. Five are expected to win induction after a vote by roughly 700 members. The Rock Hall allows fans to vote for their favorites at rockhall.org, through Dec. 9. The top five win a mostly symbolic single extra vote added to their final totals. Voting ends Dec. 9 and an announcement on the winners is expected in mid-December.

Mike Litherland

Mike Litherland

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Music & Concerts

Underdog glorious: a personal remembrance of Jill Sobule

Talented singer, songwriter died in house fire on May 1

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Writer Gregg Shapiro with Jill Sobule in 2000. (Photo courtesy Shapiro)

I’ve always prided myself on being the kind of music consumer who purchased music on impulse. When I stumbled across “Things Here Are Different,” Jill Sobule’s 1990 MCA Records debut album on vinyl in a favorite Chicago record store, I bought it without knowing anything about her. This was at a time when we didn’t have our phones in our pockets to search for information about the artist on the internet. The LP stayed in my collection until, as vinyl was falling out of fashion, I replaced it with a CD a few years later.

Early in my career as an entertainment journalist, I received a promo copy of Jill’s eponymous 1995 Atlantic Records album. That year, Atlantic Records was one of the labels at the forefront of signing and heavily promoting queer artists, including Melissa Ferrick and Extra Fancy, and its roster included the self-titled album by Jill. It was a smart move, as the single “I Kissed A Girl” became a hit on radio and its accompanying video (featuring Fabio!) was in heavy rotation on MTV (when they still played videos).

Unfortunately for Jill, she was a victim of record label missteps. When 1997’s wonderful “Happy Town” failed to repeat the success, Atlantic dumped her. That was Atlantic’s loss, because her next album, the superb “Pink Pearl” contained “Heroes” and “Mexican Wrestler,” two of her most beloved songs. Sadly, Beyond Music, the label that released that album ceased to exist after just a few years. To her credit, the savvy Jill had also started independently releasing music (2004’s “The Folk Years”). That was a smart move because her next major-label release, the brilliant “Underdog Victorious” on Artemis Records, met a similar fate when that label folded.

With her 2009 album “California Years,” Jill launched her own indie label, Pinko Records, on which she would release two more outstanding full-length discs, 2014’s “Dottie’s Charms” (on which she collaborated with some of her favorite writers, including David Hadju, Rick Moody, Mary Jo Salter, and Jonathan Lethem), and 2018’s stunning “Nostalgia Kills.” Jill’s cover of the late Warren Zevon’s “Don’t Let Us Get Sick” on “Nostalgia Kills” was particularly poignant as she had toured with him as an opening act.

Jill was a road warrior, constantly on tour, and her live shows were something to behold. My first interview with Jill took place at the Double Door in Chicago in early August of 1995, when she was the opening act for legendary punk band X. She had thrown her back out the previous day and was diagnosed with a herniated disc. To be comfortable, she was lying down on a fabulous-‘50s sofa. “I feel like I’m at my shrink’s,” she said to me, “Do you want me to talk about my mother?”

That sense of humor, which permeated and enriched her music, was one of many reasons to love Jill. I was privileged to interview her for seven of her albums. Everything you would want to know about her was right there in her honest lyrics, in which she balanced her distinctive brand of humor with serious subject matter. Drawing on her life experiences in songs such as “Bitter,” “Underachiever,” “One of These Days,” “Freshman,” “Jetpack,” “Nothing To Prove,” “Forbidden Thoughts of Youth,” “Island of Lost Things,” “Where Do I Begin,” “Almost Great,” and “Big Shoes,” made her songs as personal as they were universal, elicited genuine affection and concern from her devoted fans.

While she was a consummate songwriter, Jill also felt equally comfortable covering songs made famous by others, including “Just A Little Lovin’” (on the 2000 Dusty Springfield tribute album “Forever Dusty”) and “Stoned Soul Picnic” (from the 1997 Laura Nyro tribute album “Time and Love”). Jill also didn’t shy away from political subject matter in her music with “Resistance Song,” “Soldiers of Christ,” “Attic,” “Heroes,” “Under the Disco Ball,” and the incredible “America Back” as prime examples.

Here’s something else worth mentioning about Jill. She was known for collaboration skills. As a songwriter, she maintained a multi-year creative partnership with Robin Eaton (“I Kissed A Girl” and many others), as well as Richard Barone, the gay frontman of the renowned band The Bongos. Jill’s history with Barone includes performing together at a queer Octoberfest event in Chicago in 1996. Writer and comedian Julie Sweeney, of “SNL” and “Work in Progress” fame was another Chicago collaborator with Sobule (Sweeney lives in a Chicago suburb), where they frequently performed their delightful “The Jill and Julia Show.” John Doe, of the aforementioned band X, also collaborated with Jill in the studio (“Tomorrow Is Breaking” from “Nostalgia Kills”), as well as in live performances.

On a very personal note, in 2019, when I was in the process of arranging a reading at the fabulous NYC gay bookstore Bureau of General Services – Queer Division, I reached out to Jill and asked her if she would like to be on the bill with me. We alternated performing; I would read a couple of poems, and Jill would sing a couple of songs. She even set one of my poems to music, on the spot.

Jill had an abundance of talent, and when she turned her attention to musical theater, it paid off in a big way. Her stage musical “F*ck 7th Grade,” a theatrical piece that seemed like the next logical step in her career, had its premiere at Pittsburgh’s City Theatre in the fall of 2020, during the height of the pandemic. The unique staging (an outdoor drive-in stage at which audience members watched from their cars) was truly inspired. “F*ck 7th Grade” went on to become a New York Times Critic’s pick, as well as earning a Drama Desk nomination.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of Jill’s eponymous 1995 album, reissue label Rhino Records is re-releasing it on red vinyl. Jill and I had been emailing each other to arrange a time for an interview. We even had a date on the books for the third week of May.

When she died in a house fire in Minnesota on May 1 at age 66, Jill received mentions on network and cable news shows. She was showered with attention from major news outlets, including obits in the New York Times and Rolling Stone (but not Pitchfork, who couldn’t be bothered to review her music when she was alive). Is it wrong to think that if she’d gotten this much attention when she was alive she could have been as big as Taylor Swift? I don’t think so.

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Music & Concerts

Tom Goss returns with ‘Bear Friends Furever Tour’

Out singer/songwriter to perform at Red Bear Brewing Co.

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Singer Tom Goss is back. (Photo by Dusti Cunningham)

Singer Tom Goss will bring his “Bear Friends Furever Tour” to D.C. on Sunday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Red Bear Brewing Co. 

Among the songs he will perform will be “Bear Soup,” the fourth installment in his beloved bear song anthology series. Following fan favorites like “Bears,” “Round in All the Right Places,” and “Nerdy Bear,” this high-energy, bass-thumping banger celebrates body positivity, joyful indulgence, and the vibrant spirit of the bear subculture.

For more details, visit Tom Goss’s website.

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Music & Concerts

Kylie brings ‘Tension’ tour to D.C.

Performance on Tuesday at Capital One Arena

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Kylie Minogue visits D.C. on Tuesday.

Aussie pop icon Kylie Minogue brings her acclaimed “Tension” world tour to D.C. next Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. at the Capital One Arena. Tickets are still available at Ticketmaster.

The show features songs spanning her long career, from 1987 debut single, “The Loco-Motion,” to “Padam, Padam” from her album, “Tension.”

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