Arts & Entertainment

Sisters in spirit

Gospel music vets Knapp, Becker unite for Christmas album, tour

Published

14 years ago

December 13, 2012

Margaret Becker and Jennifer Knapp
‘The Hymns of Christmas Tour’
Monday, 7:30 p.m.
The Birchmere
3701 Mount Vernon Ave.
Alexandria, VA
$25

Margaret Becker (right) a veteran of gospel music with classic albums like ‘Immigrant’s Daughter’ and ‘Simple House’ in her canon, just finished a Christmas album with Jennifer Knapp, a gospel artist who emerged in the late ’90s. (Photo by Heidi Groff; courtesy Jay Jones Music)

Any touring musician will tell you life on the road — even when you can afford first class all the way — can get to you after years of going through the endless recording/promoting/touring/repeat cycle.

Two gospel music veterans who, at different times and to varying degrees, each spent years out of the limelight, are back with a wildly unexpected joint project — an album called “The Hymns of Christmas.” On it, Margaret Becker and Jennifer Knapp trade leads and harmonies and enjoy what they say is great musical repartee. They’re half-way through a 14-date mini-tour to support it and play the Birchmere in Alexandria, Va., Monday night.

Knapp, 38, released her first major label album to the Christian market in 1998 and worked solidly touring and recording through 2002 at which time she went on a long hiatus, moved to Australia and pretty much gave up any thoughts of continuing her career. She came out as a lesbian in April 2010 and released a comeback album called “Letting Go.” She maintains her Christian faith but says, though she doesn’t claim to be a theologian, she believes many of the scriptures traditionally used to condemn gays have been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

Becker, 53, was practically peerless among Christian music women rockers in her heyday. She released her first album in 1987 and though she recorded plenty of ballads and exhibited tremendous songwriting prowess, Becker always rocked harder than her contemporaries like Amy Grant or Twila Paris. Becker enjoyed a great run throughout the late ‘80s and ‘90s but slowed down tremendously by the ‘00s. Her new effort with Knapp is her first new album since 2007’s “Air.”

During a lunch break last week between back-to-back shows in Canton, Ohio and Indianapolis, Knapp fields a bevy of questions on how she has settled into being an openly gay singer, the collaboration with Becker and how it came about and what fans can expect from their show next week at the Birchmere.

It’s a highly non-glam tour and Knapp makes no attempt to hide it. They’re sharing a van and Becker is in line getting lunch at a Subway while Knapp answers Blade questions. Though the interview is with Knapp, Becker quickly follows up with e-mail inquiries later in the day.

“It’s just gonna be Margaret and I with a couple of acoustic guitars, but don’t let that fool you,” Knapp says. “It’s one of the most fun times I’ve ever had and it’s not gonna be some pared down girly acoustic thing. It’s gonna be a really good, full-voiced night. It shocks me when I look over at her and see how much she gives each night.”

Though not as active as she formerly was, Becker still speaks at religious women’s events and participates in hymn recording projects. Her audience is very much part of the Nashville-based contemporary Christian industry, the ranks of which both she and Knapp came through.

The two met in about 2000 when they both participated in a pair of multiple-artist projects and became friends. Knapp, who long has admired Becker, says it took no arm-twisting to convince Becker to record and tour with her, though many gospel fans turned their back on Knapp.

“Fortunately it’s not really an issue we’ve had,” Knapp says. “Tonight’s going to be a prime example. We’re playing at a United Methodist church in Indianapolis. It will be a lovely Christmas evening and the last thing we’ll be talking about is our sexual orientation. It’s a huge step for that church to host somebody like me and just proceed as if it’s business as usual but I think we’re seeing that more and more in terms of the public consciousness. I think we saw that in this last election. It’s great that people can take that and not draw this unusual amount of attention to it. That’s really the extraordinary part of it.”

Becker, in an e-mail exchange, says she’s not finding fans and those coming to the shows to be inferring anything about her life or ministry by her collaboration with Knapp.

“The audiences who are supporting this are music lovers who recognize when the work is symbiotic and complementary,” Becker says. “We’ve played this tour to those people, groups that I consider to be overlapping supporters from both of our bases. They are respectful and come for the music and spirit or the art of the material. I don’t think they give it much more thought than that and to me, that’s perfect. That’s how it should be.”

For the record, Becker declines to comment on her own sexual orientation. “My personal life is private and I’m very happy,” she wrote in an e-mail via her publicist. “I am very supportive of Jennifer and this musical partnership we’ve created and look forward to sharing it with her supporters and mine.”

The album features mostly acoustic arrangements of traditional church classes like “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “The First Noel,” “What Child is This,” “Silent Night” and more. Neither artist had recorded a Christmas album before and now that both are again living in the Nashville area, they decided this summer to go ahead and make it happen.

“We finally said, ‘Let’s just do it, let’s just get it done,’” Knapp says. “There was no pressure to write anything new, they’re all hymns so there’s a great wealth of material there and lots of opportunities for us to harmonize. We just decided to put our money where our mouth was and go ahead and do it.”

Becker concurs.

“One night we just got serious and realized we’d both put off making a Christmas record over the course of our careers, at least the kind that was indigenous to us. That’s where the idea came from. Making music with a dear friend who is also an awesome talent was the catalyst for me. It was fun top to bottom.”

The indie album was recorded on a shoestring with, Knapp says, basically “one mic and one computer.” She says the advance of user-friendly recording software made it possible to do the album without spending thousands. They did some spring rehearsing, hit the studio in July (when most Christmas albums are recorded) and did most of the work in a four-week span. The mixing and packaging came soon after and the project wrapped in October.

“It did feel a little weird at first singing all these Christmas songs while you’re just dripping in sweat in the middle of the hot Tennessee summer,” she says. “So at the beginning, yeah, it took a little time to wrap my head around a Christmas project but pretty quickly it really did start to feel like its own project. It didn’t feel kitschy or Christmasy really to me. We approached it in a very honest sense and didn’t want to make it kitschy. Maybe it’s just because I was involved with it but I really was thinking, ‘Wow, I could listen to this any time of the year.’”

The first half of the show is basically the new album. In the second half, the two revisit their hits, trade harmonies on each other’s songs and keep it loose enough that the set list varies from show to show.

“We’ve sort of got this telepathy thing going on for the last two or three shows,” Knapp says. “We’ll just kind of riff on a theme for a bit and it’s great knowing you don’t have to play it exactly the same way every night or carry the full weight of the evening by yourself.”

Knapp ends the conversation weighing in on a blaze of topics. On whether or not Christians in the U.S. are becoming less rigid on homosexuality, Knapp says there “will always be people who aren’t going to change their minds no matter what.” She says she finds encouragement in the Mainline Protestant denominations that are making gay-friendly strides more and more as time progresses.

Why then, one wonders, have those kinds of churches not spawned their own cottage industry of gospel music the way the evangelical/Bible Belt world did starting with “Jesus music” in the late ‘60s?

“It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years,” Knapp says. “There are thousands of singers who write about their faith from very different viewpoints but I really think a lot of it has to do with the circumstances in that world where the people who run the industry really see themselves as the gatekeepers and a great emphasis is placed on how the individual artist acts and who they hang out with and how you think about your faith. We’ve seen a lot of strong artists pulled from shelves because they’ve gotten divorced or had an alcohol problem or whatever. As a songwriter you really have to keep writing true and honest stories. If you’re only writing music for Christians, by Christians to make more Christians, you kind of lose out.”

Lee Tucker, a long-time gay gospel music fan and Alexandria, Va., resident, says Knapp deserves enormous credit for being brave enough to come out, despite what it might cost her in lost airplay, space at Christian retail and fans.

“I think it’s amazing she took the brave jump to come out,” Tucker says. “It was a big jump for Chely Wright too because a lot of country music is in the Midwest and in the Bible Belt, but it’s even more of a leap for Jennifer because it will totally change her market. If you went into a Christian bookstore right now, you wouldn’t find any of her stuff on the shelves at all.”

For LGBT teens who might be coming up in evangelical households, Knapp says hang in there and remember there are faith-based Christian groups out there that affirm gays.

“Absolutely get online, there are so many people out there waiting with open arms,” she says. “The Christian Network, Believe Out Loud, Soulforce, Inside Out Faith — there are a lot of people out there offering very compassionate, faith-based support. It’s not longer just churches being the bad guys here. A lot of them are starting to get the message.”

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Movies

30 years on, ‘The Birdcage’ remains a landmark

A reminder that the only thing required to make a family is love

Published

1 day ago

July 17, 2026

John Paul King

Nathan Lane and Robin Williams in ‘The Birdcage.’

In 1996, after the AIDS epidemic had cast its shadow over the gay community for a decade and a half, the breakthrough finally came: the success of antiretroviral medication turned a fatal disease into a manageable and survivable condition — and suddenly, “queer joy” began to feel like a possibility again.

The year 1996 also saw the release of “The Birdcage,” a remake of the farcical French film comedy “La Cage aux Folles,” about a gay couple who attempt to “play it straight” when their son brings his fiancée’s conservative parents over for dinner, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane — in one of his first (non-animated) film roles — as the couple. It was notable as one of the rare studio films of the era to center on gay characters, and the fact that it was a certified box office hit represented a welcome cultural shift after the years of homophobic stigma fostered by Reagan-era “moral majority” conservatism.

These two landmarks were coincidental, of course, and obviously the significance of the first (though it came a few months later) was, in the scheme of things, far more monumental. Nevertheless, there’s something about the timing that marked a definitive moment in the ongoing struggle for queer acceptance. It was a palpable turn of the tide, a moment in time when we could collectively “unclench” — and 30 years later, in the midst of a whole new onslaught of conservative bigotry that threatens to erode the progress of the intervening years, it’s a moment worth celebrating, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of what is possible when we refuse to hide who we are.

That, after all, is the central conflict in “The Birdcage,” just as it was in the earlier French play (by Jean Poiret) and film that inspired it, as well as the hit Broadway musical (“La Cage aux Folles” (adapted by queer writer Harvey Fierstein and queer composer Jerry Herman) that came in between. Set in the famously gay Miami neighborhood of South Beach, it centers on a popular queer nightclub owned by longtime partners Armand (Williams), who runs the business, and Albert (Lane), a flamboyant drag performer known as “Starina” who serves as the club’s headlining act; as a result of a long-ago one-night stand, Armand is father to Val (Dan Futterman), whom the couple have raised together, and who has become engaged to Barbara (Calista Flockhart), the daughter of a prominent conservative senator (Gene Hackman). Fearing that knowledge of his parents’ true relationship will prevent the senator from allowing the marriage, Val convinces Armand and Albert to temporarily “straightwash” themselves for a dinner party with the would-be future in-laws. Naturally, things do not go as planned (this is a farce, after all), but by the end, the gays “save the day,” as they say, by helping the senator and his wife (Dianne Wiest) avoid a scandal, and the kids get to have their wedding, after all.

It’s true that “The Birdcage” has invited criticism from within the community over the years for offering exaggerated stereotypes, especially in its depictions of “femme” characters like Albert and Agador (Hank Azaria), the couple’s Guatemalan housekeeper — and, in more recent times, from younger queer viewers who brand Val as “the real villain” of the movie for his insistence on making his parents pretend to be straight. There’s also the quibble that two of the film’s leading gay characters are played by heterosexual actors (Williams and Azaria) and that neither the writer nor director of the film were queer themselves. We can’t dispute the validity of such positions, but we can certainly suggest that they might be missing the point.

The director, Mike Nichols, was a man who had transitioned from being a comedian to becoming a celebrated director for both stage and screen, responsible for (among many other films) “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “The Graduate,” and the script was by Elaine May, his former comedy partner, known for her witty, sophisticated, and savvy screenwriting. Both came with a pedigree that included extensive collaboration with queer performers and creators, and a track record that clearly showed their dedication for humanity and truth over the social constructs they repeatedly undermined with shrewd observational satire.

Williams, known then and now for his manic, over-the-top cartoonishness, plays Armand with complete sincerity, balancing his signature lunacy (like the classic “Fosse, Fosse” moment as he directs a new act for the club) with a deeply considered emotional solidity that never strikes a false note; and Azaria, whose performance became an instantly iconic fan favorite of outrageous femme-boy camp, is lovable precisely because his iteration of the cliché is so completely un-self-conscious, and is still beloved arguably as much for this as for his decades of voice work on “The Simpsons” — not because he is ridiculous (he is, and hilariously so) but because he is so recognizably real.

As for Lane, Albert’s character is explicitly written as a “diva,” the kind of gay male “show queen” stereotype that never quite offends because we all know someone — or are someone — who fits that profile to a tee; underneath it all is a person determined to live life on their own terms, and it makes his emergence as an eleventh-hour hero/heroine all the more satisfying. Let’s face it, when the chips are down, none of us could ask for a better mom than he turns out to be.

Of course, the participation of incomparable actors Hackman and Wiest is invaluable, allowing even their stodgy characters enough grace to keep them from coming off as complete buffoons (though Hackman’s reprehensible senator, appropriately enough, comes close); for good measure, there’s even the delicious Christine Baranski as Val’s biological mother.

All those performances — along with the fabulous explosion of Miami decor in the scenic design, the depictions of vibrant queer nightlife, and a soundtrack that includes both spicy nuggets of iconic club music and a handful of songs by the great gay genius Stephen Sondheim — are enough to make “The Birdcage” a classic, but the reason it continues to resonate with queer joy emanates from the material itself.

Wrapped up in all the absurdity of its humor, “La Cage aux Folles” (in all its forms) proffers a simple story in which — despite misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and all the various kerfuffles which erupt throughout — everyone shows up for each other. It’s a portrait of a household built on love, about a family willing to leap hurdles and place the happiness of those dear to them above their own inconveniences. In the end, the queerness is really not the point; but the fact that it’s a queer family who embodies these values (and a messy one, at that) is, as the queer expression goes, everything.

Thirty years ago, “The Birdcage” was a fun celebration; today, in a world that once more feels weaponized against queerness, it’s more than that: It’s a great film that reminds us that our greatest victories arise from being ourselves, unapologetically — and that the only thing required to make a family is unconditional love.

Out & About

Whitman-Walker to host legal services workshop

Event held virtually and in-person at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center

Published

1 day ago

July 17, 2026

Tinashe Chingarande

(Photo by fizkes/Bigstock)

Whitman Walker Health Center will host a legal services workshop on Tuesday, July 21 at 3 p.m. virtually and in-person at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center.

Attorneys from WWH will give an overview of the free legal services they offer and discuss recent challenges. WWH meets clients where they are to address the issues they are facing, such as:

Immigration relief based on LGBTQ+/HIV status
Public benefits, including Social Security Disability denials
Appealing health insurance denials of Gender Affirming Care
Name changes and ID Document update

Calendar

Calendar: July 17-23

LGBTQ events in the days to come

Published

1 day ago

July 17, 2026

Tinashe Chingarande

Friday, July 17

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Social in the City” at 7 p.m. at Hotel Zena. This is a chance to relax, make new friends, and enjoy happy hour specials at this classic retro venue. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Trans and Genderqueer Game Night will be at 7 p.m. at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center. This is a relaxing, laid-back evening of games and fun. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.

Saturday, July 18

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation. Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center will host “Sunday Supper on Saturday” at 2 p.m. It’s an opportunity to step away from the busyness of life and invest in something meaningful, and enjoy delicious food, genuine laughter, and conversations that spark connection and inspiration. For more details, visit the Center’s website.

LGBTQ People of Color will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This peer support group is an outlet for LGBTQ people of color to come together and talk about anything affecting them in a space that strives to be safe and judgement free. There will be all sorts of activities like watching movies, poetry events, storytelling, and just hanging out with others. For more details, visit thedccenter.org/poc or facebook.com/centerpoc.

Sunday, July 19

“Nellie’s DC Drag Brunch” will be at 12 p.m. at Nellie’s Sports Bar. Come get served like a queen by a queen. Join Sapphire Blue, Deja Diamond and their team of amazing drag performers for the most fun you’ll have all weekend. Tickets are $58.51 and are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, July 20

“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).

Tuesday, July 21

Center Bi+ Roundtable will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is an opportunity for people to gather in order to discuss issues related to bisexuality or as bi individuals in a private setting. Visit Facebook or Meetup for more information.

Wednesday, July 22

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

Asexual and Aromantic Group will meet at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a space where people who are questioning this aspect of their identity or those who identify as asexual and/or aromantic can come together, share stories and experiences, and discuss various topics. For more details, email [email protected].

Thursday, July 23

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC LGBTQ+ Community Center. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245.

Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breath work and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.