Briar Patch
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While Lipscomb rates Blind Lemon as one of the greatest blues singers of all time, he insists that his own musical style is unique. Among other early musical influences on Mance were the occasional traveling musicians who happened through Grimes County such as Tom and Gummy Meigs from Ennis.
"Really, though," said Lipscomb, "I knew that I would have to learn my music on my own. When these players would come to town maybe they'd show me one or two songs and then they'd leave and I might not see them for another two or three years."
When asked if any young musicians he has heard "have what it takes to be a good songster," Mance replied, "Sure there are. I know a lot of them are coming up the right way because I've taught them myself.
"A lot of young people today," he continued, "won't give you any feeling in their music. You can't hardly get them to give you anything but a snappy feeling, a finger popping feeling—but they can't play those blues.
"The blues is a pressure inside of you. White people have the pressure just the same as black people, and they can play the blues just the same as blacks. It's just that the black people have more feeling for the blues because they've had more bad things happen to them. They've had more bad things happen to their parents and their grandparents. You see, it's a generation to generation thing.
"The blues was estimated on us back in slavery times. People had to do work they didn't want to do, live in old shacks, wear rags. They couldn't go to and fro like they wanted. They were whipped with bull whips. That's when the bad feelings began happening."
"Some people say I'm a guitar picker," Lipscomb said, "but I'm more of a religious man than I am a guitar picker."
He said that he never fails to say a morning prayer before going about his day's business. "Young men should remember," Mance said, "that they can't do anything without the help of God. You shouldn't say 'I go to such and such a place on such and such a day' what you should say is that 'if God is willing, I go to someplace.'
"I never even leave the house without saying a silent prayer. And I know God hears them and listens to me. When I was younger I always prayed that He would let my last days be my best days—and here they are."
THERE (S)HE IS...
ON A SPRING SATURDAY NIGHT in Houston, a performer stood onstage at a local bar, singing a song called "This Is My Life." The lyrics of the song were Personal Statement Pop—like "My Way" or "The Impossible Dream" or any of those I'm-my-own-man, stand-aside-world things that Sammy Davis is forever singing on the Carson show. But the voice on "This is My Life" was a woman's; the performer coiffed and gowned. Done Up. Or done up at least until the gown came off, and the wig. By the end of the song, the performer onstage had been transformed into a young man wearing nothing but a pair of levis and a lot of makeup.
Twenty-two contestants competed this spring in the Miss Gay Texas pageant of whom the boy-with-a-flair above was number 20. His stage name: "Stephanie Carr." His sponsor for the contest: The Glass Stein, a gay club in Houston.
We spoke with Stephanie on the second and final night of the pageant, immediately prior to the announcement of the ten finalists. With his wig and face in order, but dressed in street clothes from the neck down, it was like interviewing a butterfly still in his chrysalis. Unsettling.
Stephanie must be in his early twenties—ages weren't mentioned—and has worked as a professional drag queen for four years. Although he has worked outside the state, he prefers Texas—largely because the state is a strong hold of the pantomime queens, while the two Coasts lean to live acts. (Only one contestant at Miss Gay Texas used his own voice in the talent competition; the rest lip-synched to recordings). Stephanie is beyond all doubt the world's greatest Shirley Bassey fan; it is to the Bassey recording of "This Is My Life" that he performes his spectacular butterfly-into-caterpillar routine.
"I'm a Leo," he told us, "and Leos like to be the center of attention." But he also likes the money—professional drag work can pay very well, and first prize in the Miss Gay Texas pageant was $500—and had nothing but scorn for on-the-street drag. "Screamers," be called them. "If I don't get paid, I don't put on my wig."
His concern over the monetary angle is understandable, since a man necessarily spends more turning himself into a woman than most women do. Stephanie estimates his wardrobe is valued around $12,000, and be claims to have another $3-4000 "in hair."
An hour after our conversation, "Stephanie Carr" was chosen as one of the ten finalists in the Miss Gay Texas pageant, held this year at Houston's Bayou Landing club. And by the end of the show, one of the ten had evening-gowned, swimsuited and talented his/her way to the national competition in Nashville.
Both the semi-finals and finals consisted of three distinct competitions: evening gown, self-expression, talent. (No actual swimsuitting, alas: gender is obstinate, difficult to hide.) The evening gowns were elaborate: the second category emphasized expression more than self (all the queens apparently thought of themselves as sexy showgirls, and could there be an ostrich plume or a sequin left in the state?); and the talent consisted—with the exception of the one live singer and another guy who twirled the baton—of mouthing to a record. And someone else's record at that.
The someone else was Joey Heatherton or Shirley Bassey or Liza Minnelli or Barbara Streisand—or Diana Ross, but only from her workababy days as a Supreme. The whole Belting Girl Singer fraternity, those dames who do enough television so that the people who watch television will go see them when on vacation in Las Vegas.
The winner of the pageant was "Miss Jody Lane" from Dallas, and it was a bad choice, both because he was not very good and because he was not at all representative of what was best about the Texas competition.
"Miss Jody Lane" (one of those immutable constructions like "Miss Helen Hayes" or "Miss Jane Morgan") was a lady. "Tastefully" dressed, pert little smile—he looked a bit like Sue Ann Langdon (she who spreads her sugary charms on "Hollywood Square" and the like). In fact, he looked a bit like Miss Straight America. Lots of perfect teeth, but the jaw somehow not big enough for them all.
The best of the Texas lot were nothing like ladies, but rather the trash-with-flash set, who shimmied their sequins right out into the audience. The working girls. (If Tina Turner is indeed the "hardest working woman in show biz," then the hardest working man is her drag.)
But judging from the results of last year's Miss Gay America contest—the reigning Queen was a special guest at the Texas event—it's the Miss Jody Lanes they're looking for. Miss Gay America 1972 was about as brassy as Greer Garson.
So talent did not "out" whatever that means, nor did work. And Stephanie Carr has gone back to his job at the telephone company, where he fills in between drag jobs. "At least," he says, "when I get tired of my tits I can hang them up." He had provided, however, the most bizarre moment of Miss Texas Gay. For when he took off his gown and stood shirtless among the lights, his was still a woman's body. Pre-pubescent, of course, but strangely, recognizably "female." Whatever that means.
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