“He was openly gay, and in a flippant dig at David Bowie introduced himself as 'the true fairy of rock and roll!' - a quip that would cost him dear in an era of visual extravagance and peek-a-boo androgyny.”
As Manhattan geared up for Christmas 1973, a huge billboard was erected on the roof of a Times Square building. It featured a ghostly image, the nude crawling male figure with smashed mannequin's legs. Due to a strike by the workers who erected such advertising hoardings, it dominated that famous New York landmark over Christmas and into the New Year. It was also plastered along the sides of buses in the city. All part of the introduction of a new talent on the block with the beguiling name of Jobriath.
Signed to Elektra Records by Jac Holzman, his final act before selling the label he'd overseen from the 50's, Jobriath was a singer-songwriter with a twist too kinked for those days. He was openly gay, and in a flippant dig at David Bowie introduced himself as 'the true fairy of rock and roll!' - a quip that would cost him dear in an era of visual extravagance and peek-a-boo androgyny. Looking gay wasn't the same as admitting that you were.
His svengali Jerry Brandt who'd previously managed Carly Simon, set about a publicity blitz that made increasingly grand claims about the star quality of his virtually unknown entity. It resulted in a level of critical expectation that would have been near impossible to fulfill, not helped by the plug being pulled by Elektra on their plans to launch the grandiose spectacular in the opera houses of Europe, beginning at the Olympia in Paris. Jobriath had to satisfy himself with a few sold out nights at The Bottom Line.
He was also working intermittently as a male prostitute. By 1982, manifesting symptoms of what was initially referred to as 'gay cancer', later known as AIDS, he resorted to meditation and a macrobiotic diet.
His first album was the recipient of reasonably respectable reviews in the States, but by the time it hit the UK a few months later it was under the headline in the NME of 'the fag-end of Glam Rock'. He became known as an inferior facsimile of Bowie, and by the Autumn of 1975 after releasing a second album 'Creatures Of The Street' and failing to complete a third, he was dropped by his label. Haughtily he declared retirement to the music press. Nobody much cared. If he was remembered it was as a hype/failure.
Despite his albums being produced by Jimi Hendrix maestro Eddie Kramer, and featuring contributions from Peter Frampton and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, they sank into obscurity. His appearance on 'The Midnight Special' in April 1974 resulted in stunned silence from the bussed-in elderly audience, and his space-age grandiosities were difficult to garner mass appeal from.
His appearance on 'The Midnight Special' in April 1974 resulted in stunned silence from the bussed-in elderly audience, and his space-age grandiosities were difficult to garner mass appeal from.
He managed a living from playing piano and singing standards in supper clubs under the guise of Cole Berlin and was featured in the BBC 'Arena' documentary about the various eccentrics who inhabited The Hotel Chelsea, including Nico, William Burroughs and Andy Warhol. Jobriath moved into the infamous establishment in 1971. He was also working intermittently as a male prostitute. By 1982, manifesting symptoms of what was initially referred to as 'gay cancer', later known as AIDS, he resorted to meditation and a macrobiotic diet. He was found dead in his pyramid shaped triplex on the roof of the hotel 3rd August 1983. His father cleared the apartment, destroying his diaries and all traces of his music career.
