Saturday, June 26, 2010

Meco

Artist: Meco
LP: The Wizard of Oz
Song: "The Wizard of Oz — part one"
[ listen ]
Song: "The Wizard of Oz — part two"
[ listen ]

Yesterday morning on NPR's StoryCorps series, I was moved as I listened to Michael Levine describing what it was like to witness the Stonewall riots in New York City on June 28, 1969—an event which marked the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. You can listen to Levine's account of the events on that fateful and historic evening here. On June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York to commemorate the Stonewall riots of the year before. You can read all about the Stonewall uprising and the various phases of the gay rights movement since then on Wikipedia here. Tomorrow, the "Over the Rainbow" pride parade and festivities here in Seattle will be marking the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Gay Pride March. Unfortunately, I won't be at the parade tomorrow, since I have to play the organ for some Christian church out in the suburbs. But if they start singing hymns about gay people going to Hell, I promise to make lots of mistakes. In solidarity with the movement, and to show my support for equal rights for the LGBT community—including marriage, adoption, and the right to be tacky and annoying—I'm posting this fabulous and overlong disco version of "The Wizard of Oz," produced by Domenico "Meco" Monardo in 1978. Meco, who you can read about here, reportedly says of this LP, "This is my best work, bar none!"—and what I think he means is that, unlike most of his other work, he can stand listening to this one without getting stone drunk down at the local watering-hole first.

 [ The Stonewall Riots — June, 1969 ]

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