The Life and Lesbian Times of Alberta Hunter

This episode of Shoga Speaks dives into the life and legacy of legendary blues singer Alberta Hunter through a rich conversation with playwright and activist Jewelle Gomez, whose play Leaving the Blues reimagines Hunter’s journey as a closeted Black lesbian performer in early 20th-century America. Host Dr. Robert Philipson and Gomez explore Hunter’s fierce independence, prolific songwriting, civil rights activism, and hidden queer identity, contrasting her with peers like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Drawing from personal memory, historical research, and dramatic invention, Gomez reveals how Hunter’s public poise masked deep private struggles, ultimately portraying her as both musical icon and cultural trailblazer.

Guest Information:
Jewelle Gomez
Playwright, novelist, and activist
Author of Leaving the Blues, part of a trilogy on unsung Black queer figures
Website: jewellegomez.com

Music 

 My Handy Man - Alberta Hunter

Darktown Strutters' Ball - Alberta Hunter

Down Hearted Blues - Alberta Hunter

Give Me All The Love You Got - Alberta Hunter

Take That Thing Away - Alberta Hunter

Host Info:
Dr. Robert Philipson
Dr. Philipson is a former professor of African-American studies and Harlem Renaissance scholar. He is also a filmmaker with a focus on the intersection of race, sexuality, and music.
Website: Shogafilms.org

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Transcript

Robert Philipson: I'm Robert Phillipson. I am the director of “T'aint Nobody's Business, Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s,” which featured Jewelle Gomez as narrator. And Jewelle also wrote a play about Alberta Hunter called Leaving the Blues. So I have invited her to come do a podcast with me about Alberta Hunter and about her play on Alberta Hunter. 

So I'm very much looking forward to that. And welcome. 

Jewelle Gomez: Hi. Thank you. 

Robert Philipson: What propelled your interest to Alberta Hunter? 

Jewelle Gomez: My interest in Alberta grew from a visit my grandmother made to me when I lived in New York in the seventies and eighties, and. I took her to see Alberta Hunter at The Cookery.  

Robert Philipson: Oh, nice.  

Jewelle Gomez: And I knew my grandmother would know who she was because she herself had also been a singer and a dancer in the thirties and forties on stage. 

And so by that time I, I'd seen Alberta maybe four times. And so I said to my grandmother, “Nana, do you see all these young women in here? Why do you think they're packing in to see her?” And she said, “Why?” And I said, “Well, they heard a rumor that Alberta Hunter is a lesbian.” And my grandmother said, “Everybody knew that.” 

And that just blew my mind. Not that my grandmother said it as much as, as careful as Alberta was being about her image, that there was a whole layer of the population that already knew she was a lesbian. And I thought a lot about that, that, and so of course that was in the early eighties. I thought a lot about what it meant to live that kind of life publicly and keep such a big secret. 

And so that led me to read about her. I had a friend who's a photographer in London, Val Wilmer, who's done several books, all photographs of jazz and blues musicians, both in the US and in Great Britain. And she introduced me to Chris Albertson and he had wonderful stories, and I felt at some point I'll get to do something about Alberta. 

And then, you know, that was in the eighties and so come 2011 or so, or 2015, I think there I was with the play about her. 

Robert Philipson: Great. So let's talk about that. How old was Alberta when she left home in Memphis to seek out her fortune in Chicago? 

Jewelle Gomez: I think Alberta at that time when she left home in Memphis -- she went to Chicago--some people say she was 11, she might have been a little bit older. 12. But not much older. Of course, she took a long time to get that fortune she was seeking because you know, it was, she was unseasoned un. 

Robert Philipson: She was a girl. 

Jewelle Gomez: She was a child. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: Really. So she worked as a maid. And housekeeper and that kind of thing for years.But once she started singing, yes, she just really never stopped. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. What do you think that says about her character? That she would leave home as a child by herself? 

Jewelle Gomez: I think for Alberta, leaving home as virtually a child at 11 or so, really is an indicator of what a persistent, hearty personality she was. 

And it worked for her entire life. I, I think she never flagged in her commitment to being a singer, to being recorded, to having a good reputation. And it was a kind of passion that she had that propelled her out of her home and onto the stage. 

Robert Philipson: I think that's a good point because lots of young men and women seek their fame and fortune in entertainment, and it's a pretty polluted atmosphere, and oftentimes it ruins them, especially if they have some success. 

She was in, she was inoculated against that. 

Jewelle Gomez: Alberta was so determined. It was like when a person goes into a tide, into the ocean and the waves are coming and they're knocking you down. Alberta was not falling as many waves as struck her. You know, she was traditionally not, quote unquote, good looking. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Dark 

Jewelle Gomez: Reviewers would often say Alberta sang beautifully considering her dusky appearance.  

Robert Philipson: Right, right, right, right. 

Jewelle Gomez: And all kinds of things like that. They also called her a bitch. 

Robert Philipson: Oh, really? 

Jewelle Gomez: Oh, yeah. Because she stood up for herself. If she did not want to play at a certain hour, she said it. If people didn't give her money, she never shut up about it. And she wrote hundreds of songs, not just the famous ones. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: She wrote hundreds of songs and a good number of them she kept the rights to. That was not usual at that time for any black performer. Much less a black woman. 

And I think it's that passionate devotion and determination that allowed her to, to survive and to thrive as an independent woman. So 

Robert Philipson: This is interesting and we'll get into the specifics of the play after we have this preliminary discussion. But Alberta's fame rests on her singing. Justly so. But I think so much of what was remarkable about her hasn't been sufficiently appreciated. 

The fact that she was a prolific songwriter, that she was very generous in the way she moved, even though she was tight fisted. You saw that particularly when she worked in the USO and the troop that she led. She was more of a ma  than Ma Rainey was, I think. And that stuff, I guess, inevitably disappears. 

What is history gonna recognize? Recognized her singing the songs, but maybe her achievement is not just in the arts but as a black lesbian moving in the world at the time that she did. 

Jewelle Gomez: I think that the legacy of Alberta's work is of course, her songs, but in doing research, I saw how much of her personality contributed to her ability to see a bigger life. 

She was totally devoted to singing, but she was also devoted to civil rights. I went to the New York Public Library. Some of her papers are in the Schomberg in Harlem, and I saw on these envelopes, the backs of envelopes, she would list all the donations that she'd made that month. Inevitably the largest donation she made was to NAACP. She would give them $50 almost every month. 

Robert Philipson: That's interesting. And that part of her doesn't come out so much 

Jewelle Gomez: Does not get talked about. And this was at a time when black women were trying to create the kinds of clubs that black women could do good works. So she was right out there with them and ahead of them in many ways. 

She would see a newspaper article about a family, a black family that had  experienced some devastation, like a flood in their home or fire, and their home was totally destroyed. She'd find out where they lived and send them boxes and boxes of clothes. Canned goods.  

She got this letter, same letter, rs epeatedly from a woman whose family she had outfitted with new clothes for her and her multiple children. And the woman wrote her every month, and clearly the woman couldn't read. She had somebody writing the letters for her, just thanking her. 

Robert Philipson: Wow. 

Jewelle Gomez: And praising God that Alberta had saved her and her children. 

Robert Philipson: Wow. 

Jewelle Gomez: And that was a whole other aspect of her that people didn't see, except the people who were benefiting. And people who say, “Well, she was so tightfisted.” That was because she wouldn't get cheated. 

Robert Philipson: Right. And also, it was part of her shtick, you know? 

Jewelle Gomez: It was part of her thing. You know, squeeze the dollar to the eagle cries, you know. That whole thing.  

I think Alberta's legacy is about her songwriting, how generous she was, how cognizant she was of the importance of the black Civil Rights movement and how much she was committed to sing no matter what. 

Robert Philipson: Of course, other singers who have achieved fame and leave a legacy of songs, well, I'm thinking of Ethel Waters for example. 

You know, huge star. Now. I don't know how actively she contributed to the civil rights movement of the time that she lived through, but she joined the Billy Graham crusade. She became religious. She was very focused on her career. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: And even though she was undeniably talented and had a huge career, I somehow think that in terms of promoting black civil rights, she was probably less committed to that than Alberta Hunter was. 

Jewelle Gomez: You know, it's hard to know little string bean as that the waters was called 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Early in her career. Think again. You have these singers, performers, women. Who have to be really careful about how they appear. You know, the one picture of Ethel Waters in a man tailored suit, which was such a revelation to people, it, it's not something she wanted to have ever seen because she felt like her career would suffer. 

And I think the politics is the same way in many ways. 

Robert Philipson: Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. That's interesting. 

Jewelle Gomez: Even into the sixties, you think about Marvin Gaye Motown. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Not happy about what's going on, 

Jewelle Gomez: Not wanna hear what's going on. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: And that was in the sixties. So the politics of civil rights, I think a lot of performers kind of kept 

Robert Philipson: That's very interesting. 

Jewelle Gomez: To the down low. 

Robert Philipson: That's very, that's a very interesting comparison. An alternate are queer sexuality and strong support for civil rights. Could be equally toxic. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. It could. 

Robert Philipson: Very interesting 

Jewelle Gomez: Though, interest in the political movements surrounding these black women performers could have just destroyed them. 

Really. 

Robert Philipson: Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Of course. Josephine Baker proved to be a strong, I, well, I don't wanna get too far off this tangent here, but I think she was able to speak out so strongly for the civil rights movements of the fifties and sixties because she was an expatriate. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. Joseph Josephine Baker as an expatriate, had a whole other audience. 

She had a whole other grounding underneath her. And her recognition by the French government around World War ii, I think really gave her, uh, a different kind of context for speaking out. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: And I think she was a little more out there in terms of her personality, 

Robert Philipson: I guess so 

Jewelle Gomez: You know, I mean dancing naked with bananas around you, 

Robert Philipson: But also it, but also when she had her renewed experience of American racism after she'd been the superstar in Europe. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: She was really offended and angry about it. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes. Yeah. She was not, not 

Robert Philipson: In a way that any blacks who'd grown up in America couldn't react that way, or they'd be killed. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right, right. I mean, Josephine Baker having an alternative life in Europe had a broader expanse of response that she could fall back on than people who were just in, in the muck. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Let's get to the play. It's all great stuff. So in your play, Alberta's first encounter is with the ghost of Will, who takes her into the past. Who was Will? 

Jewelle Gomez: . So my play is not historical in the sense of each thing is tagged to a reality. I jumped off from different things that I read in my research. 

Lottie Alberta's partner, companion lover was the niece of Bert Williams. And Bert Williams was very, very famous of course, and formed in blackface. Uh, and he had a lot of fans for many, many years. He performed on in Vaudeville 

Robert Philipson: and the Zigfield Follies 

Jewelle Gomez: and the Zigfield Follie. So he was really well known on his own, and I'm sure he and Alberta met because I think a Lottie was very close to him, but they were not hanging out together. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: But it was a very meaningful thing to me to have a representation of Burt Williams in the play because of the significance of his career and his life. So I created this ghost figure based on Bert Williams, who could kind of frame her life and nudge her along. In some ways. Because she was kind of stubborn as a personality, and it felt like someone who had lived longer and had tough times would be able to put her life in a context for her. 

Robert Philipson: So in the imagined relationship in the play. We'll be careful about distinguishing between historical relationships and relationships in the world of the play. So in the world of the play, will is initially disapproving, uh. Alberta's relationship with With his niece? 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes. In the original draft of my play, he was much more so than he ends up in the end, but I felt contextually historically there would be some reservation on his part, so I built that into the character of Will who represented Bert Williams because I wanted a level of reality about the Times really. 

Robert Philipson: It would've been remarkable if you had any other attitude about it, 

Jewelle Gomez: Right as a heterosexual, 

Robert Philipson: Exactly. 

Jewelle Gomez: Middle class or up upper middle class black man. It seemed natural. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: That he would have some reservations, but I also wanted to show his pride in Alberta's accomplishments. 

Robert Philipson: Ah, okay. 

Jewelle Gomez: Which is why he kind of stuck around her. 

Robert Philipson: Right. In spite of all the abuse. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. He was, he was there for her. He wanted her to have grounding in something other than what was being heaped on her by the external world. 

Robert Philipson: Well, there's great com, there's great comedy in, in the, in, in, in the, the barbs that she throws at him. You must have had fun writing those lines in scene two, you introduce the Calabash Cousins. 

I assume they're made up whole cloth. Why did you put these non historical characters in the play? 

Jewelle Gomez: It was funny. The two things that got me into the play were my grandmother recognizing that Alberta was a lesbian when we saw her perform. And as I started thinking about the play, thinking about writing the play, the Calabash Cousins appeared to me. 

And they were there. I didn't know what I was gonna call them, but I, I saw them as the two sides of Alberta. You know, that conflict for her to be famous and to not be out as a lesbian. We all know there are characters who are black, who passed for white. But I also knew of at least one person who was white, who passed for black. 

That was in my grandmother's experience. 

Robert Philipson: Oh, okay. 

Jewelle Gomez: So I was very interested in how I could get these two young men, uh, one of whom was white, calling themselves cousins, so that they as lovers could travel together with no one suspecting. And so that's how I came to them. But they originally came to me as a representation of her duality, not ethnicity wise, but being as a performer, very flirtatious. 

And sexy. All of those things that a, a standard heterosexual woman would be in that period. Yet internally. She was really a butch. I mean, if you see pictures of her outside of performance, she was really a, a butch woman. So that duality was very interesting to me. And that's where the cousins came from. 

Robert Philipson: Okay. 

Jewelle Gomez: And the Calabash, someone later told me what Calabash signified in Caribbean culture, I've forgotten it now, but it's something about the hidden, the concealed. And I wanted a youthful energy that connected her life and what was going on in her life. To the audience. So they served a couple of different purposes. 

Robert Philipson: Oh, cool. That's good. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. May. The younger, lighter skinned singer. I'm sure she has a historical counterpart, but I didn't really do the any kind of research for that. But I knew there needed to be someone who contrasted with Alberta. Since being darker skinned was such a big part of how the outer world wanted to define her. 

How critics wanted to limit her and how she refused to be limited. So I wasn't thinking about May as a specific character so much as a representation. 

Robert Philipson: Okay. So for the purposes of the play, you are creating characters and putting them in the play? 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. I tried to draw on the different historical reading I had done to create amalgamations of different characters. 

Robert Philipson: What was the connection between Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith? 

Jewelle Gomez: Well, of course, Alberta wrote Bessie's first big hit. Of course, Alberta recorded it, but when Bessy sang Downhearted Blues, it took off. And that kind of created Bessie's career in many ways, or 

Robert Philipson: Certainly launched her. 

Jewelle Gomez: Launched her, yeah, launched Bessy in many ways. So they knew each other, but they were not bosom buddy, shall I say? Because Alberta worked so hard to be a lady. 

Robert Philipson: Not one of Bessie's goals. 

Jewelle Gomez: That was not one of Bessie's goals being a lady. So they were not, they were not gonna be traveling in the same circles. 

But I think, you know, Bessie appreciated her 'cause Alberta could churn out a song. She was churning those songs out.  

Robert Philipson: Lettie is Alberta's one true love and long-term relationship. Who is Lettie in real life. And how did her relationship differ from the one you present in the play? 

Jewelle Gomez: Okay, well I call her Lettie 'cause it was an easier name for me, but her name was Lottie and she traveled with Alberta a lot. 

They went to Paris together in, I think in 1917. Lottie and Alberta were very, very close and I think there was friction in many ways, because Alberta was somewhat controlling and demanding. Lottie. She was upper middle class. She was not used to being bossed around by anyone, certainly by anyone like Alberta. 

She had a minimal education. But she was smart as a whip and not very subtle. So I think they had a lot of friction. They stayed together for a number of years in varying degrees of closeness. At a certain point, I think Lottie moved out of their apartment where they lived together. 

Robert Philipson: I read that there was a, they were in Paris together. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: And Lottie left suddenly. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes, yes. I had read that too. 

Robert Philipson: She had fallen in love with the wife of her lawyer. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. I, I read the whole thing about Lottie. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: Falling in love with the, the wife of her attorney and leaving Alberta in Paris. I didn't include that in a place, 

Robert Philipson: no, you can't include everything. 

Jewelle Gomez: Anyway, it seemed extraneous to the story. And what I wanted the story to be about is how was Alberta gonna reconcile this long-term relationship with her desire to keep it hidden. And so I kind of, I kind of made Lettie the, the irritant. 

Robert Philipson: What you can do is when you're speaking of the world of the play, you can call her Lettie. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes. 

Robert Philipson: And when you're speaking of the historical character, you can call her Lottie. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: 'Cause there is a difference. There's a significant difference between Lottie and Lettie.  

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. So I thought it was fascinating when I read about Lottie actually leaving 'cause of her passion for this woman, this wife of an attorney. 

And I thought that could be another whole play by strange by itself. 

Robert Philipson: And clearly it clearly didn't go anywhere. And I get the feeling that there, they had a kind of a, I have a similar relationship myself. You know, I mean, they were lovers and then became very close. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: Not, not necessarily physically intimate afterwards. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: We'll never know. 

Jewelle Gomez: I, I think it's not that queer people. Even today. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: To maintain relationships with ex lovers. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: And in part, you know, it's because our lives are constantly under assault and it creates bonds that go beyond simply physical desire. And friendship. It creates family in many ways. 

Robert Philipson: That's a really good point. 

Jewelle Gomez: Lottie and Alberta remain family to each other. Yeah. Until Lottie passed away, 

Robert Philipson: you know, heterosexual people don't understand that. 

Jewelle Gomez: No. 

Robert Philipson: Because when they divorce or separate, there's all this acrimony. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: Or at best indifference. Very rare that they become family even though they were family. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. Unless they have children, heterosexual couples, when they split up, they don't want to hear from the other person ever again. . 

Robert Philipson: You're right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Uh, and I think queer people can't really afford that. Our, our community is small and we need each other for a lot of different things. 

Robert Philipson: You also give up a lot when you a relationship or 10 or 15 years dissolves, you know, their family, you know their history, you know, you know the stories and all of that goes away when the other person says, I never wanna see you again. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. Right. I think that Alberta's ability to hold onto her family connection to Lottie says a lot about Alberta.As well as Lottie. 

Robert Philipson: I know how you're gonna go here, but let's do it anyway. Lettie is an anachronistically pushing for a public rec recognition of their relationship. Did you make up that aspect of Lottie Tyler's character? 

Jewelle Gomez: I definitely made up that aspect of Lottie's character, having Lettie want Alberta to be more open, and I wasn't thinking as much that that Lettie would want Alberta to announce it to the world as much as Alberta not keeping it so hidden from their close circle of friends. It's very difficult if you're going to parties all the time. Together to have your partner come later, which I write in the play. She has, she has Lettie come later. 

Robert Philipson: Oh, that's, that was a normal thing. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Oh. So I think, oh, I can see how that could be emotionally be like, you know, these are our friends. 

These are the people we know. Many of them are also gay. So why do we have to, to do that? And it, it makes me sad to know that Alberta went through all of that and still people knew, even my grandmother knew and she wasn't even famous. 

Robert Philipson: She was a bull dagger.  

Jewelle Gomez: She was not famous and she knew. 

Robert Philipson: oh, that's funny. 

Jewelle Gomez: Also, dramatically, when you're writing a play, you've gotta create some kinds of tension.  

Robert Philipson: Oh, absolutely. 

Jewelle Gomez: So that seemed the, the easier one. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, absolutely. Yes, please explicate Lettie's blind to Alberta. I know you'd never go to those rent parties or alias. 

Jewelle Gomez: Again, there's this level of out behavior that Alberta was never gonna follow. 

So Alia Walker, the daughter of Madam CJ Walker, was wealthy. She had these salons. She invited all of the different strata of society, many of whom were queer. And it didn't seem to me, I mean, I never read anything that said Alberta wasn't gonna go, but it didn't seem to me that would be a place that Alberta would wanna place herself. 

Because the people who would be going to ale Alays would be Bohemian, the queer, the outrageous. So I wanted to make it clear there was this other aspect of gayness in the black community that Alberta did not avail herself of she's held back from 

Robert Philipson: And ditto with the rent parties. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes. Yes. That more of like a class thing. 

Robert Philipson: Yes, absolutely. Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: Thinking about going someplace, 

Robert Philipson: Putting a bottle beer. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. Eating some greasy chicken with bathtub gin. That was really, didn't seem like that was gonna be out for this thing. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Yeah. It's great that it's in there 'cause it's, it's in the script. 

But that reference is gonna fly over the heads of 95% of you 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. Scholars. 

Robert Philipson: It's fine. I'm glad it's there. 

Jewelle Gomez: Scholars would wanna know who is that and why is that that way. But yeah. 

Robert Philipson: So what's Alberta's story about the French count? And where did that come from? 

Jewelle Gomez: Did the French count Now, you know, I was trying to reread the play before I got here, so, but I didn't get to that part. 

Um, 

Robert Philipson: but basically Lettie's upset that there's this thing in the paper about the French count that Alberta's seen. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. And in fact, there was something in the paper 

Robert Philipson: that's right 

Jewelle Gomez: in New York about Alberta seeing the French count and maybe they were gonna get engaged and, and all of that. I don't know if Lettie ever confronted her about it, but it seemed a good likelihood that she did. 

So I had to put that in there because, you know, again, it's deeply closeting yourself..By having a, a beard.And I don't think Alberta went so far as, I mean she did get married, but that was so brief. 

Robert Philipson: Okay. So I wanna ask you about that. 

Jewelle Gomez: That was so brief. 

Robert Philipson: I wanna ask you about that. 

So let's talk about it now. Yeah. She did get married. 

Jewelle Gomez: She did get married. 

Robert Philipson: Marriage was never consumated. 

Jewelle Gomez: Correct. 

Robert Philipson: And what do you think about that? 

Jewelle Gomez: You know, it lasted, what, three months perhaps? 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: But never consumated. I think Alberta at some point thought, you know, I'm gonna need to be married. I'm gonna probably need a man on hand to help me with my business, and I will be easier on me as a lesbian if I have a husband. 

And I think she picked a guy, married him, and then realized he was not gonna work out. 

I  

Robert Philipson: Don't think a penis was gonna work out, but no 

Jewelle Gomez: I mean, well, I think she already knew that. 

Robert Philipson: No, no, no. I mean, there, I don't know. There'd have to be some sort of understanding between them for the marriage to actually work, even as a fake marriage. 

And this guy was something of a go-getter. He actually became an important union man later on. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right, right, right. And so he was not going to be her erstwhile husband was a go-getter. He was not gonna be subsumed under Alberta. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: And I think that's one of the things that made her realize, oh, I don't really, this is not gonna work. 

This is not gonna work. And I'll do my own. Go-getting. 

Robert Philipson: I'm willing to bet, just make another great play. But I'm willing to bet that he actually was in love with her, 

Jewelle Gomez: Who wouldn't be? 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: You know? 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: She was so talented. 

Robert Philipson: She's pretty glittery too. And magnetic, even though. Yeah. And they, you know, would love to be. 

Be a fly on the wall during some of those constant con conversations. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. The early things that I read said she refused to get in bed with him because her mother was in the house. 

Robert Philipson: Right. I read that too. 

Jewelle Gomez: No, I don't think so. 

Robert Philipson: We can't. We can't do it. My mother's 

Jewelle Gomez: I know, don't think I know, 

Robert Philipson: but they had to have a talk at some point. 

It was an interesting movie. 

Jewelle Gomez: They had to have something. Yeah, they had to have something. I mean, that would be a great one act play 'cause that's about as long as the marriage lasted. 

Robert Philipson: Nice quip. Nice quip. So talk about the party scene, Jean Billy and Blanche. Some of these are made up characters. Some of these are historical. 

Go ahead. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah, the, I will tell you the only historical character I have in there is Billy thinking of Billy Strayhorn. His biography was one of the books that I read in preparation as writing Lush Life and Lush Life was such a beautifully told, tragic story of a genius. 

Musician, and he had a very full life working with, uh, Duke Ellington. Yet he never sat comfortably with himself. 

In part I'm sure, because he was a gay man, a black gay man. And so his alcoholism really ruins his life. Yes. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: And it's one of the saddest, you know, I, I wanted him to be in the play. 

Somewhere, somehow, I don't know if he ever met Alberta. It's not hard to believe. Um, but as, as a. A, a memory. It's like putting a Lilia walker in means you don't disappear. Ah, okay. And Billy Strayhorn, I, I needed to have him there as this musical genius and everybody at the party admired him. And the other characters, Blandin said Jean, I hadn't really thought about them. 

As based on anyone in particular. Although we do know that Alberta had a French, uh, producer . When she was in Paris. Who was setting up the gigs for her and stuff like that. So I thought it was Jean in that way, but I, I name just named it Jean 'cause it's the one French name I know. 

But Blanche, I deliberately used the word blanche of course, because of the thing about the skin color. Right. But I didn't have anyone in particular in mind. 

Robert Philipson: Um, she's a bitch. 

Jewelle Gomez: She's an attention seeker. Who doesn't think Alberta is worth much. 

Robert Philipson: Right. She's too dark again. 

Jewelle Gomez: Too dark. You know, that, that prejudice. 

That we as people of color can have against ourselves. 

Robert Philipson: Interesting. And of course there's some interesting hall of mirrors aspect to all this because you, a light-skinned black are putting in Alberta's mouth digs against light skinned black. 

Jewelle Gomez: Well, it's kind of interesting growing up as I did in Boston, as someone with fair skin, I was not the fairest one in my family by any means. 

My mother and my grandmother were both fairer than me and they more took after the Native American side of our family. It was always weird to me that people would call me light-skinned and say it as if it was a favorite thing. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Or be resentful about it. So I grew up with that, but it was in reverse. 

Robert Philipson: You know, you, you, you can't win for losing. You can't, even if your light win, 

Jewelle Gomez: you can't even, you cannot win for losing. And I was brown skinned, but not as light as a lot of other girls who were very light. My mother was very light and people fought in her neighborhood where she lived in Rhode Island. 

They thought she was white, you know? 

Robert Philipson: But you did pass the paper bag test? 

Jewelle Gomez: I did pass the paper bag test. I did pass the paper bag test. Annoying as the idea of it is.  

Robert Philipson: Let's see. Please explicate Alberta's line to Lettie. Ma Rainey did enough of that. It signified. And look where it landed her jail. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. The line about Ma Rainey landing in jail. 

I wanted it to come out of Alberta's mouth because I felt like she would be really kind of condescending about flagrant homosexual references, you know? 

Robert Philipson: Oh, you mean like prove it on me blues. 

Jewelle Gomez: Prove it on me Blues. 

Robert Philipson: Oh, okay. Okay. 

Jewelle Gomez: Was, you know, a big hit and, but still, I think 

Robert Philipson: I see. 

Jewelle Gomez: Alberta did innuendo and double entendre wonderfully. 

Robert Philipson: Oh yeah. My handyman. 

Jewelle Gomez: My handyman, yeah. But it was always gonna be heterosexual. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: And I felt like she could say something about Ma Rainey and her under the table messiness. 

Robert Philipson: That's very interesting. Right? Yeah. So what could you expect? She was singing on stage and of course she's gonna, she's got this party and land in jail. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: What could you expect? 

Jewelle Gomez: What could you expect? 

Robert Philipson: Because that's interesting. I really hadn't made that connection. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. Uhhuh, I, I feel like. Alberta was a snob.  

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: And part of that was her protection of herself.  

Robert Philipson: And also from where, where she came from, 

Jewelle Gomez: where Alberta came from, she couldn't really become one of the folk again because she had that added secret of being a lesbian. 

It didn't allow her to make the connections with the underside 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Of the black community 

Robert Philipson: She grew up in that she didn't want anything to do with it. 

Jewelle Gomez: I, I'll never forget when I was looking for apartments, when I left home in Boston, when I looked at different neighborhoods and friends kept saying to me, oh, you know, the Lower East Side has lots of really responsive apartments. 

I'd say, you know, I grew up on the damn lower East Side. of Boston the, or the, it's equivalent, 

Robert Philipson: right. 

Jewelle Gomez: I never wanna live again where I have to look three times before I open my front door. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: I had that. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: I wasn't hiding so I was able to relate to, to anybody. 

Robert Philipson: You didn't wanna live in it. 

Jewelle Gomez: But I did not to live there. 

Robert Philipson: Miss some good deli food though.  

Jewelle Gomez: Very good deli food. Yes. Yes. So, you know, so I understood that. But for her. In the twenties and thirties, as Oscar Wilde said, Alberta might have been in the gutter, but she needed to keep her eyes on the stars. You know, 

Robert Philipson: You know, this is resonating with my own family history in interesting ways because, um, being a lady back in the twenties and thirties was an important value that my grandmother tried to instill in my mother. 

. My mother wasn't really that interested in. But it got into her head anyway.  

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah, we, we carry all that stuff, even if we don't think that we do. I mean, my grandmother, I think, was married maybe three times, but she had a lot of boyfriends. She never kept them. But her first husband, who was the father of my mother, did not approve of my grandmother. 

Because she had been on a stage. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, of course. 

Jewelle Gomez: And she said my grandmother was too dark. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: And my mother's father was very, very light.I mean, he, he passed for white, essentially.. And did his mother, so they did not approve her in-laws, did not approve of my grandmother, and in part it was her skin color. 

But she was very coppery. She looked like she had been raised on an Indian reservation. Really she was so beautiful. But it was the going on the stage that really pissed them off as far as they were concerned. She was a slut. 

Robert Philipson: It's interesting. It's interesting. You're causing me to think about Alberta in ways that I hadn't thought about her before. 

But being a lady was really important to her. 

Jewelle Gomez: Oh my God. Oh my god. 

Robert Philipson: You know? 

Jewelle Gomez: Yes, yes, yes. That's why being a lady was so important to Alberta. That's why there are so few pictures of her. In her regular clothes.Almost every picture, not every, but a lot of the pictures you see of her, she's either in her gowns . 

For the stage. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: Or when her and Lottie were traveling in Europe and she would be in those nice suits, women's suits 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: That everybody wore. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Right. She was pretty good Navy uniform. I mean in her USO uniform, well, 

Jewelle Gomez: USO uniform. She did look very good in the USO uniform. She was the leader of the first all black show for the USO. 

Robert Philipson: Right, right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Um, only later in life I saw a picture of her in, in, uh, sweatsuit and her hat that she would wear around her house.  

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Interesting. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah, it is. 

Robert Philipson: It's interesting. Interesting. It is this whole lady thing, it puts a different filter on. Her career because. The blues. She's famous as a blue singer. 

You don't think of blues singers as, uh. 

Jewelle Gomez: Lady like. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. You don't. 

Robert Philipson: But she, she actually walked that type rope well 

Jewelle Gomez: She did. I mean, and even, you know, white women were always having to struggle with that. You think about someone like Katherine Hepburn, she got dissed a lot because she wanted to wear pants. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: You know, and I, I just read this thing recently. It was funny on the set of some, I can't even remember which movie it was, but she used to wear dungarees to the set, and the, the producer said, you have to stop doing that. And she said. No. And when she came to work the next day, she couldn't find her dungarees so she walked around in her underwear. 

Robert Philipson: Okay. 

Jewelle Gomez: Because she's a privileged white woman. She could do that. And I said, God, women were getting that lady indoctrination. All women were getting it. And certainly for women of color, they were getting it hatred because that was. 

Robert Philipson: If they had aspirations. 

Jewelle Gomez: if they had any aspirations, right? They had to really cling to the lady thing. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Interesting, interesting. Yeah. Moving on, so who was the music writer, Chris, in real life, and what was his relationship to Alberta? 

Jewelle Gomez: Oh, Chris Albertson, gosh, I admired him so much and appreciated him. Chris was from Denmark, but he, he migrated to the US. Early on, he became a US citizen. He was a dj, he was a historian, he was a record producer, journalist, 

Robert Philipson: And homosexual 

Jewelle Gomez: And a, he was a gay man. 

Yes. And I came to know him through my friend Val Wilmer, the also gay photographer who's from London. And she said, you gotta meet Chris. You gotta meet Chris. I got to meet him one time, but we had great phone conversations. And so he had done the biography of Bessie Smith, and then he produced a documentary about Alberta. 

Robert Philipson: My Castle's Rocking. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. and so he became friends with Alberta through that and was in contact with her regularly. And was one of her closest male friends. So he had a lot of insights and he was the person who said to me, you know, her papers are at the Schomburg. You should go there. He was the one who said to me, she really was devoted to the Civil Rights movement. 

You really need to see what you can find. So I would call him, he usually didn't answer, but I could leave messages and then he would call me back with answers and I felt really, really sad. He didn't get to see the play. He died before the play came to New York, and it turned out he lived in the very first apartment building that I lived in when I moved to New York, 4 44 Central Park West. 

Yes, and I lived in there when I first moved to York. 

Robert Philipson: Nice building. 

Jewelle Gomez: So it was a great building. I mean, it was notorious for the people who lived in there. Anyway, 4 44 Central Park West was an extraordinary place to live. And so when Chris gave me his address, I said, oh my God, we're practically related. I spent my early years in New York there. 

And so he was very kind to me, and he knew Alberta as an individual, as a person and admired her. But he would say, you know, she's very tough. And I said, well, should I meet her? He said, I don't know how much do you really want to peel back layers? I said, I really don't. I'm writing a play. I'm not doing her biography. 

So Chris was very, very kind and helpful. 

Robert Philipson: He might have been somewhat protective of her as well. 

Jewelle Gomez: Oh, Chris was absolutely protective of Alberta 

Robert Philipson: because I, I interviewed Chris in his apartment about, I might, if, if this gets visual, I'll play the clip. From nobody's business. But I went to his, he was kind enough to invite me to his apartment and I was unknown, you know? 

. Didn't know me from Adam. Small apartment. Filled floor to ceiling with CDs. And, and he talked about all of them, you know, but he didn't have a lot to say about Alberta 'cause I was focusing on her sexuality. And basically what he said was Alberta was, was a lesbian and she wasn't out about it, but her friends knew. 

And that was kind of all he had to say about it. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. Chris was interesting. Chris was very much in those old days where everyone was circumspect. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Although he himself as a gay man was much more out. So he was in two different worlds. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. That's interesting because of course he's the one that outed Ma Rainey. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he was kind to Alberta at a time when she really needed kindness. She was getting elderly. And leaving nursing and going back to singing while she was that old. Was hard on her. Although she loved it, 

Robert Philipson: Obviously. 

Jewelle Gomez: Obviously she loved it. But having a friend like Chris Albertson, 

Robert Philipson: He really was a, a supporter. 

So in act two, you introduce characters like Bebe or extend the storylines of the Calabash Cousins to make the point of times have changed and Alberta can affirm her queer self that she could have had family with Lettie. She doesn't really make that choice, does she? 

Jewelle Gomez: I wanted to bring Alberta into the present since she was so much a part of the present. 

When she started to sing at the cookery in the eighties. But she did not make a choice to come out as a lesbian. And I, of course had to respect that, but I wanted to show an embodiment of all those women who came to see her.. Even though she was not acknowledging them. 

They, myself included, loved her. I mean, I saw her at least four times at the Coca. 

Robert Philipson: It's kind of like an invisible fan club. 

Jewelle Gomez: It was like, it was, it was like all of these young women, myself included, believed in her, whether she came out or not. And it's like the character, Bebe says, you don't have to carry a flag, but you have to sing your song. 

Like our lives depend on it. And that's the way I think I felt, and I think a lot of those women felt. , 

Robert Philipson: Okay. I, I'm seeing the personal investment in this story. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I was on the the advisory board for Nancy Cates when she did the film about Byard Bus. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. Right. Brother Outsider. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. And we had long conversations about how was this gonna end because he didn't do this big embrace of gay rights. 

Robert Philipson: Right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Um, and you know, 

Robert Philipson: They made him do it later. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. But I said this to people who wanted to complain because Angela Davis hadn't come out. 

Robert Philipson: Right, right. 

Jewelle Gomez: Early on. I said, you know, the lives that they have lived, the things that they have committed themselves to, they don't owe coming out to anybody. 

They lived their lives and risk their lives. So let's not get hung up on that. Let's look at what they gave us by actually living their lives. And that's how I felt about by it, Rustin. That's how I felt about Angela. Although she is, since, I guess, come out as bisexual and Alberta. Her life is there. It's there. 

All we need to do is look at it. 

Robert Philipson: And because in the world of the play, you could bring her to an internal acceptance that you wished she had you do, 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. When she's told that there's a rumor. And she says to this one individual, the word rumor implies it's not true. Thank you. I wanted, I wanted that sense of maybe she could confide. 

In an individual. Like Chris having this young, very butch woman. And I wanted it to be a butch woman because I saw 

Robert Philipson: That was obvious. Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: Saw her as a butch character. Any of the pictures you see of her when she's not in her gown, she was very butch. I wanted that reflection of who she could have been if she had been born later. 

In different circumstances.  

Robert Philipson: So, Lettie says to Alberta, if you can't call your people family out loud, the family won't stick. This sounds like a thesis statement. Would you agree? And what does it mean to the, in the context of the play and or Alberta's life? You've kind of answered this already, but this is the 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

When Lettie says, if you can't call yourself family out loud, the family doesn't, won't stick. Won't stick. Right. To me, that is the great tragedy of many people in the queer community, certainly for Alberta. Although she had a circle of friends who knew her. But that idea that we as a community need to intertwine ourselves as family in order to live satisfying lives. 

And long-term lives. That to me is very important, both personally and politically and in places where people can't create those family bonds. Um, you see people slip away.  

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: You slip away from you as you get old. Certainly as we get older, at my age, I'm still close friends. 

I'm happy to say with my first lover in high school with my two sort of. My main lover, the woman I thought I was gonna spend the rest of my life with before I met Diane, Cheryl Clark. We are still very much in each other's lives as family. My two best friends back in New York, Mary Ann and Sandra with whom I had been lovers were still family to each other. 

Robert Philipson: I understand that. 

Jewelle Gomez: And that acknowledgement of family is what ke keeps us close with each other. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. You know, you lived through this as well. You saw partnered gay men. In, in the eighties who died and the biological families would swoop in from Kansas. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: And take everything and say, get out. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. I saw the bonds of lovers totally ripped to shreds by heterosexual families in the eighties. During the AIDS crisis and before marriage equality. Diane and I did all the paperwork we could. Not that we were fearful of our families, but we we'd seen it. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: And so we did all the legal paperwork we could to make sure, yeah. 

That whatever property we had, whatever bank accounts, they were shared and nobody could come between us. 

Robert Philipson: You know, Byard Rustin adopted his lover, right? 

Jewelle Gomez: Oh yeah. And that was not that uncommon. Yeah. That was not that uncommon. 

Robert Philipson: Crazy. 

Jewelle Gomez: And people thought it was weird and perverse. 

Robert Philipson: No, it's a legal protection. 

Jewelle Gomez: It was a legal protection, right? But straight people thought it was weird and perverse and adopting your lover was the only thing open to us. 

Robert Philipson: Right. Yeah. My older sister died two years ago. I was a, a, uh, impact law, law advocate for the queer community. She, she was lesbian herself. 

. And she actually succeeded in getting the Court of California to acknowledge that non-biological parents of same sex couples had rights. Rights and could be represented in court. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just, just think of it raising a child. And then your partner dies and then your 

Robert Philipson: No. Or says I fall in love with somebody else. 

I fall with someone else and you, you know, I'm taking my child, Billy and you know Billy and Ruth. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: Who you've known who are now 12 and nine, you'll never see them again. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: Because 'cause I hate you. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah. 

Robert Philipson: And they had, and they were able to do that. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The legal system has very rarely protected women in this country and certainly not gonna protect lesbians in this country until very recently. 

That's one of the reasons that Diane and I were litigants when National Center for the Lesbian Rights asked us if we would be litigants. Um, 

Robert Philipson: I know you in that first group. 

Jewelle Gomez: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we sued the state of California and it felt like, again, what if there had been the opportunity for Alberta and Lottie to consecrate their relationship 

through some kind of ceremony that didn't ruin both of you alive. 

Robert Philipson: Final question, I'm gonna ask this anyway, even though you've answered it already, maybe you'll have another take on it. This is out of the several queer blue singers of the 1920s, all of which you've named checked, except for Gladys Bentley, 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: Alberta was the most fiercely closeted. She never came out.Even though the word got around, she never even recorded a song with queer double entendre. Do you see her as a lesbian icon or a trailblazer? 

Jewelle Gomez: It's interesting. You know, Gladys Bentley, I actually thought about different ways I could work her in, but again, it was too much because of course everybody knows she recanted right in the sixties. 

I was like, oh. 

Robert Philipson: I am a woman again. 

Jewelle Gomez: That's was too complicated for me. So I said, let me leave this alone. I don't know what was going on there, but whatever I. Yeah, it's her. It's her story. Her, 

Robert Philipson: She was being pressed economically. Yeah. She couldn't make a living doing what she doing she had done and she was going back to the church, the black community church. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. She had to, 

Robert Philipson: she had to reform or recant. 

Jewelle Gomez: Or recant. Yeah. I, you know, so I didn't wanna get all involved in that. 

Robert Philipson: Right, right, right. 

Jewelle Gomez: I see Alberta, even though she never came out publicly as more of an icon, because whether she came out or not, she still was a lesbian who made her way in the world and loved a woman. 

Robert Philipson: Excellent. So you're actually making a good distinction between Icon and Trailblazer. 

Jewelle Gomez: Right. 

Robert Philipson: She wasn't a trailblazer. 

Jewelle Gomez: She was a trailblazer. She wasn't for African American women artists. 

Robert Philipson: Yes, yes, yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: She was a trailblazer. For that particular group. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. 

Jewelle Gomez: Keeping her the rights to her songs. 

Writing the huge number of songs that she wrote. Working as a singer, then a nurse, then a singer. Again, it's amazing. Re capturing her career in her eighties. She definitely was a trailblazer for heterosexual black women. For lesbians, she was an icon. The vision that it took for her to keep moving forward, even when she felt like she had to be in the closet. 

You gotta give her her props for that. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: You got it. 

Robert Philipson: She lived a very successful life. And she didn't compromise. She didn't, 

Jewelle Gomez: Nope. 

Robert Philipson: She didn't compromise. 

Jewelle Gomez: She did not compromise. Alberta was very, very determined to be the singer and star that she wanted to be when she was 11 years old and left home and she accomplished it. 

She accomplished it. 

Robert Philipson: This is beautiful. This is beautiful. Is there anything you want to add to what we've said? 

Jewelle Gomez: I know that writing theater is not the same as writing a biographical historically accurate material. I understand that I have to take certain liberties in order to create certain kinds of tensions. 

So it's not a documentary. Chris Albertson was not happy with the film they made about Bessie. 

Robert Philipson: Yes. He talked to me about that. 

Jewelle Gomez: He was not happy. 

Robert Philipson: Yeah. 

Jewelle Gomez: and I think it's a very sad situation when you feel so close to a character and you've written a biography and then feel like it has not been recreated in a way that gives as much credit to the character as you feel is owed. So as someone writing theater, I feel like I, I get away with more because I'm not writing a historical docudrama. I feel like I was given a gift with Alberta's life. One, I got to see her multiple times. Two, there were people around who remembered her and knew her, and I feel like I personally, I was given a gift because it was one more connection to my grandmother who'd traveled on the stage singing and dancing. 

And it was an iconic life lived that I look to. I mean, I can be out. But I also know people are rude. People are rude. They don't appreciate, I mean, I've had publishers say to me, oh, well we've published our black woman this year, so we don't really need you. I had a publisher say that to me. 

Robert Philipson: Good blunt, huh? 

Jewelle Gomez: And that blunt. So I had a reviewer who trashed my most recent play, starts by saying the esteemed author, Jewelle Gomez. And then he proceeds to use all kinds of falsehoods to trash my writing. So I know the kinds of things she faced, but she could face them, then I can face them. 

Robert Philipson: Well, Jewelle, you have become an icon in your own life. 

You know that. And I really, really appreciate the time that you've spent with me. Not only today, but with the film, we show the films being on the board of directors and all that. You've been a very good friend. 

Jewelle Gomez: Well, I appreciate the work that you do and it's, if we don't do it, who's gonna do it? 

Robert Philipson: Yeah, true enough. 

Jewelle Gomez: Who's gonna do it?  So thank you. Thank you for keep on keeping on.