#LGBTQ: The Male-To-Male Love Songs of 1962’s Album, “Love Is a Drag”, Were a Mystery

Frank Sinatra, Liberace and Bob Hope all LOVED it. Love is a Drag, was groundbreaking because a male singer performed old standards, always sung by women, like The Boy Next Door and The Man I Love.

Little information was available about it, when it was released in 1962, on the fake label Lace Records, because Edison International didn’t want to be considered a gay label. JD Doyle, a record archivist, told The Guardian,

“At a time when gay people were deep in the closet, here was an album for them. There was nothing to compare with it.”

“For Adult Listeners Only, Sultry Stylings by a Most Unusual Vocalist,” the album read. The text on the back of the album says,

“[These songs] have been hummed and whistled by people throughout the far corners of the earth. Until now, however, all recorded versions (in their original concept) have been limited to the talents of female vocalists – altho (sic) male singers have occasionally altered the original lyric in order to perform them without a question arising as to his manliness or virility. Why?… Were they not written by men?”

Doyle believes this is the first full-length recording of male-to-male love songs. He began playing cuts from it on his monthly Public Radio segment he hosted in Houston, Queer Music Heritage.

The album’s producer, Murray Garrett, emailed him in 2012 after discovering that Doyle had written about the music.

“Murray was in his late 80s then and he was looking back at his life. To have him email me was like the Holy Grail knocking at my door.”

Doyle interviewed Garrett, which the label Sundazed heard, eventually leading to this month’s re-release of the album, under imprint Modern Harmonic. After all these years, he learned that everyone involved in the album was straight. According to LGBTQ Nation,

Garrett’s friend was starting a record company and asked him if he had any ideas for an album that would create a stir. He was reminded of a time in the 1940s when his friend brought him to a gay bar, where he saw a man sing standards typically delivered by women.

Garrett pitched the idea, and then turned to his friend Gene Howard to handle the singing duties. Howard was married with children. His wife asked if the project would be done with dignity. When she learned that it would, she gave her blessing.

The music was provided by some of L.A.’s finest studio musicians.

When Garrett played it for his friend Frank Sinatra, he ordered 12 copies. He played it while doing an album cover shoot with Liberace – Garrett is a photographer – and he the musician reportedly took the record with him when he left.

Garrett says that he also gave the album to Bob Hope, who “went crazy” for it.

“We figured we had the chance to do something we would be proud of,” Garrett said in his 2012 interview with Doyle. “My gay friends said ‘thank you for not giving into any temptations to do something that might have gotten some laughs.’ As I look back, ‘Love Is a Drag’ was one of the highlights of my life.”

The re-release of Love is a Drag is available from Modern Harmonic as a CD or in vinyl and is available in MP3 format from Amazon and on Spotify, below.

On vinyl, I think this is THE holiday gift of the year. Someone PLEASE send a copy to Mike Pence!

Listen.