Baker 1

Jared Baker
0678773
CULS 3311
Michael McGuire
8 August 2016

Jobriath:
Rocks True Fairy, Rocks True Tragedy

In 1992, British pop star Morrissey went looking for the first openly gay rocker Jobriath, only to discover

he had died several years earlier in 1983. Jobriaths story, a tragedy from beginning to end, is one of a

talented musician with a broken past, over-hyped, criticized in the press, dying in complete obscurity at

the height of the AIDS crisis, and forgotten by history. Only in recent years has Jobriath been looked at

or studied, beginning with the 2004 release of a Jobriath compilation album put together by Morrissey.

Jobriath was born Bruce Wayne Campbell on December 14, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

and went by many names before dying at age 37 as Bryce Campbell on August 4, 1983. Bruce's parents

married young, had three children, and divorced in 1958 after his mother Marion had an affair. She

quickly remarried because she was pregnant, but shortly after the baby was born, her new husband

committed suicide.1 As a child, Bruce was an accomplished painter and pianist, and even wrote part of a

symphony.2 In the early 1960s, Bruce enlisted in the US army, but he suffered a breakdown after basic

training and went AWOL. The FBI tracked him down, and Bruce spent time recovering in the Valley

Forge General Hospital before being discharged from the army.

Bruce ran away from home, but resurfaced a few years later as Jobriath, and played the part of

Woof in the L.A. production of the musical HAIR in 1968. He also sometimes worked as a male prostitute

to cover bills.3 In 1969 Pidgeon, with Jobriath on keys, released a self-titled album, including and the

1
Turner, Jobriath, A.D.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
 Baker 2

single Rubber Bricks / Prison Walls, through Decca records.4 The album received lukewarm reviews and

never became popular, but Jobriath continued making music. In 1971, HAIR ended in L.A. and the entire

cast was invited to New York. There, Jobriath recorded a demo which was rejected by Columbia records

but caught the attention of manager/club owner Jerry Brandt.

Brandt describes himself as a huckster, a promoter, while others describe him as [having

an] infamous reputation, being a hype master, and a prick.5 Brandt was the owner of The Electric

Circus, a New York nightclub, and is best known for discovering Carly Simon (who later wrote Youre So

Vain), for bringing the Rolling Stones to the US, and for booking major acts like The Beach Boys, Sonny

and Cher, Dick Clark, and Muhammad Ali.

Jerry Brandt signed Jobriath in 1973. He got him recording with some top people like Eddie

Kramer (audio engineer and producer for David Bowie, the Beatles, and Eric Clapton), forged a record

deal with Elektra, and set to work on hyping up Jobriath. Marketing Jobriath as Rocks true fairy,

Brandt created a massive billboard of a very effeminate Jobriath morphing into some otherworldly

creature, which was erected in Times Square and displayed on the sides of buses. The hype said that

Jobriath was poised to out-Bowie Bowie. Brandt also let slip that Jobriath had been signed to Elektra

for an unprecedented figure: some sources say $300,000; others, $500,000.6 In the documentary

Jobriath A. D., Brandt admits that this number, too, was part of the hype, and the real figure was a far

more realistic and typical $20,000-$25,000.7 Rumours started swirling about Jobriaths planned Paris

Opera house show, which would be an opulent glam rock opera.

When Jobriaths self-titled debut album was released in October, 1973, reviews were mostly

positive, but the album failed to chart. In January, 1974, Brandt got Jobriath a spot on the late-night

4
Discogs, Pidgeon.
5
Turner.
6
$1.7 million - $2.8 million USD in 2016.
7
$111,305 - $139,000 USD in 2016.
 Baker 3

variety program, The Midnight Special: Jobriaths first performance.8 Producers panicked when they

heard Jobriath practicing his opening number, Take me Im yours a song with BDSM themes and

forced him to play another selection.9 The audience response to the performance was lukewarm at best

and hostile at worst. After The Midnight Special, the Paris Opera House show was cancelled and the

press declared open season on Jobriath. His behaviour started becoming more erratic (he had struggled

with substance abuse in the past), and he was no longer permitted to conduct interviews alone.10

Jobriaths second album, Creatures of the Street,11 was released in the spring of 1974 with no

marketing, and finally a tour was booked. Instead of a grand stage spectacle with elaborate sets,

audiences were met with a group in jeans and t-shirts. The first several audiences were quite hostile,

and even rushed him off stage for being a faggot.12 Brandt left the tour after Jobriath accused him of

pocketing the album advance money, leaving the band to fumble through the second part of the tour.13

Audiences started to appreciate Jobriaths music by the end of the tour.14 In a 2005 article, Ben

Windham recounts Jobriaths last concert: His Sept. 20, 1974, concert at the University of Alabama's

Morgan Hall still is remembered as one of the greatest local performances ever. It resulted in four

thunderous encores and literally set the building on fire.15 Sadly, this acceptance into the rock

community came too late: Brandt was broke and the day after the concert Elektra dropped Jobriath,

ending his rock career.

Jobriath disappeared. Because his rock persona had become an industry joke, he tried being

Bruce Campbell at his mothers for a while before returning to New York to work in piano bars as Bryce

Campbell and Cole Berlin (a portmanteau of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, both composers), and hustling

8
Gdula, Ahead of His Time, p. 2.
9
Ibid.
10
Turner, Jobriath A.D.
11
Discogs, Jobriath.
12
Turner.
13
Gdula, p. 2.
14
Turner.
15
Windham, REVIEW: Album of the late glam-rock great reissued.
 Baker 4

to pay bills as Joby. In 1981 the BBC documentary series Arena interviewed Jobriath as part of an

episode on the Chelsea Hotel and its inhabitants. In the video, Jobriath appears to be affected by AIDS

already, although he did not get an official diagnosis until 1982. Bryce Campbell died at his piano on

August 3, 1983 from an AIDs-related illness. His body was not discovered for four days.

Jobriath never got the chance to be a star. As one musicologist commented, He never got the

chance to be a Has-been. Hes a Never-was.16 Jobriaths single greatest achievement was that he

existed: the first openly gay rocker. While this seems bland at first blush, that Jobriath existed, how and

why he failed, and how he fits into Glam rock as a whole is intriguing.

Jerry Brandt marketed Jobriath as Rocks True Fairy. While the homophobic slur grates on 21st-

century ears, the assertion is correct. Jobriath rocked, as any attendant of the Tuscaloosa show can

attest, he was certainly gay, but more importantly, he was true to himself in the persona of Jobriath.

Jobriath wanted to just be, and be free to be who he is. Being gay was merely part of his identity, as

evident in little winking references in his lyrics, such as A Little Richard goes a long long way, or You

can have your fairy tale, and eat it too!17 The song Imaman (Im a man) can be seen as a statement of

who he was: an elegant man, a gentle man.18 The refrain of Imaman may be the most important

line Jobriath ever wrote the clearest statement in all his work of his rebellion and his desire to be

himself: But if I should love you/Then I would love you/The way a man loves a woman/And live my life

like I been livin' it/My body claims my mind and soul so let me be/What I am/An elegant man.19 The

tragedy of Jobriaths story is more than substance abuse or hustling or being overhyped; the tragedy is

that the true persona of Jobriath collapsed and became an industry joke. The effect of that collapse

was catastrophic, as is evident in Jobriath using multiple personas after the end of his career, creating a

16
McGuire, Informal Interview.
17
Jobriath, Rock of Ages. Cole Berlin, Sunday Brunch, (clip from 1981 BBC documentary Arena, used by Turner).
18
Jobriath, Imaman.
19
Ibid.
 Baker 5

separate identity for hustling, and refusing to play his own music when a fan tracked him down in a

piano bar.20

Glam rocks central social innovation was to open a safe cultural space in which to experiment

with versions of masculinity that clearly flouted social norms, states Philip Auslander.21 Glam, then,

often functioned as a hide or a blind for young gay men to be who they were without explicitly revealing

their true nature. Central to this concept was the creation of an artificial identity for performances: Paul

Raven became Gary Glitter, David Jones became David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust. But where Bowie

used androgyny, masculinity, and the outwardly-reassuring presence of his wife in order to challenge,

but not threaten, the sexual and gender norms of the early 1970s, Jobriath openly declared his

homosexuality. Suddenly lyrics like Then I would love you/The way a man loves a woman22 became a

threat to society, and had to be attacked. John Tatlock writes, The NME's snide and overtly

homophobic dismissal of [Jobriaths] remarkable debut album as the fag end of glam rock was typical

of the responses he received at the time, getting booed off stage for being gay even in New York. Glam

was theatre, and Jobriath, while theatrical, was too real.

One should note that Jobriath was not the only performer affected by homophobia in the

United States in the early 1970s. At a time when everything charting in the UK was Glam, the only

American Glam rockers able to produce a hit were Lou Reed and Alice Cooper. The American resistance

to Glam can be summarized by an editors comment on the New York Dolls' (a heterosexual band)

Greatest Hits album announcement, Theyre not a fag band.23 When Jobriath enters in 1973, in what

Auslander calls the second wave of Glam, the American rock press is extremely intolerant.

20
Turner.
21
Auslander, p. 228.
22
Jobriath, Imaman.
23
Auslander, p. 42.
 Baker 6

The full historical significance of Jobriath is nearly impossible to define. It is highly likely that

because of Jobriaths fall, brutal reviews by the press, and his treatment as an industry joke, many artists

hid their sexual identity in the years that followed. For decades, groups or performers like Boy George,

The Pet Shop Boys, or Frankie Goes to Hollywood did not achieve relative success and acceptance while

being gay. Elton John, arguably the most well-known gay performer, and one who was active in the

1970s, only declared in 1988 that he was comfortable being gay; prior to then, he suffered commercially

for stating he was bisexual. More recently, the artist Mika spent six years trying to avert any speculation

by the press elsewhere before admitting in 2012 that he was gay. Since 46 years ago, challenges for gay

performers persist, albeit in slightly different forms. In Jobriaths words, Here we go around again,

World without end amen.24

24
Jobriath, World Without End.
 Baker 7

Works Cited

Auslander, Philip. Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 2006. Print.

Gdula, Steven. "Ahead of his time." Advocate 772 (1998): 72-76. Online. 27 July 2016.

Jobriath. Discogs. 2016. Online. 27 July 2016. <https://www.discogs.com/artist/267775-Jobriath>.

Jobriath A.D. Dir. Kieran Turner. 2013. DVD.

Jobriath. Imaman. 1973. Online. 27 July 2016. <genuis.com>.

. Rock of Ages. 1973. Online. 27 July 2016. <genius.com>.

. World Without End. 1973. Online. 27 July 2016. <genius.com>.

McGuire, Mike. Informal interview Jared Baker. 2 August 2016.

Pidgeon. Discogs. 2016. Online. 27 July 2016. <https://www.discogs.com/artist/1602868-Pidgeon-2>.

Tatlock, John. "Morrissey reveals his favourite LPs of all time." 13 August 2010. The Quietus. Online. 31
July 2016. <www.thequietus.com>.

Windham, Ben. "REVIEW: Album of the late glam-rock great reissued." 25 February 2005.
Tuscaloosanews.com. Online. 27 July 2016. <www.tuscaloosanews.com>.