His background singers Izora Armstead and Martha Wash would later get their own fame as disco sensation, The Weather Girls (1982’s “It’s Raining Men”) in their own right. In the late 1970s he became a sensation with “Do You Want to Funk” and “Dance (Disco Heat),” which turned the world into a discotech and every discotech into a pulpit. He was known on underground drag circuits as the queen with the beautiful, soulful voice able to mimic the jazz and blues legends of the past. Sylvester performed as a drag artist early in his career and covered blues classics by Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday. However, there is no black gay artist that opened up my imagination about who I can be while affirming who I am like disco icon-often referred to as The Queen of Disco-Sylvester.
