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Multi-talented writer, composer, performer Bruz Fletcher, twice took the difficult journey of riches to rags in his turbulent 34 years. His drama-filled life was a wild and sad story of extremes and incredible plot twists. For a while, Bruz overcame it all and sparkled as he entertained in glamorous nightclubs, delighting his often well-known patrons with quick-witted, sophisticated and risqué songs.
Living as openly as a gay man could in a very homophobic age, he became a master of gay code and double speak. Fletcher's songs carry one set of meanings to delight heterosexuals and another to titillate gay men. Contemporaries Noel Coward and Cole Porter were careful not to go as far with their lyrics and double entendrés, but Bruz Fletcher was more daring, or careless, or a dangerous combination of both. Though he killed himself in 1941, Bruz left behind three albums of wonderful songs that give a colorful and candid glimpse into a complicated world populated by misfits, celebrities, addicts, lovers, servants and eccentrics that enjoyed a wide variety of sexualities and mores. Bruz was an earlier feminist
of sorts, creating a myriad of bold, smart, independent female characters who were often sexual outsiders. And these characters resonated deeply with homosexuals. Poineering Bruz Fletcher even created a transexual character before such people were possible.
His rare recordings are presented here on CD for the first time.
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