Cross Vocals

I'm calling Cross-Vocals those songs that are, for example, intended to be sung by a woman but are instead sung by a man, keeping the pronouns intact. They sound pretty gay now, but are only gay in hindsight. In the late 20's and early 30's music publishers had a stranglehold on the rights to their catalogs. Singers could not change a word, period, so it was not uncommon for a man to seemingly sing a song to a man, or a woman to a woman. The public knew of the restrictions on singers and did not really pay attention to any gay connotations.

It's a bit challenging to collect these types of songs, as you almost have to already know the song has same-sex lyrics. You cannot always tell just by the title. Your first move should be to acquire a CD designed to do exactly that. It was a bit amazing for a label like Columbia to issue an entire album of this music, but that happened in 1993, and they called it "Can't Help Lovin' That Man." Another treasure, though almost impossible to find, is the 1996 UK issue "The Man I Love." And the Vintage Recordings CD "He's So Unusual" is another good choice. On the other CDs pictured you'd find only three or four tracks of interest on each, but sometimes that's enough.

   

   

Also, at the wonderful site Red Hot Jazz, you can hear entire songs, but again, you have to know the artists' names