Until a few years ago I'd never heard of Jobriath until I came across his name by pure chance in an article about forgotten glam rock musicians that had been written during the hype surrounding Velvet Goldmine. It described Jobriath as the American answer to David Bowie (though in fact his vocal style is more reminiscent of Marc Bolan or Mick Jagger to my ears). It claimed that Todd Haynes had used the story of Jobriath as inspiration for the movie as much as he did the story of David Bowie, Iggy Pop & Lou Reed. Certainly the songs on the soundtrack and even the soundtrack artwork & Jobriath's debut album are very similar.

Inside Sleeve of Velvet Goldmine	Front cover of Jobriath, 1973

This article was enough to pique my interest and after much searching I was able to get copies of his two albums, Jobriath (1973) and Creatures of the Street (1974) and find out for myself what this mans music was like. But first, a little background to the man himself. Jobriath was born Bruce Cambell in 1946, and by the mid 60s had changed his name to Jobriath Salisbury and was performing in the successful Broadway hit, Hair as Woof. After that he was the lead singer of a folk/hippy band called Pidgeon who released one album in 1969. The Beatles & Dylan had that market sown up and that record sunk without trace. He was then 'found' by impressario Jerry Brandt who attempted to make Jobriath as big as Elvis - and given that nobody has heard of Jobriath these days, he obviously failed. Jobriath was openly gay and Brandt attempted to use this as a marketing ploy. Jobriath sneered at Bowie claiming "I'm a true fairy" - possibly the inspiration for Jack Fairy in Velvet Goldmine - though of course Todd Haynes would dispute this. (he also claimed to be from outer space - as if the American public didn't have enough problems already trying to accept him as a gay man in make-up). While it was incredibly brave back in 1972 to be so openly gay (indeed Jobriath was the first openly gay rock star) it created a big backwash against him. So despite Brandt's overdose of a marketing campain (a 47 foot billboard in Times Square of Jobriath semi-naked - taken from the album cover, adverts in all the newspapers, even adverts on the buses in London when they tried to cross the Atlantic to Bowie's home ground) and many glowing reviews for his first album, Brandt didn't arrange any tours (venues wouldn't book "a bunch of faggots") or interviews and the album thus didn't come close to living up to Brandt's loud-mouthed claims. There were then plans to fix this with a massive $200,000 stage and tour which would start at the Paris Opera House & then tour the other major Opera Houses around Europe. However before this could happen Electra (the label Brandt had signed Jobriath to) pulled the plug on the funding (they'd always been embarassed to have a gay performer in their books and were happier to ruin his career than have a success such were the feelings against gays 30 years ago in some quarters). With things going against them they rushed out a second album in 1974, Creatures Of The Street and finally started a small tour of the States - playing to about only about 400 people a night. Sadly Jobriath had by this time become quite reliant on alcohol and drugs (he'd had problems earlier in the 70s with drugs when he worked as a prostitute to earn money). This caused many fights with Brandt which eventually led to them parting company. As soon as that happened, Electra dropped their 'star' as well. This left the band to finish off the tour - which ironically was going really well and the band we