The Inspiration For The Page
by Tim Dillinger
I remember the first time I ever heard Sylvester.
I was 18 years old and working at a computer company in Florida. I bought a disco compilation called "..1 Disco Hits" and "(You Make Me Feel") Mighty Real" was the third track on the disc. I used to buy bags and bags of CDs and listen to them with my headphones on at work. So, "Born To Be Alive" opens the disc..."Rock Your Baby" comes next...and then something that sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before. "Mighty Real".
Being the obsessive/compulsive that I am, I started rummaging the racks at the used record stores since I discovered that (at that time) the majority of his work was out of print. I bought a vinyl copy of an album called "Step II"...and I heard Sylvester and The Two Tons O' Fun wearing out "Disco Heat"...killing me on a tune called "Grateful" and then doing these really immaculate ballads...
I kept shopping and through the years have amassed the majority of Sylvester's work. I ravaged the internet to find very little information about this gifted anomoly who, by society's laws, should have never "made it". Only two short years ago did a publisher finally find it important enough to release a biography on him and Joshua Gamson did an astounding job with providing us with a glimpse into the complex and fable-like life of the late Sylvester.
It's interesting to listen to Sylvester. Whatever he lacked in technical skill, he made up for in a contagious magnetism that MADE you love him. His message was entirely subconscious, but anyone with an ear to hear gets it. Maybe it was the church mother in him. He was about love. He was about uniting. He was about feeling, as Aretha has shouted so many times, "the spirit".
Sylvester was about destroying labels being simply allowed to be. He never consciously took on any one cause...but just by that stance, he became a symbol. He transcended all of that. The only thing he did take a stand on was individuality. He was connected to the ying-yang factor...and maybe that's what did it. One critic wrote:
Sylvester takes the feminine mystique as seriously as sanctified preachers take God and tells us to get down on the floor and dance and shout and maybe feel the feminine spirit of freedom inside us. There we can be what we want to be, wear what we want to wear and sing falsetto all night long. Maybe touch the sky...maybe touch our souls.
I remember around the time that I discovered Syl, talking to one of my more homophobic friends and asking them about him and even he had to relent: "Sylvester was a bad motherfucker", was the exact quote. And that's the appeal Sylvester had. He was, somehow, undeniable. I dare you to listen to any moment of the "Living Proof" album and not get the Holy Ghost bumps. It was actually that album that gave me the template for my live shows and helped me articulate to my band and singers what I want to happen when we hit the stage. If we don't "have service", there's no point in doing it.
So, as I continued meeting other artists and music lovers, I would bring his name up and so many people had such wonderful stories...Either they had actually met him, or his music came just at the right time, or he represented a significant feeling for them. While talking with my dear friends from SOBO Magazine, we decided to start this page together, so that people could come and remember the light that is Sylvester. I know that he's still with us and we welcome his spirit here on this page. So...this is for YOU. Tell your stories and remember him well.
