NASHVILLE'S GREAT PRETENDERS

Modern drag performance can trace its roots back centuries. Ancient civilizations from across the globe practiced exaggerated gender expression in religious rituals. Greek mythology is filled with stories of androgyny and gender impersonation. When laws barred women from the public stage, men played all the roles in Elizabethan theater and their luxurious dresses literally dragged across the floor. In minstrel shows throughout the United States, white men found it amusing to adorn dark face paint and long gowns in both a racist and sexist attempt to imitate Black women. Female impersonation became a popular vaudeville act in the early 20th century, and lauded performers like Julian Eltinge made a pretty penny pretending to be women for audiences from New York to Nashville.

The specifically queer drag culture we know today blossomed in major coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, but in southern places like Nashville, drag mostly stayed underground at house parties and private venues until the 1970s. Jerry Peek’s The Watch

Your Hat and Coat Saloon opened as a drag bar in 1971 at 139 2nd Avenue near downtown Nashville and advertised weekend shows with “America’s foremost female impersonators.” The Saloon originally began as a Country and Western music bar, booking Grand Ole Opry performers for Friday and Saturday nights. But that meant only two nights of good business, so Peek made an entertainment change after seeing female impersonators in Indianapolis. His talented lineup in those early days included Criss Cross, Billie Boots, Toni Doran, Charlie Brown and Tina Louise, who still performs at venues like Skull’s Rainbow Room in Printers Alley.

In June 1972, The Saloon hosted the inaugural pageant for Peek’s Miss Gay America female impersonator competition. Drag queens from across the country brought their sequins and feather boas to Nashville with the hopes of winning the grand prize of $2,000. Participants competed in different categories, like evening gown, interview, and talent. The judges crowned Norma Kristie of Arkansas as the first ever Miss Gay America winner; she went on to buy the pageant from Peek in 1975 and ran it until 2005. Nashville hosted the pageant in its first two years before traveling around the South and Great Plains. The Saloon mysteriously burned down in May 1973, when flames erupted on the second floor of the three-story building. To this day, it is not known what or who caused the fire, but Peek and Tina Louise believe it might have been a foolish mix of flammable costumes and electrical equipment.

Following the fire, Peek’s drag shows took center stage on Printers Alley–the hottest nightlife strip in Music City. Gay and straight folks alike slipped through a brick arched doorway to The Embers Cabaret Room where a lineup of gorgeous performers mesmerized audiences. One such drag queen was Hawaiian native Shawn Luis, who the Tennessean featured in a six-page spread in 1975. The story talked about her life as a female impersonator in Nashville, but it also covered her post-operation for gender-affirming surgery at Vanderbilt Hospital. Like some of her contemporaries, Luis was transgender and found drag performance helped bring forth her true womanhood. Two days before surgery, the bar held a send-off party for her where customers brought gifts. Luis wrote in her diary,

“I looked into their eyes as they stood there applauding, gay and straight people alike…They have accepted me into their lives as a person. And now there’s the future to look forward to, being a woman.”

By the mid-1970s, drag shows appeared at other gay bars in Nashville, like the short-lived Cumberland Delta Queen on Broadway, but Peek remained the lead showrunner through the 1980s with his standalone building called The Cabaret located at 1711 Hayes Street in Midtown. Among the people I interviewed thus far for Nashville Queer History’s archives, The Cabaret was one of Nashville’s most beloved gay bars of the past. Men, women, and transgender people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds all felt welcome at Peek’s establishments. The 1984 edition of Gaia’s Guide, an international lesbian travel guide book, recommended The Cabaret and described it as a “friendly, easy-going atmosphere” that catered to an evenly split crowd of men and women.

The other gay club listed in the Gaia’s Guide that year was Warehouse 28, and its drag shows played a significant role in Nashville during the AIDS epidemic. Michael “Dolly” Wilson and Steve Smith opened Warehouse 28 in 1978 at 2529 Franklin Road, and it quickly became a disco haven for gay men. From its penis mural in the bathroom to Smith’s colorful balloon displays, Warehouse 28 was a lively spot to dance and flirt. Wilson and Smith used the club’s popularity to raise awareness about AIDS/HIV prevention, especially when Smith was diagnosed with AIDS in the mid-1980s. Nashville CARES (which originally stood for Council on AIDS Research, Education and Support) was founded by Smith and a few others in 1985, and drag shows became its life support. When federal and state funding failed to provide for Tennessee’s AIDS patients, the drag queens stepped up. They regularly hosted fundraiser drag shows–and sacrificed their tips–at places like the Warehouse. In an interview with Philip Staffelli-Suel, a PhD student in history at Middle Tennessee State University, Wilson said, “Nashville CARES would not have survived if not for the female impersonators.”

Bianca Paige the Pantomime Rage, one of Nashville’s foremost female impersonators, dedicated her drag career to raising funds for AIDS organizations after she was diagnosed in the mid-1990s. Mark Middleton, the man underneath Bianca’s teased blonde wig, shocked Nashville gay bars by speaking openly about his diagnosis on stage. Some people think Bianca Paige got too political, but saving even one person’s life was worth minor backlash. Besides, she easily won over audiences with her wit and comedic timing. Her best friend, Ron Sanford, recalled how thousands of people came to a halt the first time he saw Bianca perform. Middleton died in 2010, but left a long-lasting legacy as Bianca, raising over one million dollars for AIDS organizations. In 2021, she became one of the few drag queens in the country honored with her own dedicated street, Bianca Paige Way, outside the gay bar Trax in south Nashville.

Drag performance has progressed in Nashville from private house shows to wild brunch parties with bachelorettes. The commercialization of drag has rapidly increased and, lately, so has the anti-drag movement. Historically, female impersonation has always had its haters–people afraid of the power and freedom that comes with gender transgression. Drag performers create art, bring joy, and dare to critique reality by imagining a better world where we can be our true selves, free of social constructs. Drag queens save lives, so please tip your queens! Being a bedazzled superhero ain’t cheap.